mile-posts his emotion grew. He felt that the President was watching him
closely, and he coaxed the steel thing into terrific speed. The cab grew
hotter and hotter. Jim loosened his grip on the seat long enough to
unbutton his collar and to twist his handkerchief around his neck. The
fireman was dripping, but Jawn sat immovable as marble. They whirled past
little stations with a sudden roar. At Brushingham a passenger train lay
on the siding. There was a mottled flash of yellow, then they were by, and
for an instant Jawn smiled. He hadn't passed Jack Martin like that for
years.

Then they struck the hills. Up with a snort, over with a groan, and down
with a rumble and slide, they flew. Here Jawn's eyes shifted to the water
gauge. Jim locked one arm around the window post, and sat with eyes fixed
on his watch. The minute hand crept around to eleven, passed it, and on to
five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. At thirty-five clusters of
cottages began to shoot by. Jawn's arm began to straighten--the roar
diminished a trifle. Thirty-seven they passed rows of coal-laden flat
cars; thirty-nine, they slackened through a tangle of tracks; forty-one,
the big engine rolled under the train shed and stopped in a cloud of
steam.

Jim stepped down and stretched himself. The fireman had staggered back
into the tender, and lay in a heap, fanning himself with his cap. Jawn
took a final glance at the water gauge, then he swung around and removed
his cold pipe.

"Mr. Weeks," he said gruffly, "I brung ye a hundred and three mile in
eighty-one minutes. There ain't another man on the line could 'a' done it.
I reckon that's why there's nothing for me but a switch engine." Without
waiting for a reply he seized an oil-can and swung out of the cab. Jim