Page:The Days Work (1899).djvu/271

 with the engineer, for he heard a shuffling of feet among the coal, and the snatch of a song, something like this:

"Say! Eustis knew what he was doin' when he designed this rig. She 's a hummer. New, too."

"Snff! Phew! She is new. That ain't paint. That 's—"

A burning pain shot through .007's right rear driver—a crippling, stinging pain.

"This," said .007, as he flew, "is a hot-box. Now I know what it means. I shall go to pieces, I guess. My first road-run, too!"

"Het a bit, ain't she?" the fireman ventured to suggest to the engineer.

"She 'll hold for all we want of her. We 're 'most there. Guess you chaps back had better climb into your car," said the engineer, his hand on the brake lever. "I've seen men snapped off—"

But the crew fled back with laughter. They had no wish to be jerked on to the track. The engineer half turned his wrist, and .007 found his drivers pinned firm.

"Now it 's come!" said .007, as he yelled aloud, and slid like a sleigh. For the moment he fancied that he would jerk bodily from off his underpinning.

"That must be the emergency-stop that Poney guyed me about," he gasped, as soon as he could think. "