There was a block system as far as Loveland, but beyond that, they had to trust to the observance of orders issued from division headquarters. On and on sped the train, the speed creeping up to sixty-five miles an hour, and once to seventy-four on a long down-grade. The whistle seemed to shriek its warning almost continuously; stations seemed to crumble to pieces with a crash as the train leaped past them; farm houses fluttered by or wheeled in stately procession across the landscape. And always Michaels sat, his hand on the throttle, his eyes on the track ahead, swaying to the motion of the engine, as a rider sways to his steed; only moving from time to time to glance at his watch or at the steam and water gauge, to blow the whistle and open the injector which shot the water from the tank to the boiler of the engine. The track ahead seemed to be rushing toward them only to be swallowed up; the nearer landscape was merely a gray blur; the telegraph poles flashed by “like the teeth of a fine-tooth comb,” as the fireman remarked; and always there was the roar of the great machine, the crash and rumble as the engine hurled itself along the rails. It was a marvel that it kept them, or seemed so—a marvel that it did not hurtle away cross-country at its own sweet will. At New Vienna they paused for water. Michaels, with the skill of a magician, brought his engine to a stop with the tank-opening exactly underneath the penstock beside the track. The fireman lowered it with a clang and the water rushed and foamed down into the almost empty tank. Then, as the penstock swung up into place, Michaels opened the throttle and they were off again. Allan, glancing across at the engineer, saw how the sweat was pouring down his face; how his face had aged and lined under the strain; how the lips had tightened. It was a hot day, unusually hot for so late in the year, and the atmosphere was close with threatened storm—but it was not the heat alone which brought out the sweat upon the engineer, nor the discomfort which lined and aged his face. Yet he sat erect as ever, his eyes glancing from the track ahead to the gauges, and back again. Once he stooped from his seat to shout a warning word to the fireman, when the needle for an instant dropped a notch. Allan, glancing back, saw that the rear car was lost in a whirl of dust. It seemed as insignificant as a tail—a mere appendage to be whipped hither and thither as the engine willed. He had ridden in cabs before—many times—but never under such conditions as these. He knew the track—he knew the rattle of every target as they flashed past it, the roar of every bridge as they rushed through it; and suddenly he remembered the sharp curve just beyond Greenfield, and wondered if Michaels would slow up for it.