“Yes; I hear you, but I can’t see you very well. Bend lower. Yes; it is you. I did hate you, but I was wrong. I ask you to fergive me. Will ye?”
“With all my heart!”
“I am glad. You are a fine young man, and I want to leave them in your care—Nellie and Jack. You will take care of them?”
“I will.”
“I believe it, and they will be safe with you. Oh! she is such an angel! She has put me onto a new trip, and—and I am making the run. The steam is getting low. More coal! more coal!”
He seemed peering ahead, as he had peered out from the window of an engine cab many times.
“This is the straightest strip of road I ever struck,” he muttered. “Not a curve nor a grade as fur as you kin see. It’s wonderful! But the steam is low, and we are behind time. We must be at Roaring Run bridge on time. We must get there somehow. More coal!”
Then, after another period of silence, he began again:
“I’m runnin’ her in the right notch now, and we’re gaining. We will make it. Hear her sing over the rails. Oh, she is humming now! Ah, we are beginning to make up lost time.”
“Sing, Nellie,” whispered Frank.