“What’s wanted?” he shouted.
“’Tis your kid, Jim,” was the reply. “Nearly run over he was a minute back. All right, laddie, here’s your father comin’. Hush your cryin’ now.”
“Terry!” The big man’s voice held wonder and alarm and joy. He sprang across the intervening space and seized the child from the arms that held him. “Terry! Are you hurt, darling? What were you doing on the tracks? Don’t cry, son, it’s over now.” He turned questioningly to the sympathetic faces about him, faces that were grinning only because tears were so near the eyes. “How did it happen, fellows? Who saw it?”
“Him and me,” answered one man, “and Larry there. Larry was riding the roof on a string of empties when he seen the boy on the track——”
“Holy Saints, but I was scared stiff!” broke in the brakeman. “I gave a shout and tried to get down the ladder, but when I jumped I hit the end of a tie, Jim, and it was this fellow——”
“Grabbed him up in the nick o’ time,” went on another. “I seen it from the cab window. There wasn’t the width of an eyelash between the car and the child when he got him. Sure, even then I thought it was good night to the pair of them. The car hit the fellow as he jumped and——”
“So ’twas you?” said Jim Mason in his big, deep voice. “’Twas brave of you, sir, and God bless you for it.” He had the child on one big arm now and stretched his free hand toward Wayne. “I guess I don’t need to say I’m thankful to you. You know that, sir. I think a deal of this little kiddie, and as for his mother——” His voice trembled. “Heaven only knows what she would do if anything happened to him! She’ll thank you better than I can, but if there’s anything Jim Mason can do for you, why, you say it!”
“It was nothing,” stammered Wayne. “I’m glad that—that I was there, and that I—was in time, sir.”
“God be praised and so am I!” said the father fervently. “Hush your crying now, Terry. It’s your father that’s got you. Can you thank the brave lad for saving you?”
But Terry couldn’t. Terry was as yet incapable of anything but sobs. Wayne, wanting to go, scarcely knew how. Mechanically he raised a bruised knuckle to his lips and Jim Mason was all solicitude.