CHAPTER XXX.

MERRIWELL’S GENEROSITY.

The conductor was astounded. He stared at the tied and bleeding engineer, and then at Merry, who was at the throttle. Then he clambered down over the coal in the tender, crying:

“Well, what in thunder has happened here?”

Old Joe groaned and opened his eyes.

“I’ll kill him!” he muttered, thickly.

“I’ve had a fight with Hicks,” said Frank.

“A fight? What about?”

“He jumped on me and tried to beat my brains out with a wrench.”

“I’ll kill him!” grated the engineer again.

“This beats all!” said the conductor, faintly. “He didn’t seem to succeed very well.”

“He came near succeeding. I thought he would one spell.”

“Well, this is a fine scrape. This is Joe’s engine, and he’ll have to take the train through.”

“He isn’t able to take the train through now.”

“What can we do?”

“Send me a brakeman who can fire, and I’ll take her through.”

“You?”

“Yes.”

“You’re no engineer.”

“I am engineer enough to do that trick.”

“Well, I’ll send you a man, and we’ll wait for instructions at the next station. If this don’t beat thunder!”

As the conductor scrambled back over the tender, Frank flung open the firebox door and put the coal to her. During the struggle the fire had not been tended, of course, and the steam was beginning to show the effect of it.

In a few minutes one of the brakemen came forward, and he fired her to the next station, where the conductor held up and telegraphed for instructions.

By this time old Joe was begging to be released.

“Look here, Merriwell,” he said, “you’re goin’ to do me out of my job, and I can’t afford to lose the place.”

“It’s not my fault,” said Frank. “You will be fortunate if you get off by simply losing your job.”

“Now, ye don’t mean to push me, do ye?” whined the thoroughly subjugated man. “You wouldn’t do that?”

“Why not?”

“That would be tough! It can’t be you’d do it.”

“You deserve it. You tried to kill me.”

“Mebbe I did for a minute,” confessed the engineer; “but I was crazy mad, and I didn’t know what I was doin’. I’ve had a heap of trouble lately, and it’s broke me all up. You don’t want to ruin me entirely, do ye?”

“I do not want to ruin anyone. You brought it on yourself.”

Old Joe had managed to sit up in an awkward position, and he raised his eyes to Frank appealingly. He was a pitiful-looking object, with his begrimed, blood-stained face. Frank could not help feeling sorry for the man.

“I kept my word when I promised you I wouldn’t trouble Jack and Nell,” said the engineer; “and I never bothered you no more till you forced yourself onter me.”

“I did not force myself onto you. I was placed here by the manager. I simply did what I was told to do.”

“I know that’s right; but I didn’t like ye, and I had taken some drinks to stiddy my nerves this morning. The stuff got inter my head.”

“It’s a wonder the stuff has not lost you your job before this.”

“You hadn’t oughter talked to me the way ye did.”

“I told you the truth. You were trying to knock me on the first trip, and you know it. I have not kept eyes and ears open since taking this work without finding out something. I have listened to the talk in the roundhouse, and I know that an engineer can knock out the best fireman who ever swung a shovel.”

Old Joe was silent, and his face showed that Frank had hit upon the truth.

“You were not cutting off short,” Frank went on, “and you were running your pump wrong, besides having her hooked up different from usual. If we had lost time, I should have been blamed for it, and it is likely I should have been taken off. That was what you were counting on.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” admitted old Joe; “but you got the best of me, and it’s no use to kick a man when he’s down.”

The old engineer was pitiful in his humbleness, and Frank began to feel some misgivings about pushing him further, for he realized that it meant the utter ruin of the man.

Watching Merry’s face, old Joe fancied he saw a gleam of hope.

“What can I do now?” Frank asked. “It is too late, for the conductor has dispatched for instructions.”

“Perhaps it ain’t too late,” eagerly said the engineer, “if another dispatch is sent that I am all right. Perhaps you can fix it. I can take the train through, if I have a chance. Won’t you do that for me, Merriwell? Think--think what it means to me!”

Frank swung down from the engine and went after the conductor.

“I wish to speak with you a moment, Mr. Evans,” he said, when he found the conductor in the little office of the station.

He drew the man aside, and said:

“Old Joe has come round, and seems to be all right now. He is begging for a chance to take the train through.”

“What?”

The conductor was amazed.

“That’s right,” nodded Frank.

“Well, the jig is up with him. The old man won’t have a crazy engineer running things.”

“What did you wire?”

“That Hicks was knocked out, and somebody must take the train through.”

“You did not give particulars?”

“Couldn’t.”

“Then, as yet, but ourselves and the train hands know there was a fight between us.”

“And the dispatcher here.”

“Well, you might send another message that Hicks had recovered and was able to take the train through. This is a freight, and perhaps the old man will let him go on with it, as there is no other regular engineer to take it.”

Evans stared at Frank in astonishment.

“You are the queerest chap I ever struck,” he exclaimed.

“Why?”

“Most fellows in your place would be ready to hang Hicks.”

“Perhaps so; but I feel as if he were hanging over a chasm, and I might save him or push him down. If I do not give him a hand, my conscience will trouble me.”

“If you do, the chances are about ten to one that it will put you in a bad scrape.”

“How?”

“It won’t be much trouble for him to make out that you were in the wrong, and he’ll do it, too.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“I do.”

“I think he will be so glad to get out of the scrape that he won’t try anything dirty. He says he will take the train through, and run it right. He will not dare tackle me again, and I shall watch him.”

“But the old man will have to let you take us through if old Joe doesn’t. Saunders can fire for you, and it will give you a great chance to show what you can do. It will be a direct step upward for you.”

“Over the body of another man?”

“That’s the way men get on in this world, my boy.”

“It seems to be; but I do not feel like climbing the ladder by pushing others down.”

“Well, just as you say. If you are for giving old Joe such a chance, I don’t kick. I’ll dispatch that he is all right now and able to take the train through.”

“Do it.”

Evans did so, and in a short time received an answer: “All right; go ahead.”

That settled it. Frank went back to the engine in a hurry, and said:

“I have fixed it.”

“How?” asked Hicks, eagerly.

For answer Frank set him free.

“I ask no promises of you,” he said; “but Evans and the train men know what has happened. If you try to knock me with the general manager, they will have something to say.”

“Oh, I won’t try any knocking. I promise that. You are usin’ me better than I deserve, and I appreciate it. I won’t fergit it--I won’t fergit it!”