y employer
about Fred Porter being so anxious to see him, and you can write to
Porter and tell him that his friend is all right and safe, if you want
to. What's that address--I may get around to Porter myself."

Ralph told Zeph. That same evening the latter left Stanley Junction,
and Ralph had not heard from him since, nor did he receive word from
Fred. Temporarily, at least, Zeph, Fred and the railroad president's
son, Marvin Clark, the "Canaries" and all the peculiar mystery
surrounding them, seemed to have drifted out of the life of the young
engineer.

No. 999 was about ready to start on her daily trip when the stranger
designated as Lord Montague had appeared. As he stood against the
tender bar and seemed to commune with himself on the crudity of
American locomotive cabs, Ralph leaned from the window and hailed a
friend.

"I say, Graham," he observed, "you seem particularly active and
restless this morning."

Ralph had reason for the remark. The young inventor had been very
little care to his sponsor and friend during the past week. Given
free access to the roundhouse, Archie had just about lived there.
Quiet and inoffensive, he at first had been a butt for the jokes of
the wipers and the extras, but his good-natured patience disarmed
those who harmlessly made fun of him, and those who maliciously
persecuted him had one warning from his sledge-hammer fists, and left
him alone afterwards.

On this especial morning Archie was stirred with an unusual animation.
Ralph noticed this when he first came down to the roundhouse. The
young inventor hung around the locomotive suspiciously. He even rode
on the pilot of No. 999 to the depot, and for the past five minutes he
had paced restlessly up and down the platform as though the locomotive
held some peculiar fascination for him. As he now came up to the cab
at Ralph's hail, his eye ran over the locomotive in the most
interested way in the world, and Ralph wondered why.

"Call me, Fairbanks?" mumbled Archie, and Ralph could not catch his
eye.

"I did, Graham," responded Ralph. "What's stirring you?"

"Why?"

"Chasing up 999."

"Am I?"

"It looks that way; it looks to me as if you were watching the
locomotive."

"She's worth watching, isn't she?"

"Yes, but you act as if you expect her to do something."

"Ha! ha!--that's it, h'm--you see--say, wish I could run down the line
with you this morning."

"We're crowded in the cab, as you see," explained Ralph,