Again Dick looked at his watch. “If the ‘Pigeon’s’ on time he has only thirteen minutes left,” he announced; and then: “Hullo!――what’s that?” “That” was a small white spot-light coming down through the freight yard from the east. It was too little for an engine headlight――and too near the ground level. Somewhere up among the yard tracks it stopped; the switch lamp just ahead of it flicked from yellow to red; the little headlight moved on a few yards; and then the switch signal flicked back to yellow. Larry Donovan laughed. “I ought to know what that thing is, if you don’t,” he offered. “It’s Mr. Roadmaster Browder’s gasoline inspection car――‘The Bug,’ as they call it. _I’d_ say he was taking chances; coming in that way just ahead of a time freight.” “A miss is as good as a mile,” Dick countered. “He’s in, and side-tracked and out of the way, and that’s all he needed. There goes his light――out.” As he spoke the little spot-light blinked out, and as the two boys turned to walk in the opposite direction an engine headlight appeared at the western end of things, coming up the other yard from the round-house skip. Since Brewster was a locomotive division station, all trains changed engines, and the boys knew that this upcoming headlight was carried by the “Flying Pigeon’s” relief; the engine that would take the fast train up Timanyoni Canyon and on across the Red Desert. Half a minute later the big passenger flyer trundled up over the outside passing-track with a single man――the hostler――in the cab. At the converging switches just west of the station platform the engine’s course was reversed and it came backing slowly in on the short station spur or stub-track to come to a stop within a few yards of where Larry and the general manager’s son were standing. “The 331,” said Larry, reading the number. “She ought to run pretty good to-night. I put in most of the afternoon cleaning her up and packing her axle-boxes.” Dick Maxwell didn’t reply. Being a practical manager’s son, he was already beginning to acquire a bit of the managerial point of view. What he was looking at was the spectacle of Jorkins, the hostler, hooking the 331’s reversing lever up to the center notch, and then dropping out of the engine’s gangway to disappear in the darkness. “That’s a mighty reckless thing to do, and it’s dead against the rules,” Dick said; “to leave a road engine steamed up and standing that way with nobody on it!” “Atkins and his fireman will be here in a minute,” Larry hazarded. “And, anyway, nothing could happen. She’s hooked up on the center, and even if the throttle should fly open she couldn’t start.” “Just the same, a steamed-up engine oughtn’t to be left alone,” Dick insisted. “There’s always a chance that something might happen.” Now in the case of the temporarily abandoned 331 something did happen; several very shocking somethings, in fact; and they came so closely crowding together that there was scarcely room to catch a breath between them.