can lay on a coat of coal-dust--"

"'Tisn't that," came the murmured answer, with a shake of the head.
"It's the back and shoulders, sir. You couldn't turn yourself
hindside-foremost, could you, and get your chest between your
shoulder-blades?"

"I can cultivate a stoop," said Geordie, with a forward hunch of the
shoulders. "But there you go with that 'sir' again. We're in uniform,
but not that of the cavalry. You'll betray me yet, Toomey, if you're
not careful. Now, about the stoop--"

"It might do, s--, if you could keep it, but from the time you came to
Reynolds you were the straightest boy in the garrison, and now, with
four years at West Point, you've got a back on you flat as a board.
That's what's going to queer us in passing you off for a kid fireman.
It was hard enough going through before it was fairly light. Now,
unless No. 4 gets in in five minutes, the sun will be lighting the
length of the shed at Argenta, and we've got cars to cut out there,
too. Confound No. 4!"

And then a certain superfluous lantern, bleary with a night of service,
came dawdling up the side of the train, and the conductor hove in
sight, watch in hand. "Four left Argenta on time," said he to the
engineer. "What the mischief keeps her? She ought to have gone by five
minutes ago. Who's yonder with Toomey?"

"Friend of his; young feller from Chimney, learning firing. Old man's
orders," he added, at sight of rebuke in the conductor's eyes. "Told me
himself to take him along and give him a show."

The conductor set his lantern down near the fore truck of the tender.
He did not half like it that a superior should give orders to his
engineer that did not come through him. He had been a soldier in his
day and accustomed to military ways of doing things. He was already
chafing over a delay that would bring him behind time to Argenta. Now
he was nettled at this apparent slight. "When did he tell you, and
where?" was the demand. "He was at Denver the last I saw of him."

"He ran out to the Springs on No. 5; passed you at Monument, probably;
spoke to me at the round-house about ten o'clock." And having thus
summarily settled the matter, Big Ben clambered sulkily once more into
the cab.

The conductor made a grimace expressive of much disgust. Presently he
turned, left his lantern by the side of the engine, and then came
angering on to the switch. He decided to see for himself what the
stranger was like.

In the gray light of the dawn t