red that his orders would be obeyed in due course.

"He's a piker, the old man is," said the big engineer, once more giving
the 1012 the needful inch of release to send it grinding down the hill.
"I'd ruther pull freight thirty-six hours on end than run his car for a
hundred miles."

There was trouble getting at the water-tank in the Saint's Rest yard.
Leckhard, acting as division engineer, telegraph superintendent,
material forwarder and yardmaster, found it difficult at limes to bring
order out of chaos in the forwarding yard. It was a full hour before
the jumble of material trains could be shunted and switched and juggled
to permit the 1012 to drop down to the water tank; and four times during
the hour Penfield climbed dutifully over the coal to tell Ford and the
engineer what the president thought of them.

"Durn me! but you can take punishment like a man, Mr. Ford!" said
Hector, on the heels of the fourth sending, sinking rank distinctions in
his admiration for a cool fighter. "These here polite cussin's-out are
what I can't stand. Reckon we'll get away from here before the old man
throws a sure-enough fit?"

"That's entirely with the yard crew," said Ford, calmly making himself
comfortable on the fireman's box. "We'll go when we can get water; and
we'll get water when the tank track is cleared. That's all there is to
it." Whereupon he found his cigar case, passed it to Hector, lighted up,
and waited patiently for another second-hand wigging from the Nadia.

As it chanced the tank track was cleared a few minutes later; the 1012
was backed down and supplied, and Ford instructed Leckhard to do what he
could with the single, poorly manned construction wire toward giving the
president's special a clear track.

"That won't be much," said the hard-worked base-of-supplies man. "We've
got our own operator at Ten Mile, and Brissac and Frisbie have each a
set of instruments which they cut in on the line with wherever they
happen to be. I don't know where Brissac is, but Frisbie is down about
Riley's to-night, I think. After you pass him you'll have no help from
the wires."

"I'll have what I can get," asserted Ford. "Now tell me what we're
likely to meet."

Leckhard laughed. "Anything on top of earth, from Brissac or Jack Benson
or Frisbie chasing somewhere on a light engine, to Gallagher or Folsom
coming out with a string of empties. Oh, you're not likely to find much
dead track anywhere after you get over the moun