Wayne visited the stable he knew of but received no encouragement. The foreman told him that they had all the men they needed and that they didn’t expect to have a vacancy in the near future. He directed Wayne to another livery, however, at the farther side of town, and Wayne set off. His course took him over the railroad about a block beyond the freight sheds. It was nearly nine by then and the scene about him was a very busy one. Cars were loading and unloading beside the long, high platforms, while, on the other side of the sheds, trucks and drays were coming and going along the cobbled street. A switch engine was tooting frantically for a switch and a long train of day coaches and sleepers sent Wayne scurrying out of the way. Then an impatient engine clanged up with a couple of gondolas laden with machinery and contemptuously jerked them onto a side-track, spurting off again as though vastly relieved to be rid of such trifling company. There were many tracks where Wayne crossed and one had to keep one’s eyes opened. When he was half-way over a pounding of the rails caused him to look down the line. A long train of empty box cars was backing toward him at a brisk speed, the locomotive out of sight at the far end. Wayne hurried his pace and reached an empty track in plenty of time, and was for paying no more heed to the string of empties until a shout behind him brought his head quickly around. On the roof of the first car a man was doing two things at once. He was yelling at the top of his voice and swinging himself over the end of the car to the ladder there as fast as he could. A few yards distant, squarely in the middle of the track, stood a boy of five or six years. Afterward Wayne wondered where he had come from, for surely he had not been in sight a moment before, but just now there was no time for speculation. The child, terrorised into immobility, stood as though rooted to the cinders between the rails. Wayne’s cry was uttered involuntarily as he leaped forward. Only one line of track separated him from the boy, but it seemed impossible for him to reach the latter before the bumper of the box car struck him. [Illustration: Wayne’s Cry Was Uttered Involuntarily as he Leaped Forward]