ver lifted his torch and stared almost rudely into the face of
the official in front of him. "Why, Mr. Skidum," said he slowly, "I
didn't hear no signal."

The superintendent was blocked.

As he turned and followed the conductor into the telegraph office, the
driver, gloating in his high tower of a cab, watched him.

"He's an old darling," said he to the fire-boy, "and I'm ready to die
for him any day; but I can't stop for him in the face of bulletin 13.
Thirty days for the first offence, and then fire," he quoted, as he
opened the throttle and steamed away, four minutes late.

The old man drummed on the counter-top in the telegraph office, and then
picked up a pad and wrote a wire to his assistant:--

"Cancel general order No. 13."

The night man slipped out in the dawn and called the day man who was the
station master, explaining that the old man was at the station and
evidently unhappy.

The agent came on unusually early and endeavored to arrange for a light
engine to carry the superintendent back to the Junction.

At the end of three hours they had a freight engine that had left its
train on a siding thirty miles away and rolled up to rescue the stranded
superintendent.

Now, every railway man knows that when one thing goes wrong on a
railroad, two more mishaps are sure to follow; so, when the rescuing
crew heard over the wire that the train they had left on a siding,
having been butted by another train heading in, had started back down
grade, spilled over at the lower switch, and blocked the main line, they
began to expect something to happen at home.

However, the driver had to go when the old man was in the cab and the
G.M. with a whole army of engineers and workmen waiting for him at
Pee-Wee; so he rattled over the switches and swung out on the main line
like a man who was not afraid.

Two miles up the road the light engine, screaming through a cut,
encountered a flock of sheep, wallowed through them, left the track, and
slammed the four men on board up against the side of the cut.

Not a bone was broken, though all of them were sore shaken, the engineer
being unconscious when picked up.

"Go back and report," said the old man to the conductor. "You look after
the engineer," to the fireman.

"Will you flag west, sir?" asked the conductor.

"Yes,--I'll flag into Pee-Wee," said the old man, limping down the line.

To be sure, the superintendent was an intelligent man and not the least
bit super