"What in blazes would I let you take her for?" he snapped suddenly, and attempted to shoulder Paxley aside. "Get out of here, and mind your own business! Get out!" He snatched his wrist away from Paxley's fingers and gave a jerk at the throttle--and the 1601 began to move. The 'table wasn't set, and Paxley had no time for hesitation. More roughly than he had any wish to do it, he brushed Owsley's hand from the throttle and latched the throttle shut. And then, quick as a cat, Owsley was on him. It wasn't much of a fight--hardly a fight at all--Owsley, from three weeks on his back, was dropping weak. But Owsley snatched up a spanner that was lying on the seat, and smashed Paxley with it between the eyes. Paxley was a big man physically--and a bigger man still where it counts most and doesn't show--with the blood streaming down his face, and half blinded, regardless of the blows that Owsley still tried to rain upon him, he picked the engineer up in his arms like a baby, and with Brannigan, dropping off the gangway and helping, got Owsley to the ground. Owsley hadn't been fit for excitement or exertion of that kind--for _any_ kind of excitement or exertion. They took him back to his boarding house, and Doctor McTurk screwed his eyes up over him in the funny way he had when things looked critical, and Mrs. McCann nursed him daytimes, and Carleton and Regan and two or three others took turns sitting up with him nights--for a month. Then Owsley began to mend again, and began to talk of getting back on the Limited run with the 1601--always the 1601. And most times he talked pretty straight, too--as straight as any of the rest of them--only his memory seemed to keep that queer sort of haze over it--up to the time of the accident it seemed all right, but after that things blurred woefully. Regan, Carleton and Doctor McTurk went into committee over it in the super's office one afternoon just before Owsley was out of bed again. "What d'ye say--h'm? What d'ye say, doc?" demanded Regan. Doctor McTurk, scientific and professional in every inch of his little body, lined his eyebrows up into a ferocious black streak across his forehead, and talked medicine in medical terms into the superintendent and the master mechanic for a good five minutes. When he had finished, Carleton's brows were puckered, too, his face was a little blank, and he tapped the edge of his desk with the end of his pencil somewhat helplessly. Regan tugged at both ends of his mustache and sputtered. "What the blazes!" he growled. "Give it to us in plain railroading! Has he got rights through--or hasn't he? Does he get better--or does he not? H'm?" "I don't know, I tell you!" retorted Doctor McTurk. "I don't know--and that's flat. I've told you why a minute ago. I don't know whether he'll ever be better in his head than he is now--otherwise he'll come around all right." "Well, what's to be done?" inquired Carleton.