Bill Higgins, the engineer, always claimed it was because the agent at Roxabel had held him up for an hour waiting for a box-car to be loaded. The car was for a friend of the agent’s, Bill explained, or he never would have held the train. It wasn’t perishable goods, either—just some household stuff, which the friend was having moved in from Roxabel to Loveland. Jim Burns, the conductor, said it was the heat—a really remarkable and enervating heat for October, presaging a great storm brewing somewhere. What the fireman said and the brakemen is immaterial, because when their superiors went to sleep, it was to be expected that they would do likewise. All of which came out when Train Master Plumfield had them “on the carpet” for the investigation which followed. What happened was really this: Local freight west had started out from Wadsworth early in the morning, to make the trip in to Cincinnati, picking up such cars as were waiting for it along the way, and delivering others to the several stations. The day was hot—there was no question of that—and the work was heavy, for there was an unusual number of cars to deliver and pick up. Besides which, came the delay at Roxabel, where the agent _did_ hold the train for a while, until the work of loading a car could be finished. The agent swore, however, that the delay on this account did not amount to more than fifteen minutes. At Lyndon, came an order for the freight to proceed to the gravel-pit siding east of Greenfield, and run in there and await the passage of a special. “Don’t say how long we’ll have to wait,” said Burns, as he and the engineer compared notes. “Jest wait—time ain’t no object to nobody. We’ll be mighty lucky if we get into Cincinnati before midnight.” “Them dispatchers don’t know their business, an’ never did!” protested Higgins, wiping the perspiration from his red face. “It’s an outrage to keep a train on the road the way they’re keepin’ us. The government ort t’ hear about it.” “It sure ort,” agreed the conductor. “Well, I guess we’re ready,” and as the train rattled slowly out of the siding, he swung himself aboard the caboose, looked back to see that a yard-man closed the switch, and then, having made up his report as far as he could, calmly laid himself down in a berth and went to sleep. The train rumbled on under the hot sun. The engineer, looking ahead, could see the waves of heat rising from the rails and the pitch oozing from the ties. Beside him, the fire beneath the boiler spat and roared; the sun beat down upon the great locomotive, until Higgins almost fancied it was turning red-hot before his eyes. The fireman, stripped to the waist, swung the fire-box door open and shut as he ladled in the coal, stopping now and then to dash the sweat from before his eyes or to spray himself with water from the tank. For they were travelling with the wind, not against it, and so lost the effect of any cooling breeze.