propitiatory cigar into the pocket of the fireman's jumper, and proceeded to carry out his instructions. Before the tardy signal came, Gertrude was perched upon the high seat, with her skirts gathered up out of harm's way, and Brockway had fashioned a pad out of a bunch of waste and tied it upon the boiler-head brace at her feet.

"It's hot," he explained. "When she begins to roll you can put your foot against that and steady yourself. Are you quite comfortable?"

"Quite; and you?" She looked over her shoulder to ask the question, and the strong red glow from the open door of the fire-box glorified the sweet face.

"Comfortable? No, that is hardly the word for it"—he tried the window-fastening, that he might have an excuse for bending over her—"I'm happy; happy to my finger-tips. Do you know why?"

He sought to look up into her face, but at that moment the red glow of the fire-light went out suddenly with the crash of the closing door, and the clangor of the bell made her reply inaudible. None the less, by the dim, half light of the gauge-lamp he saw her eyelashes droop and her lips say No.

For a passing instant the social barriers went down and became as though they never were. Standing beside her and blessing the clamor that isolated them, he said:

"Because I am here with you; because, no matter what happens to either of us in the future, no one can ever rob me of this."

He half expected a rebuke, and waited a moment with becoming humility. When it did not come, he swung himself into the seat behind her and held his peace until she spoke again. That was five full minutes afterward. For that length of time Gertrude was crushed under an avalanche of new sensations. The last switch-light in the Carvalho yards had flashed to the rear, and the 926 was quickening her speed with sharp little forward lunges under Maclure's skilful goading. The dizzying procession of grayish-white telegraph-poles hurling itself past the cab windows; the thousand clangorous voices of the great machine; the intermittent glare from the fire-box door, alternating with the fiery shower of sparks pouring from the smoke-stack—it was a bit of pandemonium detached and dashing through space, and she sat cowed and stunned by the rush and the uproar. But presently the warm wine of excitement began to quicken her heart-beats.

"Isn't it glorious!" she exclaimed, trying to look back at him.

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