“What’s the answer, Dooley? What do you suppose I can do for you?”
“You can handle that kettle. You’ve got to——”
“What, me?” gasped Ralph. “I’m not an engineer any more. You want to ruin my reputation, Dooley?”
“Stop blitterin’,” scolded the old yardmaster. “I know you, Ralph Fairbanks. You are workin’ for the Great Northern just as I am. Look at the fireboy there, Jimmy. He stuck. But he ain’t allowed by the rules to handle the throttle that his superior deserted.”
“And you expect me to break the rules?”
“You still have your Brotherhood card. I know it. You are in good standing. We have got to show these mutts that real men don’t throw the road down—and cut off their own food supply—to run after that crazy Andy McCarrey.”
“All right. I’m with you, as far as that goes,” said Ralph quickly. “But I don’t know about this thing you ask me to do. My own job——”
“You are not on the job now. That I know full well,” said the anxious yardmaster. “Do, for the love of Mike, Ralph, get aboard that dirty little kettle and kick together the cars for west-bound Eighty-seven. She’s scheduled to leave the yard, as you well know, in twenty-five minutes,” and he snapped his big watch back into his pocket.
“What will the super say?” asked Ralph weakly.
The idea was taking hold of him. After all, the blood in his veins was the blood of the engine-driver! Once an engineer, always an engineer. Ralph could not get away from the fact that his fingers thrilled—and always would thrill—to the touch of the throttle and the Johnson bar.