"By ginger, Ralph! Have you got the nerve?"
"Look at me."
Jack regarded his comrade an instant. There wasn't a flicker of an eyelash to show that Ralph was the least bit nervous. The experiences of the last few days had taught him much.
While Bill Whiting regarded them curiously, Jack hastily told the others of what Ralph had proposed.
"That appeals ter me as a ring-tailed roarer of a good idee," announced Buck Bradley, when he had finished.
"Waal, I'm more used ter doin' my fightin' ahorseback than from a loco, but I guess it goes here," chimed in Pete.
"An eminently sensible suggestion," was the professor's contribution. The maimed ankle of the man of science was now almost well, and, as he put it, he was "restored to his customary salubriosity."
"Then, all we've got to do, is to get permission to take the locomotive," declared Jack. He turned to Bill Whiting, who had been eyeing them curiously.
"We've got to get through to the Esmeralda mine," he said. "Our auto is broken down, and yet the fate of the mine, and perhaps the lives of its defenders, hang upon our arrival there as soon as possible. Have we your authority to run the locomotive through?"
"Say, son," drawled Bill Whiting, "put on your brakes. That's a compound, and even supposing I could let you take her, how would you run her?"