"What's the matter?" he inquired, at length. "Got a hole in the fire-box?" "No; why?" asked Pinkey, pausing between two shovelfuls. "Somebody buried back there, an' you're tryin' to dig him out?" pursued the engineer, with a gesture toward the pile of coal in the tender. "What you talkin' about, anyway?" demanded Pinkey, staring at him in amazement. "Say, Jim," said the engineer to the brakeman, "take that scoop away from that idiot, will ye? Pinkey, git up there on your box an' set down or I'll report ye fer wastin' th' company's fuel." "She won't steam without coal," protested Pinkey. "No; nor she won't steam with a bellyful like that, either," retorted the engineer, throwing on the draft. "Now I've got t' blow about half of it out the smoke-stack." He watched grimly as the black smoke swirled upward from the stack and blew away to the left toward a little farmhouse. "That feller'll think he's livin' in Pittsburg," remarked the brakeman, as the smoke closed down over the house and shut it from view for an instant. Michaels snorted with laughter. Then he opened the injector again--and again the steam spurted out into the cab. Without waiting for an order, Pinkey bent and opened the tank-cock. A thin little trickle told that the water in the tank was almost exhausted. "Great Jehoshaphat!" cried Michaels, and stared in perplexity at the brakeman. "Th' tank's sprung a leak," he said, at last, with conviction. "I ain't pumped a hundred gallon into her since we left Little Hocking." "They ain't no leak," asserted Pinkey. "I went all around th' tank, an' it ain't leakin' a drop. I don't believe it'll carry us further 'n Coolville," he added, triumphantly. Michaels turned back to his engine without trusting himself to reply; but it was only by the most careful nursing that those six miles were covered and the water-plug at Coolville reached. There the engineer made a personal inspection of the tank while Pinkey filled it, and he found, as the fireman had said, that it was perfectly tight. Allan, who was as deeply puzzled as any one, also examined the tank, and with the same result. The conductor sauntered forward while the tank was being filled, and watched the operation with considerable curiosity. "Say," he asked, at last, "what 're you fellers up to, anyway? Tryin' t' create a water famine?" "Oh, go back to your dog-house an' go to sleep," retorted Michaels, whose temper was beginning to give way under the strain. "I can't sleep more'n eight hours at a stretch. Think we'll be to Athens by then?" The engineer picked up a lump of coal, and the conductor hastily retreated. "Say," he sung out over his shoulder, "don't fergit there's a pen-stock at Stewart. Don't pass it--it might feel slighted," and he dodged the lump of coal, as it whizzed past his head. "Blamed fool!" muttered Michaels, and settled into his seat.