off, as if the piece was hurrying away to a more urgent
quarter. The gentle shower ceased, the black clouds were torn asunder
overhead; invisible hands seemed to snatch a gray veil of fleecy clouds
from the face of the harvest moon, and it shone out as clear and serene
as before the storm. The ditches on each side of the track were half
full of water, ties were floating along in them, but the track seemed
safe and sound, and we proceeded cautiously on our way. Within two miles
the road turned to the West, and here we found the water in the ditches
running through dry soil, carrying dead grass and twigs of sage upon its
surface; we passed the head of the flood, tumbling along through the dry
ditches as dirty as it well could be, and fast soaking into the soil;
and then we passed beyond the line of the storm entirely.

Billy put up his seat and filled his pipe, and I sat down and absorbed a
sandwich as I urged my engine ahead to make up for lost time; we took up
our routine of work just where we had left it, and--life was the same
old song. It was past midnight now, and as I never did a great deal of
talking on an engine, I settled down to watching the rails ahead, and
wondering if the knuckle-joints would pound the rods off the pins before
we got to the end of the division.

[Illustration: "'Mexican,' said I."]

Billy, with his eyes on the track ahead, was smoking his second pipe and
humming a tune, and the "Mary Ann" was making about forty miles an hour,
but doing more rolling and pitching and jumping up and down than an
eight-wheeler would at sixty. All at once I discerned something away
down the track where the rails seemed to meet. The moon had gone behind
a cloud, and the headlight gave a better view and penetrated further.
Billy saw it, too, for he took his pipe out of his mouth, and with his
eyes still upon it, said laconically, as was his wont: "Cow."

"Yes," said I, closing the throttle and dropping the lever ahead.

"Man," said Billy, as the shape seemed to assume a perpendicular
position.

"Yes," said I, reaching for the three-way cock, and applying the tender
brake, without thinking what I did.

"Woman," said Billy, as the shape was seen to wear skirts, or at least
drapery.

"Mexican," said I, as I noted the mantilla over the head. We were fast
nearing the object.

"No," said Billy, "too well built."

I don't know what he judged by; we could not see the face, for it was
turned away from us; but th