Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/50

 The train started with a jerk that nearly took the men off their feet. At the same time Flannagan's face appeared at the car door.

"All here, boys?" he called. Then he announced cheerfully: "The devil's to pay up the line!"

Meanwhile, Bunty, taking advantage of the interruption, had squirmed his way through the men to the far end of the car, and the train had bumped over the switches on to the main line before they remembered him. Then it was too late. They hauled him out from behind a rampart of tools, where he had intrenched himself, and Flannagan shook his fist, half-angrily, half-playfully, in Bunty's face.

"You little devil, what are you doing here, eh?" he demanded.

And Bunty answered as before: "I'm going up to the wreck."

"Humph!" said Flannagan, with a grin. "Well, I guess you are, and I guess you'll be sorry, too, when you get back and your dad gets hold of you."

But Bunty was safe now, and he only laughed.

Breakfastless, he shared the men's grub and listened wide-eyed as they talked of wrecks in times gone by; but most of all he listened to the story of how his father, when he was pulling Number One, had saved the Limited by sticking to his post almost in the face of certain death. Bunty's father was his hero, and his small soul glowed with happiness at the tale. He begged so hard for the story over again that Allan told it, and when he had finished, he slapped Bunty on the