against my shoulder," he said; "I'm afraid you'll get a fall."

She did it, and he held himself in watchful readiness to catch her if she should lose her balance.

"Is that better?"

She nodded. "Much better, thank you. Have we doubled it yet?"

Brockway took out his watch and timed the revolutions of the flying drive-wheels. "Not quite, but we're bettering the schedule by several miles. Do you still enjoy it?"

"Yes, much; but it's very dreadful, isn't it? I don't see how he dares!"

"Who? Maclure?"

"Yes; or anyone else. To me it seems braver than anything I ever read of—to drive a great thing like this with so many precious lives behind it. The responsibility must be terrible."

"It would be if a fellow thought of it all the time; but one doesn't, you know. Now I'll venture a guess that Mac is just speculating as to how much of the 'Kestrel's' lost time he can get back between this and the end of his run."

But the shrewd old pioneer with the Scottish name was thinking of no such prosaic thing. On the contrary, he was wondering who Miss Vennor was; if she would be a worthy helpmate for the passenger agent; and if so, how he could help matters along.

The switch-lights of Arriba were twinkling in the distance, and his hand was on the whistle-lever, when the engineer reached a conclusion. The next instant Gertrude shrieked and would have tumbled ignominiously into the fireman's scoop if Brockway had not caught her.

"How silly of me!" she said, shame-facedly. "One would think I had never heard a locomotive whistle before. But it was so totally unexpected."

"I should have warned you, but I didn't think. This is Arriba; do you want to go back?"

Gertrude was enjoying herself keenly, after a certain barbaric and unfettered fashion hitherto undreamed of, and she was tempted to drink a little deeper from the cup of freedom before going back to the proprieties. Moreover, there was doubtless a goodly measure of reproof awaiting her, and when she remembered this, she determined to get the full value of the castigation.

"I'll go on, if you'll let me," she said.

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