“Thank you very much, Captain, but couldn’t you make it the engineer instead of the cook?  I’d rather work than wash dishes.”

“I’d like to oblige so modest a boy.  Report to the chief engineer, give him my compliments and tell him you are to have the hottest berth on the boat.  He’ll probably set you to shoveling coal.”

Dick thanked him again; then looking into the face of the girl, he said: 

“Thank you, Miss Brown-Eyes, for saving my life,” and, bowing low, turned away.

“Captain, couldn’t you see that he was a gentleman?  What made you give him such hard work?” asked the girl.

“Because he was such a cheeky gentleman that if I let him stay on deck he would take command of the boat by to-morrow and all you young ladies who helped him would be guilty of mutiny and would have to be executed.”

Dick was put to work in the engine-room, oiling the machinery.  Some of the work was easy and safe, some of it was easy but not safe.  Oil cups had to be filled as they flew back and forth, bearings must be oiled after great steel rods had flashed by and before they returned.  The swift, silent play of the great piston and the steady motion of the resistless, revolving shaft, half hypnotized the boy and he stood, dazed and in danger, until called down by the sharp rebuff of the engineer.

“’Tend to your business, there.  Don’t watch that shaft or you’ll go dotty.”

On the second day of the trip there was trouble in the fire-room.  The steamer had started on the trip short of firemen and now a fireman who had fallen in the furnace-room, striking his head on the steel floor, was lying unconscious in his berth.  The pointer on the steam-gauge fell back, the engine slowed down, crisp commands came from pilot-house to engine-room, sharper messages passed between engine and fire rooms, while overworked men grew sullen and threatened to throw down their shovels.

Dick offered to do the work of a fireman, but the engineer shook his head and said: 

“That’s a man’s work, boy.”

“Give me a shovel and a chance.”

And they were given him.  He soon learned to throw the coal evenly and feed the furnaces like a fireman, but his unseasoned body shrank from the fierce heat; he staggered back from the hot blast every time he swung open a great furnace door and, until the clang of its closing, he could scarcely draw a breath.  He threw off his jumper and his white skin fairly gleamed in that grimy place.  The other firemen looked curiously at that slight, boyish form which was doing a man’s work like a man and there was no more shirking in front of those furnaces.  The fireman nearest the boy often pushed him aside and spread shovelfuls of coal over his grates, rushing back to his own work that it might not fall behind.  A strong beam wind sprang up and the boat rolled badly, while Dick, with his hands blistered, fought fiercely to keep off seasickness and to keep up his fire.