only one good eye. Over the other he always wore a green patch.

"Hi, my lad, is thy feyther sick?" was Joe Cuttle's salutation as Larry unlocked the door, and they went into the long boiler-room.

"No, sir," was the reply, remembering his father's wish that he say, nothing about the matter except to the superintendent.

"I'm a little late," he continued, as he glanced at the steam gauges; "so you will have to put on the draught and get up steam fast as you can."

"All right, Larry. I was waiting for thee this ten minutes," said Cuttle.

He clanged his shovel on the hard stone floor and rattled the furnace doors, while Larry tried the steam-cocks and then let the water into the glass gauges, as he had done many times before.

Then he unlocked the door into the engine-room and left Joe to shovel in the coal and regulate the draughts.

The engine—or engines, for there were two of the same power whose pistons turned the same great fly-wheel—glistened a welcome to Larry, and it seemed to him that they looked brighter even than usual upon this clear September morning.

He began wiping them off with a handful of cotton waste, adding, if possible, to the polished brightness of the powerful arms and cylinders; but, before he had finished the work, a gruff voice caused him to look up.

"You, is it?" the voice questioned.

The speaker was a young man of twenty-three, who was employed in the works. Larry had seen him a great many times, for he was always loitering about in the boiler and engine rooms when his father was away.

This was contrary to rules, yet Larry, being so much younger, disliked to order the young man out. But as he saw him standing in the doorway, then it occurred to him that, if his father was to be absent several days, it might be better to put a stop to intrusion at once.

"Yes, I'm on duty," Larry answered, resuming his work.

Steve Croly coolly ascended the two or three steps to the floor of the engine-room, and, picking up a piece of waste, began to rub the polished cylinder-head which was nearest.

Larry saw that the rag which Croly was using was making streaks on the polished surface.

"See what you're doing, Steve!" he cried, pointing at the oily smutch.

"Why don't you have some clean waste round here, then?" Croly retorted. "When I used to run an engine, I had something to clean it with, instead of using waste after it was soaked full of oil."

"You're not running this engine," said Larry, quietly.

His heart was heating fast; so he was silent a moment before he spoke again, as he did not wish to speak in an angry tone.

"I think I could manage it about as well as any boy of your age," said Croly. "It's mighty foolish to trust such an engine as this to a boy. I heard some of the men talking about it with the super the last time your old man was off, and I fancy he don't like it very well."

"Perhaps you heard them say something about giving you the job," Larry responded, with a faint smile.

"It would look more sensible if they did," replied Croly, who had too much self-conceit to see the point of a joke that was aimed at him.

"Still," Larry answered, with more dignity, "since I am allowed to run the engine, I shall have to ask you to obey the rules against coming in here, after this."

"You mean that I can't come in to see the engine?"

"Not without leave. My father wouldn't let you, and you know it. Hereafter I wish you to keep out when I'm in charge."

Steve Croly's cheeks flushed with anger.

At that moment the hoarse roar of the whistle shook the air, telling everybody in the busy town that it was time to go to work.

It was not yet time to start the engine, but Croly sprang to the valve-gear to let on the steam.

CHAPTER II.

THE ONE-EYED FIREMAN.

Larry divined the young man's purpose, and he needed no better evidence that Steve Croly knew very little about an engine than this thoughtless act.

The youth reached the valve-gear at the same time, and the hands of both grasped the wheel.

"What are you going to do?" cried Larry, holding on with all his strength, for the other was trying to turn the wheel.

"I'm going to start the engine. Didn't you hear the whistle? What are you waiting for?" snapped Croly.

"That was the quarter-whistle; it isn't time to start up yet. And if it was, you would blow out a couple of cylinder-heads for me by letting on the steam in that style!"

Larry's face was pale, partly because he thought that the other would have succeeded in doing the mischief in spite of him. But the determined face of the boy, coupled with his words, made Croly pause, although he still allowed his hand to rest on the valve-gear of the great engine.

"You think I don't know enough to start this machine, I suppose," he said.

"I think if you did know, you wouldn't try to blow out the cylinder-heads to start with," Larry rejoined.

"You're trying to bluff me now, but you ain't quite old enough to do it. Just wait till the five-minute whistle blows, and see if I can't start the machine. I know enough to know that if you let the steam into the cylinder, she's got to start."

"Something would start, that's certain," said Larry, drily. "But," he continued, "I don't think you will let the steam on this time. Now, let go!"

"You're a pretty heavy man to put in as boss of this plant," replied Steve.

He let go of the valve-wheel, but did not step back. Larry divined that the fellow intended to wait until he was momentarily away from the gear, and then persist in his attempt to start the engine.

"I told you to go out," he said, pointing at the door.

"I'm going after the engine is started, and not before," persisted Croly.

"You know you have no right in this part of the works. They wouldn't have me loafing in your department, and you must keep out of this!"

"I don't try to send anybody away from my department."

"You would if you had charge of it. In yours there is a foreman and fifty or sixty men; in this there is only the fireman, under the engineer, but the engineer is just as much a foreman as the boss of your department is there."

"You're a boy," sneered Croly, "and when the Tioga Iron Works has boys put in as bosses, they'll have to turn off the men and run the whole business with boys. That's all there is to it."

"Would you come here if my father was in charge?"

"It isn't likely I should."

"Then you admit that you have no right here?"

Croly was silent. It was plain enough to Larry what the matter was with the young man. The truth was he had at some time been temporarily in charge of a small portable or "donkey" engine, such as are used for hoisting purposes in stone quarries and in other out-of-door work, and he was incapable of recognizing the difference between the simple construction of such a machine and the complicated work in the great motive-power of the Tioga Iron Works.

Larry was a slow-spoken boy, and correspondingly slow in making a decision. But when his mind was really made up, he was equally slow to change it.

He looked at the clock, and then at his own watch. In one minute the next whistle would blow, and then the engine must be started.

The door leading to the boiler-room had been left open by Croly, and it had glass panels, through which Joe Cuttle could be seen hard at work, feeding the hungry furnaces.

Larry dared not wait another moment. He stepped quickly to the door and called out:

"Joe, come here a moment!"

"Yes, my lad."

The furnace door closed with a clang. The fireman paused to pull at an iron rod that was suspended against the wall, and the short, quick roar of the five-minute whistle sounded.

Larry had wheeled about the instant he saw Joe start in obedience to his call, and he was in time to see Croly again in the act of seizing the valve-gear.

Without an instant's hesitation, he