engine was his
castle, and made a move with his right foot.

"Hold," cried his tormentor, "do you know that you are about to lay
violent hands upon an officer o' the law?"

"No," said the engineer, "but I'll lay a violent foot up agin the
crown-sheet o' your trousers if you don't jump."

The man jumped.

Now the chief despatcher came from the station, stole along the shadow
side of the car, and spoke to the man who had ordered the train.

A deputy sheriff climbed up on the rear end of the special, tried the
door, shaded his eyes, and endeavored to look into the car.

"Have you the running orders?" asked the man who was paying for the
entertainment.

"Yes."

"Let her go, then."

All this was in a low whisper; and now the despatcher climbed up on the
fireman's side and pressed a bit of crumpled tissue-paper into the
driver's hand.

"Pull out over the switches slowly, and when you are clear of the yards
read your orders an' fly."

The driver opened the throttle gently, the big wheels began to revolve,
and the next moment the sheriff and one of his deputies boarded the
engine. They demanded to know where that train was bound for.

"The train," said the driver, tugging at the throttle, "is back there at
the station. I'm goin' to the round-house."

When the sheriff, glancing back, saw that the coach had been cut off, he
swung himself down.

"They've gi'n it up," said the deputy.

"I reckon--what's that?" said the sheriff. It was the wild, long whistle
of the lone black engine just leaving the yards. The two officers faced
each other and stood listening to the flutter of the straight stack of
the black racer as she responded to the touch of the erstwhile drowsy
driver, who was at that moment laughing at the high sheriff, and who
would return to tell of it, and gloat in the streets of Spokane.

The sheriff knew that three of the men for whom he held warrants were at
Hillier, seven miles on the way to Canada. This engine, then, had been
sent to pick them up and bear them away over the border. An electric
line paralleled the steam way to Hillier, and now the sheriff boarded a
trolley and set sail to capture the engine, leaving one deputy to guard
the special car.

By the time the engineer got the water worked out of his cylinders, the
trolley was creeping up beside his tank. He saw the flash from the wire
above as the car, nodding and dipping like a light boat in the wake of a
ferry, shot beneath the cross-