“I do,” rejoined the general manager.
“I think you overlook the fact that you are interfering in my province.”
“No, I don’t overlook it. But you come back to the office with me, Hopkins, and I believe I can show you where it is for the road’s interest to send Ralph out with this train. There’s the gong!”
“Send word to my mother!” cried Ralph to Adair, and made a flying leap for the locomotive steps. The two firemen, who had listened in no little interest and anxiety to the foregoing conversation, sprang to their proper positions. They grinned for they both knew Ralph and liked him.
It was a fact that there was not a locomotive on the division that the train dispatcher had not tried out at one time or another. As he had confessed he was, after all, an engineer by instinct. He slid into the seat so recently occupied by the dead engineer, and his hand closed on the throttle.
The exhaust coughed through the smokestack. The bell jangled. He let the steam into the cylinders. The drivers groaned and rolled almost on the instant of the conductor shouting his second “All aboard!”
As smooth as silk, the train rolled out of the station. Adair and Cummings waved their hands to the young fellow on whom an important duty had again devolved. He opened the throttle up wider. The wheels began to drum over the rail joints in a tune that thrilled his blood.
“Once again on the rails!” he breathed. “This is the life!”
CHAPTER XVI
THROUGH SHADOW VALLEY
Hoo! Too-hoo-hoo!