e to always have
somebody for 1 and 2 who at least knew an injector from an air-pump.

It was eight o'clock. I looked into the locomotive stalls. The
first--the only--man in sight was Bartholomew Mullen. He was very busy
polishing the 44. He had good steam on her, and the old tub was
wheezing as if she had the asthma. The 44 was old; she was homely; she
was rickety; but Bartholomew Mullen wiped her battered nose as
deferentially as if she had been a spick-span, spider-driver, tail-truck
mail-racer.

She wasn't much--the 44. But in those days Bartholomew wasn't much; and
the 44 was Bartholomew's.

"How is she steaming, Bartholomew?" I sung out; he was right in the
middle of her. Looking up, he fingered his waste modestly and blushed
through a dab of crude petroleum over his eye.

"Hundred and thirty, sir. She's a terrible free steamer, the old 44; I'm
all ready to run her out."

"Who's marked up to fire for you, Bartholomew?"

Bartholomew Mullen looked at me fraternally.

"Neighbor couldn't give me anybody but a wiper," said Bartholomew, in a
sort of a wouldn't-that-kill-you tone.

The unconscious arrogance of the boy quite knocked me, so soon had
honors changed his point of view. Last night a despised wiper; at
daybreak, an engineer; and his nose in the air at the idea of taking on
a wiper for fireman. And all so innocent.

"Would you object, Bartholomew," I suggested, gently, "to a train-master
for fireman?"

"I don't--think so, sir."

"Thank you; because I am going down to Zanesville this morning myself
and I thought I'd ride with you. Is it all right?"

"Oh yes, sir--if Neighbor doesn't care."

I smiled. He didn't know who Neighbor took orders from; but he thought,
evidently, not from me.

"Then run her down to the oranges, Bartholomew, and couple on, and we'll
order ourselves out. See?"

The 44 really looked like a baby-carriage when we got her in front of
the refrigerators. However, after the necessary preliminaries, we gave a
very sporty toot and pulled out; in a few minutes we were sailing down
the valley.

For fifty miles we bobbed along with our cargo of iced silk as easy as
old shoes; for I need hardly explain that we had packed the silk into
the refrigerators to confuse the strikers. The great risk was that they
would try to ditch us.

I was watching the track as a mouse would a cat, looking every minute
for trouble. We cleared the gumbo cut west of the Beaver at a pretty
good clip, in