Crowding in behind Bob, the engineer kept watch of the track, but not so closely that he could not observe and enjoy the boy’s pleasure.

After several minutes, Bob turned and shouted: 

“Can I pull on the throttle a little?”

“Sure.  Open her to the next notch.  We’ve got plenty of steam.”

But Bob found it was not so easy to get the notch as it seemed.  He kept gamely at it, however, and at last succeeded.

Till they reached the yard limit of Hastings, the engineer allowed him to hold the throttle, and when he at last took it and began to ease down the speed, Bob sighed wistfully.

As the big machine finally came to a stop with a grunt, Barney exclaimed: 

“You ought to be an engineer, boy.  You’ve got the nerve to drive hard.  We did ten miles in twenty minutes—­which is going some with this load.”

Just then, however, the conductor came up.

“Like it, Bob?” he asked.

“Indeed, I did!  Mr. Barney let me drive, and I made ten miles in twenty minutes.”

“Good boy!  We’ll make a railroad man out of you yet.  Think you could follow me back to the caboose over the cars?”

“I can try,” returned Bob.

But before the attempt could be made, the conductor was called to the station office to receive orders.

Swelled with pride at his success in driving the engine, Bob determined to surprise the conductor by going back to the caboose alone.

And with a hearty good-bye to the engineer, he clambered over the coal-stacked tender and up on to the top of a car.

The orders were to take a siding to allow a passenger train to pass, and, as the time was short, the conductor was too busy sending his brakemen to turn the switches and communicating the instructions to the engineer, to think of Bob.

[Illustration:  He clutched frantically at one of the hand bars
         Bob Chester’s Grit Page 123]

The boy, however, was making his way back slowly, but without mishap, until the sudden start of the train.  He had just climbed down from a high car, and was swinging from it to an empty coal car, when the jerk of starting ran through the line of cars.

So unexpected was this action, that Bob’s feet slipped off the bumpers.

Crying out in alarm, he clutched frantically at one of the hand-bars on the end of the coal car, caught it, and managed to draw himself up till he found foothold on the extension of the floor where he stood, hanging on for dear life, until the train stopped with another jerk.

CHAPTER XV

BOB EARNS HIS PASSAGE

All of a tremble at his narrow escape from falling under the car, Bob was trying to recover his self-control before getting down from his precarious position, when he was startled to hear a voice exclaim: