he train-master drew the engineer aside.

"Shovel needn't hear," he said in explanation. And then: "Are you willing
to stand with us, Patsy? You've had time enough to think it over."

Callahan stood with his arms folded and his cap drawn down over his eyes.

"'Tis not f'r meself I'm thinkin', Misther M'Tosh, as ye well know. But
I'm a widdy man; an' there's the bit colleen in the convint."

"She'll be well cared for, whatever happens to you," was the quick reply.

"Thin I'm yer man," said Callahan; and when the train-master was gone, he
ordered Shovel to oil around while he did two or three things which, to an
initiated onlooker, might have seemed fairly inexplicable. First he
disconnected the air-hose between the car and the engine, tying the ends
up with a stout cord so that the connection would not seem to be broken.
Next he crawled under the Naught-seven and deliberately bled the air-tank,
setting the cock open a mere hair's-breadth so that it would leak slowly
but surely until the pressure was entirely gone.

Then he got a hammer and sledge out of the engine tool-box, and after
hooking up the safety-chain couplings between the private car and the
1010, he crippled the points of the hooks with the hammer so that they
could not be disengaged without the use of force and the proper tools.

"There ye are, ye ould divil's band-wagon," he said, apostrophizing the
private car when his work was done. "Ye'll ride this night where Patsy
Callahan dhrives, an' be dommed to ye."

Meanwhile the train-master had reached the iron grille at the other end of
the long track platform. At a small wicket used by the station employees
and trainmen, Kent was waiting for him.

"Is it all right, M'Tosh? Will he do it?" he asked anxiously.

"Yes, Patsy's game for it; I knew he would be. He'd put his neck in a rope
to spite the major. But it's a crazy thing, Mr. Kent."

"I know it; but if it will give me twenty-four hours--"

"It won't. They can't get home on our line because we'll be tied up. But
they can get the Naught-seven put on the Overland's Limited at A. & T.
Junction, and that will put them back here before you've had time to turn
around twice. Have they come down yet?"

"No," said Kent; and just then he saw Loring coming in from the street
entrance and went to meet him.

"I have the final word from Boston," said the ex-manager, when he had
walked Kent out of earshot of the train-takers. "Your terms are
accepted--with a