d blushed, and glanced down at her big apron.

"I thought I'd look in on my way to the round-house," said Moran,
removing his hat, "for Bennie."

"Why, the dear boy has been gone an hour and a half, but I'm glad (won't
you come in?) you called for he has forgotten his gloves."

"Thank you," said the engineer, "the fact is I'm a little late, for I
don't know what sort of a scrap pile I have to take out and I'd like, of
course, to go underneath her before she leaves the round-house, so I
can't come in this morning."

When Mrs. Cowels had given him the gloves he took her hand to say
good-bye, and the wife of one of the new men, who saw it, said
afterwards that he held it longer than was necessary, just to say
good-bye.

When Dan reached the round-house Bennie was up on top of the old engine
oiling the bell. What would an engine without a bell be to a boy? And
yet in Europe they have no bells, but there is a vast difference between
the American and the European boy.

Moran stopped in the round-house long enough to read the long list of
names on the blackboard. They were nearly all new to him, as were the
faces about, and he turned away.

The orders ran them extra to Aurora, avoiding regular trains. Moran
glanced at the faces of all the incoming engineers as he met and passed
them, but with one exception they were all strangers to him. He
recognized young Guerin, who had been fireman on Blackwings the night
George Cowels was killed, and he was now running a passenger engine.

"How the mushrooms have vegetated hereabouts," thought Moran, as he
glanced up at the stack of the old work engine, but he was never much of
a kicker, so he would not kick now. This wasn't much of a run, but it
beat looking for a better one.

"Not so much coal, Bennie. Take your clinker hook and level it off.
That's it,--see the black smoke? Keep your furnace door shut. Now look
at your stack again. See the yellow smoke hanging 'round? Rake her down
again. Now it's black, and if it burns clear--see there? There is no
smoke at all; that shows that her fire is level. Sweep up your deck now
while you rest."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD

One night when the Limited was roaring up from the Missouri River
against one of those March rains that come out of the east, there came
to Patsy one of the temptations that are hardest for a man of his kind
nature to withstand. The trial began at Galesburg. Patsy was hugging the
rear end of the day coach in