Page:Ralph on the Railroad.djvu/1004

180 from pouring out a great cascade of ashes as if shot from a cannon, taking the astounded and appalled Montague squarely down his front.

"Murder!" he yelled, and grasped his head in his hands to brush away the hot ashes that were searing his face.

As he did so he became a new personality. His mustache was brushed from his lip and fell to the bottom of the cab, while its former possessor made a mad dive to one side.

"Here, you chump!" cried Fogg; "do you want to kill yourself?" and grabbing the singed and frightened passenger, he pinned him against the coal and held him there. In doing this he brushed one whisker from the side of his captive's face, and the latter lay panting and groaning with nearly all his fictitious make-up gone and quite all of his nerve collapsed.

"What's happened?" asked Ralph, as they slowed down.

"It felt like a powder blast," declared Fogg.

Archie Graham had uttered a cry of dismay—of discovery, too, it seemed to Ralph. The young engineer glanced at his friend perched on the top of the tender tank. The face of the young inventor was a study.

Archie acted less like a person startled than as one surprised. He appeared to be neither shocked