The signal to start was given, and with a full head of steam on, the old engine, trembling and groaning from her pent-up power, began to creep ahead, as if feeling her way along the switches and through the yard, going faster and faster at every revolution of her wheels, until the station-lights faded in the distance, and she plowed boldly into the night.

The tall form of the engineer, clothed in greasy overalls and jumper, stood at his post like a grim sentinel on duty, his right hand on the reversing lever, his left on the throttle, while his steely gray eyes peered into the gloom, as if expecting to see spring from the regions of darkness the hosts of danger and death.

A drizzling rain was falling, so altogether it was a disagreeable night.

“I have a favor to ask of you, Rock,” said Gilly, the fireman, as the engine fairly gained her feet and increased her progress at every beat of her piston heart.  “I want you to take my place until we get to Trestle Foot.  I am used up.”

“Of course I will,” replied Rock, taking the fireman’s place.  “Is she very hungry to-night?”

“Hungry and cross, Rock,” said the other.  “But I’ll risk you to feed her.”

No engineer who has stood at the lever for any length of time refuses to believe that his trusty servant is without her faults, however he may care for her.  She is subject to her ill-moods as well as himself.

The engine, so good-natured on his last run, so prompt to obey his will, on this trip is stubborn and hard to manage.

He can see no reason for her change of spirit.  Her wonderful mechanism is in perfect working order, her groom has arrayed her for a dazzling passage, her fireman has fed her with the best of fuel, the flames dart ardently along her brazen veins, she bounds off like a charger, eager for conquest.  Her first spurt over, she falters, sulks.

No coaxing can change her mood.  In vain her master bestows greatest care upon her; with each effort she grows more sullen.

Jockey Playfair’s engine was in the sulks on the trip of which we write.  The Silver Swan had never seemed in better temper than at the start.  Delays in making connections, the bad condition of the track at places on account of the recent heavy rains, with other difficulties, had caused them to lose time.  The engineer, however, had confidently expected to make up for this before reaching Wood’s Hollow, sixty miles above the Big Y junction.

In the midst of his anxiety his fireman was taken suddenly ill.  Then his engine began to fail him.  This last gave him more uneasiness than all the rest.

“Behind time, with a sulky engine and a sick fireman!” he muttered, to himself.  “I see it coming—­something dreadful!  Never mind, old Jockey!  You are on your through trip to-night, but stand to your post like a man.”

During the next ten miles nothing was said by the three, and then, as they stopped long enough at a way-station to take on a solitary passenger, Jockey merely remarked: