they can’t kape ye down!”
“I fully expect to be superintendent some day,” said Allan, laughing.
“Of course ye will!” cried the other. “I don’t doubt it—not fer a minute. Yes—an’ I’ll live t’ see it! I’ll be right here where I’ve allers been; an ye mustn’t fergit old Jack Marney, me boy.”
“I won’t,” Allan promised, still laughing. “I’ll always speak to you, if I happen to think of it.”
“Let me give you one piece of advice,” went on Marney, with sudden earnestness. "You’ll be knockin around these yards more or less now, all th’ time, an’ if ye want t’ live t’ be suprintindint, you’ve got t’ kape your eyes open. Now moind this: when you’re crossin’ th’ yards, niver think of anything but gittin’ acrost; niver step on a track without lookin’ both ways t’ see if anything’s comin; an’ if anything is comin’ an’ you’re at all doubtful of bein’ able t’ git acrost ahead of it at an ordinary walk, don’t try. Give it th’ right o’ way. I’ve been workin’ in these yards goin’ on forty year, an’ I’ve managed t’ kape all my arms an’ legs with me by allers rememberin’ that rule. Th’ boys used t’ laugh at me, but them that started in when I did are ayther sleepin’ in th’ cimitery, or limpin’ around on one leg, or eatin’ with one hand. A railroad yard is about th’ nearest approach to a human slaughter-house there is on this earth. Don’t you be one o’ th’ victims."
“I’ll certainly try not to,” Allan assured him, and went out with a livelier sense of the dangers of the yard than he had ever had before; and, indeed, the yardmaster had not overstated them, though the crushing and maiming and killing which went on there were due in no small degree to the carelessness and foolhardiness of the men, who grew familiar with danger and contemptuous of it from looking it every day in the face, and took chances which sooner or later ended in disaster.
The person Allan had next to find was the master-mechanic, whose office was a square, one-storied building behind the great shops which closed in the lower end of the yards. He knew the shops thoroughly, for he had been through them more than once under Jack Welsh’s guidance, and had spent many of his spare moments there, for there was a tremendous fascination about the intricate and mammoth machinery which filled them, almost human in its intelligence, and with which so many remarkable things were accomplished.
So on he went, past the great roundhouse where stood the mighty engines groomed ready for the race, or being rubbed down by the grimed and sweaty hostlers after a hundred-mile run; past the little shanty with “21” in big figures on its door—headquarters of Section Twenty-One, and receptacle for hand-car and tools—the hand-car which he had pumped along the track so many times, the tools with which his hands had grown familiar. The door of the “long-shop” lay just beyond, and he entered it, for the shortest path to the master-mechanic’s office lay through the shops; and Allan knew that he would probably find the official he was seeking somewhere among them, inspecting some piece of machinery, or overseeing some important bit of work.
The “long-shop,” so named from its peculiar shape, very long and narrow, is devoted wholly to repairing and rebuilding engines. Such small complaints as leaking valves and broken springs and castings may be repaired in the roundhouse, as the family medicine-chest avails for minor ailments; but for more serious injuries the engines must be taken to the experts in the long shop, and placed on one of the operating-tables there, and taken apart and put together and made fit for service again. When the injuries are too severe—when, in other words, it would cost more to rebuild the engine than the engine is worth—it is shoved along a rusty track back of the shop into the cemetery called the “bone-yard,” and there eventually dismantled, knocked to pieces, and sold for “scrap.” That is the sordid fate, which, sooner or later, overtakes the proudest and swiftest empress of the rail.
In the long-shop, four or five engines are always jacked up undergoing repairs; each of them has a special gang of men attached to it, under a foreman whose sole business it is to see that that engine gets back into active service in the shortest possible time.
To the inexperienced eye, the shop was a perfect maze of machinery. Great cranes ran overhead, with chains and claws dangling; shafting whirred and belts rattled; along the walls were workbenches, variously equipped; at the farther end were a number of drills, and beyond them a great grindstone which whirred and whirred and threw out a shower of sparks incessantly, under the guidance of its presiding genius, a little, gray-haired man, whose duty it was to sharpen all the tools brought to him. There was a constant stream of men to and from the grindstone, which, in consequence, was a sort of centre for all the gossip of the shops. Once the grindstone had burst, and had carried the little man with it through the side of the shop, riding a great fragment much as Prince Feroze-shah rode his enchanted horse; and though there was no peg which he could turn to assure a safe landing, he did land safely, and next day superintended the installation of a new stone, from which the sparks were soon flying as merrily as ever.
And even if the visitor was not confused by this tangle of machinery, he was sure to be confounded by the noise, toward which every man in the shop contributed his quota. The noise!—it is difficult to give an adequate idea of that merciless and never-ceasing din. Chains clanked, drills squeaked, but over and above it all was the banging and hammering of the riveters, and, as a sort of undertone, the clangour from the boiler-shop, connected with the long-shop by an open arch. The work of the riveters never paused nor slackened, and the onlooker was struck with wonder and amazement that a human being could endure ten hours of such labour!
Allan, closing behind him the little door by which he had entered, looked around for the tall form of the master-mechanic. But that official was nowhere in sight, so the boy walked slowly on, glancing to right and left between the engines, anxious not to miss him. At last, near the farthest engine, he thought that he perceived him, and drew near. As he did so, he saw that an important operation was going forward. A boiler was being lowered to its place on its frame. A gang of men were guiding it into position, as the overhead crane slowly lowered it, manipulated by a lever in the hands of a young fellow whose eyes were glued upon the signalling hand which the foreman raised to him.
“Easy!” the foreman shouted, his voice all but inaudible in the din. “Easy!” and the boiler was lowered so slowly that its movement was scarcely perceptible.
“ ‘LOOK OUT!’ HE CRIED, AND SEIZING HIM BY THE ARM, DRAGGED HIM SHARPLY BACKWARDS.”
There was a pause, a quick intaking of breath, a straining of muscles—
“Now!” yelled the foreman, and with a quick movement the young fellow threw over the lever and let the boiler drop gently, exactly in place.
The men drew a deep breath of relief, and stood erect, hands on hips, straightening the strained muscles of their backs.
There was something marvellous in the ease and certainty with which the crane had handled the great weight, responsive to the pressure of a finger, and Allan ran his eyes admiringly along the heavy chains, up to the massive and perfectly balanced arm—
Then his heart gave a sudden leap of terror. He sprang forward toward the young fellow who stood leaning against the lever.
“Look out!” he cried, and seizing him by the arm, dragged him sharply backwards.
The next instant there was a resounding crash, which echoed above the din of the shop like a cannon-shot above the rattle of musketry, and a great block smashed the standing-board beside the lever
