took hold of the wheel, and held it firmly, at the same time calling:

"Quick, Joe!"

The big fireman appeared, and his single eye looked from the face of the boy to that of Croly.

"Did'st thee want me, lad?" he asked, in his gruff tones.

"I want you to take this fellow away from the engine before we're all blown out of the building to pay for his carelessness," Larry answered.

Cuttle's one eye glared upon Steve Croly, and the latter retreated, with a look of grim defiance.

"He's away from the engine, lad," said Joe; "and, noo, what else would'st have me do wi' him? A'll frowd him oot, if thou'd give the wud."

"If he will go out without help, all right; if not, you may boost him a little, if you wish to, Joe," said Larry, who had resolved to get rid of the dangerous loiterer, this time for good, if possible.

"Git owd wi' thee!" ordered the big fireman, making a sudden and furious feint of seizing the intruder.

This was more than Steve Croly had bargained for. It was very well to come in and attempt to defy a boy, of whom he was envious, but quite another thing to face the powerful fireman, whose bare, brown arms and single gleaming eye lent him a most formidable aspect.

And so, without waiting to see how Larry went to work to set the great engine in motion, Steve hurried down the steps and across the boiler-room, not even looking back while he heard the fireman's heavy boots clumping along the stone floor.

Joe did not attempt to follow the other outside. He turned back, with a grimace which was intended for a smile, but which made his face look uglier than ever; and a moment after the whistle sent forth its final roar, which was the signal for every man and boy in the vast works to be in his place and to begin work.

Then, with the same silent mirth distorting his features, the fireman thrust his head into the engine-room and said:

"He tho't he'd go, lad; and A doon't think he'll coom back in a hurry."

Larry had started the great engine, and the silent, powerful strokes told him that his father had left it in its accustomed perfect order.

The young engineer was still agitated from his encounter with Croly, and he well knew that this was not likely to be the end of it; but he could not help but smile in response to Joe Cuttle's evident enjoyment of the affair.

"He didn't fancy having you put your grip onto him," said Larry, for the big fireman relished a bit of flattery as well as any one.

"Hi, but didn't he shuffle oot, though, when he heard me after him! A thought ee'd jump oot his shoes the way he went."

"He won't be likely to come here again, unless he is certain you are out of the way."

"Mayhap he'll bother thee again, though, when A's gone home. Thou'lt do well to keep an eye on him."

"I shall take care that he doesn't get in here again, and then I won't have to be to the trouble to put him out."

Joe Cuttle indulged in another of his silent fits of laughter and then returned to his furnaces, which he had to feed pretty constantly while the great engine was using the steam.

The forenoon passed without further incident, and Larry was somewhat relieved that he had not yet seen the superintendent.

He feared that the latter might ask some questions about his father's absence which it would be embarrassing not to answer.

"Perhaps mother will tell me something about it when I get home," was his thought, as he hurried along the narrow street which led to his dwelling.

But again he was disappointed. His dinner was ready when he came in, but Mrs. Kendall only sat at the table in silence and attended to his wants.

Larry felt as though he could not restrain the growing feeling of apprehension caused by his mother's looks and strange reticence. They were so unlike her usual cheerfulness when he came home from school or the shop, and he could see that she had grown yet paler than when he left her at the breakfast table in the morning.

He had only a few minutes before he must return to the shop. Yet he lingered at the door, cap in hand.

"Mother, what is it?" he pleaded, as she glanced toward him.

"Don't ask me now, Larry," she answered.

Yet there was an irresolute quiver in her voice that told him that she longed to give him her confidence.

"I ought to know," he persisted. "I'm old enough to run the engine at the works. Surely you and father ought to trust me to know what troubles you. Father has gone?"

"Yes, Larry."

"When is he coming back?"

"I don't know. He doesn't know himself. But I hope it will not be long before we see him again."

"The superintendent will ask me about it, and I don't like to act as if my folks didn't trust me. If you can't trust me, he won't wish to."

"Your father told you what to answer if you are questioned."

"Mr. Gardner may be satisfied with that for a day or two, but if he stays away longer than that—"

"Well, well!" Mrs. Kendall interrupted, so impatiently that Larry was silenced. "If he stays more than a day or two, and they want to know more about it we'll see what can be done. Now hurry along, dear, and don't worry."

She reached up her lips and kissed him—for he was much the taller—and then he hurried back to the shop with a heavy heart.

As he entered the yard, he noticed a knot of the workmen near the entrance, holding what appeared to be a very secret conference.

CHAPTER III.

LARRY IN A QUANDARY.

What lent the air of secrecy to the conference of the workmen was the fact that they suddenly dispersed with significant winks and nods as Larry approached.

Another suspicious circumstance was the fact that all, or nearly all, were hands who had been employed in the works only a few months.

Early in the previous spring fifty or sixty of the Tioga Iron Company's hands had gone out on a strike, and were promptly discharged, and a new gang that appeared in town rather opportunely, as it seemed, were hired to take their places.

The most of those who were talking together so secretly were members of this gang; and quite prominent among them was Steve Croly.

Joe Cuttle was firing up, the red glare from the glowing furnaces lighting up his homely face.

"What were those men talking about out by the entrance just now?" Larry asked, as Joe looked up.

"What men, lad?"

And the single eye was expressionless as it met the questioning glance of the young engineer.

"Steve Croly was one; most of them were the new hands."

"He might be telling of them how he coom oot of here when A toald him to goo," said the fireman, with his hideous grin.

"Not very likely, Joe," Larry replied, as he passed on into the engine-room.

The boy was troubled and mystified now from a new cause.

Joe Cuttle was one of the new men, and, although he had been uniformly faithful, Larry was sure that he was standing in the doorway of the fire-room when he first came inside the gates, and that Joe must have seen those who were only a few yards distant conversing so mysteriously.

If he saw them, why did he try to evade the fact?

It was this more than any other circumstance that made Larry uneasy. He did not think the difficulty bore any relation to his encounter with Steve Croly in the morning, for of course Joe would not try to withhold any knowledge of that affair.

Not until late in the afternoon did the superintendent visit the engine-room.

He was a short, brisk man, with small, alert eyes that had a faculty of seeing more in one minute than most men could take in in half an hour. His face was dark almost to swarthiness and his cheeks and chin were smoothly shaven.

He popped his head into the engine-room and called out:

"Hi, there, Kendall! What's the word to-day? Eh, so it's the boy! Well, come here."

Larry came forward promptly; he knew this brisk gentleman liked him, and, but for the mysterious trouble at home, he