The Donovan Chance by Francis Lynde

"Doesn't it beat the everlasting band how little sense some folks have?"

Dick and Larry, in much-worn corduroys and lace-boots, and each with a furled red signal flag under his arm, were tramping down the construction track of the Little Ophir Extension. On their right the brawling torrent of the Tourmaline swirled over and among its boulders, and across the canyon, and half-way up its steep acclivity, ran the partly completed grade of the Overland Central.

"Just let it soak in," Dick went on wrathfully. "Right here in the middle of the fight with the O. C., when every hour may be worth a thousand dollars to our company, we've got to stop dead and entertain a bunch of Big Money from New York! It makes me sick!"

"Sick is right," Larry agreed; and his wrath, if not so teeth-gnashing, as you might say, as that of the general manager's son, was no less hostile to the intrusions of Big Money――in fact, since he was the son of a workingman, it was rather more hostile than less. But of that, more in its place.

"Somebody ought to have stopped 'em," Dick went on. "If I'd been in the chief's place, I'd have dumped a few material cars over the right-of-way down in the valley so they couldn't get by with their old special."

"I guess it couldn't be helped," Larry grumbled. "I'll bet your father said and did everything he could to keep this junketing party from butting in on us; and now, as long as they're coming, we've got to make the best of it. I only hope there aren't any women along. That _would_ be the limit!"

There was reason for all this impatient faultfinding. Early that morning a wire had come notifying the chief of construction that a special train, bearing Vice-President Holcombe, a committee of directors, and a number of guests, was coming over the uncompleted Extension, and immediately the two juniors of the engineering staff, Dick and Larry, had been sent afoot down the canyon to post themselves at the two points where there was the most danger from the Overland Central's blasting and the flying rocks.

One of these danger points was just at hand, and Larry volunteered to drop out and stand guard over it.

"You'll have time to make the big rock cutting at the Cascades," he told his fellow flagman; and accordingly, Dickie Maxwell resumed his tramp alone.

By this time the special train, consisting of a big, heavy "Pacific-type" passenger engine, a dining-car and a Pullman combination sleeping and observation car, was well on its way up the canyon, rolling and lurching around the curves, and behaving itself, on the rough, unsurfaced track, much like a cranky ship in a seaway. On the fireman's box in the high locomotive cab an audaciously pretty girl of fourteen or fifteen――a girl with resolute brown eyes and lips that could "register" anything from a jolly laugh to the scornful poutings of a spoiled only daughter――clung desperately to the window sill to keep from being dumped into the fireman's shovel in the bumpings and lurchings.

This girl was the daughter of the vice-president of the Nevada Short Line, and she had insisted upon having a ride on the engine when the train had halted at the canyon-portal water tank. Since the vice-president himself had made the request, Bart Johnson, the grizzled engineer of the 1016, could only grin sourly and say, "Why, sure, Mr. Holcombe! " and wipe his hands on a piece of waste so that he could help Miss Daughter up the high steps.

For some miles of the rocketing race up the canyon the pretty passenger had nothing to do but to hang on and make believe that she was enjoying the scenery. But as the train was rounding one of the jutting mountain spurs just below a place where the river tumbled in a series of cascades from bench to bench in its bed a thing happened; several of them, in fact.

First, there was a burst of yellowish dust from a point up ahead on the opposite canyon side, followed by an upspouting of big and little rocks and a jarring thunder crash. Next, a boy with a red flag bobbed up on the track; and the girl, being a girl, shrieked and clutched for fresh handholds when the air-brakes were suddenly clamped on and a stop was made.

A minute later the flag boy had climbed to the cab. His business was with Bart Johnson, the grizzled engineer, and he despatched it briefly.

"Better back down a few car-lengths," he advised. "There'll be more of the blasting pretty soon, and you can't run by until it's over; likely to get a rock on top of you if you try it. " Then, as the train began to move back out of the danger zone, he wheeled upon the girl perched upon the fireman's seat. "Now, then," he said, scowling at her, "I'd like to know what _you're_ doing up here on this engine, Bess Holcombe!"

"I guess I've got a right to be here, if I want to, Dick Maxwell! " was the pert reply. "_You_ don't own this engine."

"No; if I did, you'd hike back into the train, mighty quick――only you haven't any business being there, either."

"My-oh! " scoffed the pretty one, looking him up and down. "How we engineers do pile on the nice, large dignities, don't we? I'm here because Daddy said I might. Now what have you got to say?"

"Oh, nothing, I suppose. But, just the same, this is no place for a girl――in this canyon, I mean."

"Why isn't it?"