“How’d’s that suit you, colonel?” he cried, as his superior approached; “the old girl’s a-crawlin’, ain’t she?” “You’re doing fine, Hosselkus--fine, but keep it up--pound her on the back, for the porter tells me the wine is getting low and they’re liable to see something to beef about. Keep ’em a-rollin’, and the passenger run is yours.” The colonel had risen from the ranks, and at times, unconsciously, lapsed into the old dialect. “Don’t you worry none, we’ll git there. Gimme this mill, colonel, an’ none of the other boys on the division ’ud ever get a smell of my smoke. An’ she does it so easy, reminds of your maw’s old rocker--just handle her right, don’t crowd her, that’s the main point. Now my theory’s like this, we’ll say the cylinder receives so much----” But the colonel had fled. Hard Luck carried his theory with him, for he never succeeded in obtaining a listener to whom he could expound it. No accident occurred, however; the speed was maintained, and the special reached Oleson’s Siding so far in advance of the train-dispatcher’s calculations that quite a wait was necessary while Number Three, the east-bound express, toiled up the grade. Hosselkus lit the headlight, for the sun was impaled upon one of the peaks of the distant Sierras, whose eastern slopes were already purpling with shades of evening. It was the last stop. Below him wound the tortuous Goose-Neck Grade, with the division terminus at its foot. The run was nearly ended. Having finished oiling, Hosselkus leaned against the cylinder-head and gazed abstractedly down the track. A brakeman was seated on the head-block of the switch, throwing stones at an adjacent telegraph-pole, and moodily speculating upon the probabilities of “getting in” in time for supper, while an occasional breath of wind from the valley brought with it, from far down the grade, the puffing of the engines on Number Three. He had succeeded. The record would be broken beyond a doubt; but as the cool breeze of sunset blew in his face, he suddenly became aware of the fact that he was tired, and he remembered then that he had been on the road for over forty-eight hours. The smell of heated tallow struck him, for the first time, as being a singularly unappetizing odor, and he looked over the huge machine with something akin to dissatisfaction in the expression of his face. He sighed, and the brakeman asked if she was coming--meaning the train. “No,” replied Hard Luck; “she ain’t showed up ’round the bend yet--I’uz just thinkin’.” “Well, here she’s a-comin’.” Hosselkus clambered to his seat, and as soon as the express-train had cleared the switch it was opened by the brakeman, and the special was once more under way.