WHEN the White Mail came out of the east, carrying signals for the sun on the following morning, the driver looked down on a pair of very dirty faces at the end of West Creek bridge. The white flag fluttered in the morning breeze, and little Jack’s arm shook like an aspen branch as the big engine struck the bridge and thundered by. Tommy, who feared nothing, day or night, stood near him, pushing him encouragingly as he shrank from the flying train. When they had walked across the bridge and back, to see that no sparks had fallen from the quivering ash-pan, they returned to the pump. The old mule had been harnessed before it was light, from the new platform that Tommy had designed and the boss carpenter had built. He had stopped short and fallen dead asleep the moment the boys left him to flag the fast mail. He was now rudely awakened by Tommy, who hit him a sharp cut with the long whip, as he climbed to his place on the platform. In a little while the sun came up over the tree-tops and touched the water tank. Little Mary Connor came down the track, bringing breakfast for the boys, and they were glad to see her. When she had fixed the plates and poured the hot, black coffee into the bright tin cups, she allowed Tommy to lift her onto the platform, where she encouraged the mule while the boys had breakfast. “Say, Jack, old man; this is great,” said Tommy, taking a long pull at the bracing beverage. Jack gave his companion a furtive glance, but deigned no reply--not even a smile. “Jimminy-crismus, why don’ yo’ eat?” shouted Tommy. Jack was staring at his sister, who looked so weird and ghost-like in her black frock, with eyes that seemed too large for her, and her white face hiding in a heap of hair. The boys were much refreshed by the hot breakfast, and when Tommy helped little Mary from the platform he was in a humor to tease her. He even went so far as to pull her ear gently and to pinch her cheeks,--to put life in ’em, as he expressed it. Mary smiled and colored slightly: the first faint flush of little girlhood. She liked Tommy, and he liked her. Rough and boisterous with boys, he was always gentle and thoughtful with the little girls, and Mary, to his mind, was the belle of Lick Skillet. When Tommy had helped Mary over the bridge, dropped the spaniel into the water for his morning bath, and shied a few stones at the kingfisher on the top of a telegraph pole, he pushed Jack from the platform, ordered him to bed, and began to tickle the mule with the long lash. Little Jack declared that he was not sleepy. “I’m boss o’ th’ day shif’, Mr. Jack,” said Tommy, “an’ my talk goes,--you’re th’ night hawk,--sabe?” Jack went reluctantly to the bed that had been fixed for the other boy, but had not been used, and Tommy continued to larrup the mule and watch the marker crawl down the figure-board as the water crept toward the top of the tank. At the end of an hour little Jack came from the shanty, declaring that he was not sleepy.