The Daughter of a Magnate

by Frank H. Spearman

"I think I am something of a coward."

"Then you shouldn't venture," she laughed, "Marie has a scolding for you."

Morris Blood had been telling Doctor Lanning that he and Glover were to go over to Sleepy Cat on the train the doctor and Gertrude were to take back to Glen Tarn. The two railroad men were just starting across the yard to inspect an engine, the 1018, which was to pull the limited train that day for the first time. It was a new monster, planned by the modest little Manxman, Robert Crosby, for the first district run. "Help her over the pass," Crosby had whispered—the superintendent of motive power hardly ever spoke aloud—"and she'll buck a headwind like a canvas-back. Give her decent weather, and on the Sleepy Cat trail she'll run away with six, yes, eight Pullmans."

Doctor Lanning was curious to look over the new machine, the first to signalize the new ownership of the line, and Gertrude was quite ready to accept Blood's invitation to go also.

With the doctor under the superintendent's wing, Gertrude, piloted by Glover, crossed the network of tracks, asking railroad questions at every step.

Reaching the engine, she wanted to get up into the cab, to say that, before leaving the mountains forever, she had been once inside an engine. Glover, after some delay, procured a stepladder from the "rip" track, and with this the daughter of the magnate made an unusual but easy ascent to the cab. More than that, she made herself a heroine to every yardman in sight, and strengthened the new administration incalculably.

She ignored a conventional offer of waste from the man in charge of the cab, who she was surprised to learn, after some sympathetic remarks on her part, was not the engineman at all. He was a man that had something to do with horses. And when she suggested it would be quite an event for so big an engine to go over the mountains for the first time, the hostler told her it had already been over a good many times.

But Mr. Blood had an easy explanation for every confusing statement, and did not falter even when Miss Brock wanted to start the 1018 herself. He objected that she would soil her gloves, but she held them up in derision; plainly, they had already suffered. Some difficulty then arose because she could not begin to reach the throttle. Again, with much chaffing, the stepladder was brought into play, and steadied on it by Morris Blood, and coached by the hostler, the heiress to many millions grasped the throttle, unlatched it and pulled at the lever vigorously with both hands.

The packing was new, but Gertrude persisted, the bar yielded, and to her great fright things began to hiss. The engine moved like a roaring leviathan, and the author of the mischief screamed, tried to stop it, and being helpless appealed to the unshaven man to help her. Glover, however, was nearest and shut off.

It was all very exciting, and when on the turntable Gertrude was told by the doctor that her suit was completely ruined she merely held up both her blackened gloves, laughing, as Glover came up; and caught up her begrimed skirt and joined him with a flush on her cheeks as bright as a danger signal.