The bills were counted over, and as the men went out Grant turned in the doorway. "It would not be advisable for you to wire any of the folks along the line to stop us," he said. "We are going through to Boynton as fast as your engineer can shove his loco along, and if anybody switched us into a side-track it would only mean the smashing up of a good deal of the company's property." He had gone out in another moment, and, in a few more, climbed into the locomotive cab, while somebody coupled on a calaboose in the rear. Then, he showed the engineer several bills and the agent's receipt together. "If you can hold your tongue and get us through to Boynton five minutes under the mail schedule time, the dollars are yours," he said. The engineer looked doubtful for a moment, then, his eyes twinkling, he took the bills. "Well," he said, "you've got the agent's receipt, and the rest is not my business. Sit tight, and we'll show you something very like flying to-night." Another man flung open the furnace door, a sudden stream of brightness flashed out as he hurled in coal, the door shut with a clang, and there was a whirr of slipping wheels as the engineer laid his hand on the lever. The great locomotive panted, and Grant, staring out through the glasses, saw a blinking light slide back to them. Then, the plates beneath him trembled, the hammering wheels got hold, and the muffled clanging and thudding swelled into a rhythmic din. The light darted past them, the filmy whiteness which had streamed down through the big headlamp's glare now beat in a bewildering rush against the quivering glass, and the fan-shaped blaze of radiance drove on faster through the snow. Five minutes passed, and Grant, who held a watch in his hand, glanced at the engineer as the blaze whirled like a comet along the clean-cut edge of a dusky bluff. "You'll have to do better," he said. "Wait till we have got her warmed up," said the man, who stood quietly intent, his lean hand on the throttle. "Then you'll see something." Grant sat down on a tool-locker, took out his cigar-case, and passed it to Breckenridge who sat opposite him. Breckenridge's face was eager and there was an unusual brightness in his eyes, for he was young and something thrilled within him in unison with the vibration of the great machine. There was, however, very little to see just then beyond the tense, motionless figure of the man at the throttle and the damp-beaded face of another forced up in the lurid glare from the furnace door. A dim whiteness lashed the glasses, and when Breckenridge pressed his face to one of them the blaze of radiance against which the smoke-stack was projected blackly only intensified the obscurity they were speeding through.