"Be quiet," said the Philosopher, "I'm going to let you go, but tell me, why did you want to do little Patsy, that everybody likes?" "Because Mr. Paul was so cock sure I couldn't. He bet me a case of champagne that I couldn't ride on the Omaha Limited without paying fare." "And now you lose the champagne." "It looks that way." "Poor tramp!" Patsy had walked to the rear of the train, shouted "All aboard," and the cars were now slipping past the two men. "Have you still a mind to smash me?" "I may be a wolf but this is not my night to howl." "Every dog has his day, eh?" "Curse you." "Good night," said the Philosopher, reaching for a passing car. "Go to--" said the tramp, and the train faded away out over the switches. CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND The old master-mechanic, who had insisted that Dan Moran was innocent, from the first, had gone away; but the new man was willing to give him an engine after the confession of Bill Greene. Having secured work the old engineer called upon the widow, for he could tell her, now, all about the dynamite. Three years had brought little change to her. She might be a little bit stouter, but she was handsomer than ever, Dan thought. The little girl, whom he remembered as a toddling infant, was a sunny child of four years. Bennie was now fourteen and was employed as caller at the round-house, and his wages, thirty dollars a month, kept up the expenses of the home. He had inherited the splendid constitution of his father with the gentleness and honesty of his mother. The foreman was very fond of him, and having been instructed by the old general manager to take good care of the boy, for his mother's sake, he had arranged to send him out firing, which would pay better, as soon as he was old enough. So Moran found the little family well, prosperous, and reasonably happy. Presently, when she could wait no longer, Mrs. Cowels asked the old engineer if he had come back to stay, and when he said he had, her face betrayed so much joy that Moran felt half embarrassed, and his heart, which had been so heavy for the past four years, gave a thump that startled him. "Oh! I'm _so_ glad," she said earnestly, looking down and playing with her hands; and while her eyes were not upon his, Moran gazed upon the gentle face that had haunted him day and night in his three years' tramp about the world. "Yes," he said at length, "I'm going back to the 'Q.' It's not Blackwings, to be sure, and the Denver Limited, but it's work, and that's something, for it seems to me that I can bear this idleness no longer. It's the hardest work in the world, just to have nothing to do, month in and month out, and to be compelled to do it. I can't stand it, that's all, and I'm going out on a gravel train to-morrow."