ILLUSTRATIONS
- [“Caught the child from under the very wheels of the engine”]
- [“Near at hand it was even more terrifying than at a distance”]
- [“He struck suddenly and viciously at the boy’s face”]
- [“Snatched the little one into the air just as the engine bore down upon it”]
- [“Just in time to escape a large boulder”]
- [“He stepped to one side, and ... brought down his club upon the other’s head”]
THE YOUNG SECTION-HAND
CHAPTER I.
THE BOTTOM ROUND
“Excuse me, sir, but do you need a man?”
Jack Welsh, foreman of Section Twenty-one, on the Ohio division of the P. & O., turned sharply around at sound of the voice and inspected the speaker for a moment.
“A man, yes,” he said, at last. “But not a boy. This ain’t boy’s work.”
And he bent over again to sight along the rail and make sure that the track was quite level.
“Up a little!” he shouted to the gang who had their crowbars under the ties some distance ahead.
They heaved at their bars painfully, growing red in the face under the strain.