LITMIR.BIZ

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around him in a circle.

      "It's at the Gap," Bunty began, sparring for time as through the window he saw Flannagan coming from the office at a run. "And it's a freight train, and—and it's all smashed up, and——"

      ​The train started with a jerk that nearly took the men off their feet. At the same time Flannagan's face appeared at the car door.

      "All here, boys?" he called. Then he announced cheerfully: "The devil's to pay up the line!"

      Meanwhile, Bunty, taking advantage of the interruption, had squirmed his way through the men to the far end of the car, and the train had bumped over the switches on to the main line before they remembered him. Then it was too late. They hauled him out from behind a rampart of tools, where he had intrenched himself, and Flannagan shook his fist, half-angrily, half-playfully, in Bunty's face.

      "You little devil, what are you doing here, eh?" he demanded.

      And Bunty answered as before: "I'm going up to the wreck."

      "Humph!" said Flannagan, with a grin. "Well, I guess you are, and I guess you'll be sorry, too, when you get back and your dad gets hold of you."

      But Bunty was safe now, and he only laughed.

      Breakfastless, he shared the men's grub and listened wide-eyed as they talked of wrecks in times gone by; but most of all he listened to the story of how his father, when he was pulling Number One, had saved the Limited by sticking to his post almost in the face of certain death. Bunty's father was his hero, and his small soul glowed with happiness at the tale. He begged so hard for the story over again that Allan told it, and when he had finished, he slapped Bunty on the ​back. "And I guess you're a chip of the old block," he said.

      And Bunty was very proud, squaring his shoulders, and planting his feet firmly to swing with the motion of the car.

      The speed of the train slackened as they struck the grade leading up the eastern side of the Gap. Flannagan set the men busily at work overhauling the kit. He paused an instant before Bunty. "Look here, kid," he said, shaking a warning finger, "you keep out of the way, and don't get into trouble."

      It would have taken more than words from Flannagan to have curbed Bunty's eagerness; so when the train came to a stop and the men tumbled out of the car with a rush, he followed. What he saw caused him to purse his lips and cry excitedly, "Gee!"

      Right in front of him a big mogul had turned turtle. Ditched by a spread rail, she had pulled three box-cars with her, and piled them up, mostly in splinters, on the tender. They had taken fire, and were burning furiously. Behind these were eight or ten cars still on the road-bed, but badly demolished from bumping over the ties when they had left the rails. Still farther down the track in the rear were the rest of the string, apparently uninjured. The snow was knee-deep at the side of the track, but Bunty plowed manfully through it, climbing up the embankment to a place of vantage.

      His eyes blazed with excitement as he watched the scene before him and listened to the hoarse shouts of the men, the crash of pick and ax, and, above it all, the sharp crackle of the fire as the flames, growing in ​volume, bit deeper and deeper into the wreck. Fiercely as the men fought, the fire, with its long start, kept them from making any headway against it. Already it had reached some of the cars standing on the track

      From where Bunty stood he could see the track dipping away in a long grade to the valley below. They called that grade the Devil's Slide, and the wreck was on the edge of it, with the caboose and some half-dozen cars still resting on the incline. As he looked, far below him he saw a trail of smoke. It was Number Two climbing the grade. By this time the excitement of his surroundings had worn off a little, and the arrival of the Limited offered a new attraction.

      He clambered down from his perch and began to pick his way past the wreck. Flannagan, begrimed and dirty, was talking to Emmons. "I don't like to do it," Bunty heard Flannagan say, "but we'll have to blow up that box-car if we can't stop the fire any other way, or we'll have a blaze down the whole line. The train crew says there's turpentine—two cars of it—next the flat there, and if that catches—Hi, there, kid," he broke off to yell, as he caught sight of Bunty, "you get back to the tool-car, and stay there!"

      And Bunty ran—in the other direction. He knew Number Two would stop a little the other side of the wreck, and that there would be a great big ten-wheeler pulling her, all as bright as a new dollar and glistening in paint and gold-leaf. When he pulled up breathless and happy by the side of Number Two, Masters, the engineer, was giving Engine 901 an oil round, ​touching the journals critically with the back of his hand as he moved along.

      At sight of Bunty, the engineer laid his oil-can on the slide-bars and grinned as he extended his hand. "How are you, Bunty?" he asked.

      And Bunty, accepting the proffered hand, replied gravely: "I'm pretty well, Mr. Masters, thank you."

      "Glad to hear it, Bunty. How did you get here?"

      "I comed up with the wrecker-train. It's a' awful smash."

      "Is it, now! Think they'll have the line cleared soon?"

      "Oh, no," Bunty replied, eyeing the cab of the big engine wistfully. "Not for ever and ever so long."

      Masters' eyes followed Bunty's glance. "Want to get up in the cab, Bunty?"

      "Oh, please!" Bunty cried breathlessly.

      "All right," said Masters, boosting the lad through the gangway. Then warningly: "Don't touch anything."

      And Bunty promised.

      It was only four hundred yards up to the wreck; but that was enough. Masters and his firemen left their train and went to get a view at close quarters. When it was all over, it was up to the wrecking boss and the engine crew of Number Two. Flannagan swore he blocked the trucks of the cars on the incline; but Flannagan lied, and he got clear. Masters and his mate had no chance to lie, for they broke rules, and they got their time.

      Be that as it may, Bunty sat on the driver's seat of ​the Imperial Limited and watched the engineer and fireman start up the track. He lost sight of the men long before they reached the wreck. They were still in view, but he was very busy: he was playing "pretend."

      Bunty's imagination was vivid enough to make the game a fascinating one whenever he indulged in it, and that was often. But now it was almost reality, and his fancy was little taxed to supply what was lacking. He was engineer of the Limited, and they had just stopped at a station. He leaned out of the cab window to get the "go-ahead" signal. Then his hand went through the motion of throwing over the reversing-lever and opening the throttle. And now he was off; faster and faster. He rocked his body to and fro to supply the motion of the cab. He sat very grim and determined, peering straight ahead. He was booming along now at full speed. They were coming to a crossing. "Too-oo-o, toot, toot!" cried Bunty at the top of his shrill treble, for the rules said you must whistle at every crossing, and Bunty knew the rules. Now they were coming to the next station, and he began to slow up. "Ding-dong, ding—"

       Bang!

      Bunty nearly fell from his seat with fright. Ahead of him, up the track, there was a column of smoke as a mass of wreckage rose in the air, and then a crash. Flannagan had blown up a car. Bunty stared, fascinated, not at the explosion, but at the rear end of the wreck on the grade. He rubbed his eyes in bewilderment, then he scrambled over the side of the seat. He paused half-way off, looking again through the front ​window to make sure. There was no doubt of it: the cars were beginning to roll down the track toward him. He waited for no more, but rushed to the gangway to jump off. Then he stopped as the story Allan had told about his father came back to him. Bunty's heart thumped wildly as he turned white-faced and determined. No truly engineer would leave his train; his father had not, and Bunty did not.

      The reversing-lever was in the back notch where Masters had left it when he stopped the train. It was Bunty's task to reach and open the throttle. He climbed up on the seat and stood on tiptoe. Leaning over, he grasped the lever with both hands and pulled it open. What little science of engine-driving Bunty possessed, was lost in the terror that gripped him. The runaway cars were only

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