The girl made a mocking little grimace.
“Your general manager father did try to make us give the trip up,” she admitted. “But old Mr. Hazzard and some of the others insisted that there couldn’t be any danger. Is there any danger, Dick?”
“Huh—I should say danger! We’ve had three material trains wrecked—one of ’em right up there in that next curve ahead—and any amount of narrow escapes, besides. Those fellows over there don’t care a hoot what they do to us, so long as they get their track into Little Ophir ahead of ours. Are there any more women on this train?”
“Lots of ’em.”
Dick made no comment on this additional devastating fact. After the blasting stopped the special crept on, and at the end of a short mile a halt was made to pick up another flag boy, namely, big-muscled, curly-headed Larry Donovan.
“Who is this?” asked the girl as Larry was climbing to the cab.
“My ‘bunkie,’ Larry Donovan,” Dick made answer. “We’re both ‘cubs’ in the engineering squad. Mr. Ackerman sent us down here to watch for your train.”
When Larry swung up to the cab it was to tell Johnson that the firing on the O. C. grade above had stopped, and that it was safe to go on. After the train got in motion, Dick took Larry by the shoulders and twisted him forcibly around to face the pretty girl.
“Bess,” he said, “this is my chum, Larry Donovan, and he’s a heap better fellow than he looks. Larry, this is Bess Holcombe—you needn’t shake hands, either of you, if you don’t want to.”
Larry’s face turned a dull red under its sunburn. As yet, he had small use for girls, pretty or otherwise; and if he had had, the joking introduction, and the fact that Miss Bess Holcombe’s father was vice-president of the company, would have made him take refuge in workman gruffness. What he mumbled in reply was a sort of sour “Please’ t’ meet you,” and the way he said it made the “pleased” part of it the merest figure of speech.