"Good! So you will, Jockey!" exclaimed the conductor, coming forward with his lantern. "You have an excellent run ahead of you; do the best you can. If we can gain ten minutes before getting to Trestle Foot, we'll venture to Woodsville. Are you ready?" "All ready," answered Rock, who had shut off the flow of water and flung back the dangling leather arm to spring from the tender to the footboard. "Ho!" called out the conductor, "who's firing to-night?" as Rock, jerking open the furnace door, stood in the glow of the fiery light. "Where's Gilly?" "Here; but he's sick," answered Jockey. "Rock took his place at the Big Y." "What! Jack's boy? Well, he is good for it. If Gilly is sick he had better come back into a passenger." But the old fireman wouldn't think of deserting his post so far as that. The next instant the conductor's lantern waved back and forth, dense volumes of smoke rolled from the smoke-stack, and snorting as if with rage at being driven on again, the engine forged on along its iron pathway. "Where have you been to-day, Rock?" asked the engineer, as they were once more spinning along at a flying rate. "Down to Fairfax to see if I could get a job. You know I got turned off the section." "No--you don't mean it! I'll bet Gammon was at the bottom of it." "I am sure of it. He has boasted I shouldn't stay there long." "Zounds! I'd like to shake the rascal out of his jacket. He's been wanting Gilly's place; but he can't get it. What do you want?" "To brake." "Get it?" "Nothing certain. I have little hope, for Donald Minturn will never let me get there if be can help it." "The old snake! I never did like him. So he isn't over fond of you?" "No; he is opposed to me on account of an old enmity he bears Mrs. Ingleside." "Rock, you deserve a place on this road. Why, bless you, you are fit to take my place. Not many trips did old Jack make without taking you with him. I used to fire for him, you know. He had a mat for you at his feet, and when too tired to keep awake longer you slept curled up on the footboard. Ah, it was something such a night as this when poor Jack made his last trip! It wasn't quite so dark it may be, but he was behind time, as we are, and he was trying to make up. "He was swinging down the long grade beyond Woodsville at a humming rate. There was no station at the Hollow then, and he was counting on a clean sweep to Owls' Nest. Leaving the air-line grade he swooped around the curve, when right in his face and eyes he saw a string of loose cars, which had broken from the special on the highlands. "He must have been going at the rate of fifty miles an hour, and the runaways were coming toward him at scarcely less speed. I caught a gleam of his white face as he reversed, and then he was beside me at the brake. "'Stand by!' he cried. 'We'll die at our post.'