He watched grimly as the black smoke swirled upward from the stack and blew away to the left toward a little farmhouse.
“That feller’ll think he’s livin’ in Pittsburg,” remarked the brakeman, as the smoke closed down over the house and shut it from view for an instant.
Michaels snorted with laughter. Then he opened the injector again—and again the steam spurted out into the cab.
Without waiting for an order, Pinkey bent and opened the tank-cock. A thin little trickle told that the water in the tank was almost exhausted.
“Great Jehoshaphat!” cried Michaels, and stared in perplexity at the brakeman. “Th’ tank’s sprung a leak,” he said, at last, with conviction. “I ain’t pumped a hundred gallon into her since we left Little Hocking.”
“They ain’t no leak,” asserted Pinkey. “I went all around th’ tank, an’ it ain’t leakin’ a drop. I don’t believe it’ll carry us further ’n Coolville,” he added, triumphantly.
Michaels turned back to his engine without trusting himself to reply; but it was only by the most careful nursing that those six miles were covered and the water-plug at Coolville reached. There the engineer made a personal inspection of the tank while Pinkey filled it, and he found, as the fireman had said, that it was perfectly tight. Allan, who was as deeply puzzled as any one, also examined the tank, and with the same result.
The conductor sauntered forward while the tank was being filled, and watched the operation with considerable curiosity.
“Say,” he asked, at last, “what ’re you fellers up to, anyway? Tryin’ t’ create a water famine?”