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puttering away at the lubricator. By the light
It wasn’t any use to look for such things in the oil-house;
it was up to me to pinch the stuff from some of the other scrap-heaps present.
Just the same,
 

      “You don’t?” says I. “Well, as how those happen to be mine and I stowed ’em in here, perhaps, it ain’t exactly customary for the fire-boy to tote the glims up in this moss-covered, tumbled-down, backwoods burg. Just the same, I’m going to take those lanterns along with me,” I informs him as I climbs over the counter, takes ’em, and climbs back.
      By this time it was close to nine o’clock. I spends another five minutes stumbling around a poorly lighted rubbish-strewn roundhouse looking for the old hog.
      When I found her and piled myself and baggage aboard the Eagle Eye was puttering away at the lubricator. By the light of his torch I saw he was looking as sweet as a tub of new pickles.
      “How are yer?” says I.
      He responds with a silence that was eloquent.
      I lit the gauge-lights and lanterns and was just looking over my equipment, when the Eagle Eye opens up with: “Boy, you’ll probably be able to do more if you get a hook and scoop — and don’t be all night about it, either, for I’m going to get out of here in about two minutes.”
      “What a nice, sociable old square-head,” says I to myself as I clumbs down and starts a still hunt.
      It wasn’t any use to look for such things in the oil-house; so it was up to me to pinch the stuff from some of the other scrap-heaps present.

ex Charles W. Tyler, “The Mutiny On X-2329” in Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen’s Magazine (“Published Semi-Monthly by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen”) 62:2 (Chicago, Ill.; January 15, 1917) : 12-14 (12)
U Texas copy/scan (via google books) : link

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Charles W. Tyler (1887-1952), prolific writer of his time
Mystery File / Pulp Author Charles W. Tyler, by Victor A. Berch : link
 

6 August 2025