." Brockway
was thinking of the exacting majority in the Tadmor.

"And yet it doesn't make you misanthropic? I should think it would. What
place is this we are coming to?"

"Carvalho--the supper station."

Gertrude saw her father coming toward them; she guessed his purpose and
resented it. If she chose to make kindly amends to the passenger agent
for his sorry dinner, she would not be prevented.

"We stop here a little while, don't we?" she asked of Brockway.

"Yes; twenty minutes or more. Would you like to go out for a breath of
fresh air?" She had risen and caught up her wrap and hat.

"I should; it is just what I was going to propose. Cousin Jeannette, I'm
going to walk on the platform with Mr. Brockway. Come," she said; and
they escaped before Mr. Vennor could overtake them.

Once outside, they paced up and down under the windows of the train,
chatting reminiscently of four bright days a year agone, and shunning
the intervening period as two people will whose lives have met and
touched and gone apart again. At the second turn, they met Mrs. Dunham
and Fleetwell; and at the third, the President, sandwiched between
Hannah and Priscilla Beaswicke. Whereupon Brockway, scenting espionage,
drew Gertrude away toward the engine.

The great, black bulk of the heavy ten-wheeler loomed portentous, and
the smoky flare of the engineer's torch, as he thrust it into the
machinery to guide the snout of his oil-can, threw the overhanging mass
of iron and steel into sombre relief.

Brockway shaded his eyes under his hand and peered up at the number
beneath the cab window. "The new 926," he said; "we'll get back some of
our lost time behind her."

"Do you know them all by name?" Gertrude queried.

"Oh, no; not all."

"I suppose you've ridden on them many times?"

Brockway laughed. "I should say I had--on both sides, as the enginemen
say."

"What does that mean?"

"It's slang for firing and driving; I've done a little of both, you
know."

"I didn't know it. Isn't it terribly dangerous? When anything happens,
the men on the engine are almost always killed, aren't they?"

"When they are it's because they haven't time to save themselves. It's
all nonsense--newspaper nonsense, mostly--about the engineer sticking to
his post like the boy on the burning deck. A man can do whatever there
is to be done toward stopping his train while you could count ten, and
no amount of heroism could accomplish any more."

"I have ofte