“You were not cutting off short,” Frank went on, “and you were running your pump wrong, besides having her hooked up different from usual. If we had lost time, I should have been blamed for it, and it is likely I should have been taken off. That was what you were counting on.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” admitted old Joe; “but you got the best of me, and it’s no use to kick a man when he’s down.”
The old engineer was pitiful in his humbleness, and Frank began to feel some misgivings about pushing him further, for he realized that it meant the utter ruin of the man.
Watching Merry’s face, old Joe fancied he saw a gleam of hope.
“What can I do now?” Frank asked. “It is too late, for the conductor has dispatched for instructions.”
“Perhaps it ain’t too late,” eagerly said the engineer, “if another dispatch is sent that I am all right. Perhaps you can fix it. I can take the train through, if I have a chance. Won’t you do that for me, Merriwell? Think—think what it means to me!”
Frank swung down from the engine and went after the conductor.
“I wish to speak with you a moment, Mr. Evans,” he said, when he found the conductor in the little office of the station.
He drew the man aside, and said:
“Old Joe has come round, and seems to be all right now. He is begging for a chance to take the train through.”