What could Allan say, with a heart too full for utterance? He reached out his hands blindly, and the other, understanding, clasped them in his strong, steady ones.
And that was how it came about that Allan got the place in the offices which he had longed for, under the eye of the best train-master in the West, where, as he had promised, there was more railroading to be learned in a month than in a lifetime of section work. He became a part of the brain which ruled and directed the whole wonderful system. He came to know what the instruments ticking madly away on every table were saying. He proved himself worthy of the trust reposed in him, and on two critical occasions, at least, he displayed a nerve and quickness of judgment which caused the general manager to ask the train-master:
“Who is this fellow named West you’ve got down there in your office, Schofield? He seems a good one.”
“He is a good one,” Mr. Schofield had responded, earnestly. “You’ll hear from him again.”
How the prophecy came true and what adventures befell Allan in his new position will be told in “The Young Train-despatcher”; but, whatever his successes, I doubt if he ever knew happier days than those he spent with Reddy and Jack Welsh on Section Twenty-one.
THE END.
BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
THE LITTLE COLONEL BOOKS