"No, and I never want to be. Never get me out o' sight o' land. Then they're too blamed slow; draggin' along in the darkness, eighteen and twenty miles an hour, and nowhere to jump."
"And yet they say we kill more people than they do."
"I know they say so," said the engineer, "but they kill 'em so everlastingly dead. A man smashed up in a wreck on the road may recover, but a man drowned a thousand miles from anywhere has no show."
Patsy, coming from the station, joined the two dead-heads, and Moran, glancing at his watch, asked the cause of delay.
"Waiting for a party of English tourists," said Patsy; "they're coming over the Grand Trunk, and the storm has delayed them."
"And that same storm will delay you to-night, my boy, if I'm any guesser," observed the old engineer. "I'd go over and ride with Guerin, but I'm afraid he wouldn't take it well. That engine is as quick as chain-lightning, and with a greasy rail like this she'll slip going down hill, and the more throttle he gives her the slower she'll go. And what's more, she'll do it so smoothly, that, blinded by the storm, he'll never know she's slipping till she tears her fire all out and comes to a dead stall."
The old engineer knew just how to prevent all that, but he was afraid that to offer any suggestion might wound the pride of the young man, whom he did not know very well. True, he had asked the master-mechanic to put Guerin on the run, but only because he disliked the Reading man who was next in line. Mrs. Moran came from the car now, and asked to be taken to the engine where she and her daughter might say good-bye to Bennie who was now the regular fireman on Blackwings. "Bennie," said his stepfather, "see that your sand-pipes are open."
While Bennie talked with his mother and sister, Moran chatted with the engineer. "I want to thank you," said Guerin, "for helping me to this run during your absence, and I shall try to take good care of both Bennie and Blackwings."
"It isn't worth mentioning," said Moran with a wave of his hand, "they do these things to suit themselves."
"Now, if she's got any tricks," said Guerin, "I'd be glad to know them, for I don't want to disgrace the engine by losing time. I've been trying to pump the boy, but he's as close as a clam."