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 would have rather seen him than not.

“Your father under the weather to-day, Larry?” was his first question, while his quick eye noted that the polished floor of the engine-room had been freshly washed and that the engine itself was doing its ponderous work with its accustomed silence.  Even his ear would have detected a wrong note in the click and whir of the mechanism, though he would not have known how to repair the difficulty.

“No,” said Larry, in his slow manner.  “Father was called away this morning.  I don’t think he had time to send you any notice.”

“So he sent you, which is the next best thing.”

“Yes, sir, thank you.”

“I didn’t know but he was here till I just looked in.  So it appears that you have kept the machinery running.  By-the-way,” and Mr. Gardner stepped up the ascent from the boiler-room and closed the door between, “does that one-eyed Joe stick to his post?”

The superintendent pursed his lips half humorously as he asked the question, but Larry felt sure that there was a serious purpose behind his words.

“Yes, sir.  He was here before I was this morning.”

“And does he mind your orders just the same as he does when your father is here?”

“He has so far, sir.”

“That is right.  Only you know some men don’t fancy having a boy put in as boss over them; and he is one of the new hands, and I didn’t know but he was cranky.  Some of them are.”

Mr. Gardner pursed his smooth-shaven lips again and was gone.

The moment the door closed after him, Larry wished he had told him of the strange actions of the group of new hands whom he had seen outside the entrance that noon.

“But he may know more about it than I do.  His eyes see about all there is to see,” the boy reasoned.

And he gave the matter scarce another thought until the great whistle delivered its parting roar that night.

Although the six o’clock whistle was the signal for stopping the machinery and for the workmen to go to their homes, the engineer had to stay half an hour longer to see that the engine and boilers were left in proper shape for the night; then, when the night watchman came at half-past six, Larry could go home.