ed upon the high seat, with her skirts
gathered up out of harm's way, and Brockway had fashioned a pad out of a
bunch of waste and tied it upon the boiler-head brace at her feet.

"It's hot," he explained. "When she begins to roll you can put your foot
against that and steady yourself. Are you quite comfortable?"

"Quite; and you?" She looked over her shoulder to ask the question, and
the strong red glow from the open door of the fire-box glorified the
sweet face.

"Comfortable? No, that is hardly the word for it"--he tried the
window-fastening, that he might have an excuse for bending over
her--"I'm happy; happy to my finger-tips. Do you know why?"

He sought to look up into her face, but at that moment the red glow of
the fire-light went out suddenly with the crash of the closing door, and
the clangor of the bell made her reply inaudible. None the less, by the
dim, half light of the gauge-lamp he saw her eyelashes droop and her
lips say No.

For a passing instant the social barriers went down and became as though
they never were. Standing beside her and blessing the clamor that
isolated them, he said:

"Because I am here with you; because, no matter what happens to either
of us in the future, no one can ever rob me of this."

He half expected a rebuke, and waited a moment with becoming humility.
When it did not come, he swung himself into the seat behind her and held
his peace until she spoke again. That was five full minutes afterward.
For that length of time Gertrude was crushed under an avalanche of new
sensations. The last switch-light in the Carvalho yards had flashed to
the rear, and the 926 was quickening her speed with sharp little forward
lunges under Maclure's skilful goading. The dizzying procession of
grayish-white telegraph-poles hurling itself past the cab windows; the
thousand clangorous voices of the great machine; the intermittent glare
from the fire-box door, alternating with the fiery shower of sparks
pouring from the smoke-stack--it was a bit of pandemonium detached and
dashing through space, and she sat cowed and stunned by the rush and the
uproar. But presently the warm wine of excitement began to quicken her
heart-beats.

"Isn't it glorious!" she exclaimed, trying to look back at him.

It is quite possible for two persons to converse in the cab of a flying
locomotive, but the factor of distance must be eliminated. Wherefore he
bent over her till his mustache brushed the pink ear.

"I