The college boys, however, seem to have the sway with the big bosses down at headquarters and the section-boss knows, in his heart as well as in his mind, that he can go only a little distance ahead before he comes against a solid wall, the only doors of which are marked Technical Education. He can be a supervisor at from $90 to $125 a month and ride up and down the division at the rear door of a local train six days a week; the time has gone when he might advance to the proud title of roadmaster--a proud title whose emolument is not higher than that of the organized brotherhood man who pulls the throttle on the way-freight up the branch. And, as a matter of fact, there are only a few roads which nowadays cling even to the title of roadmaster. Yet this man is not discouraged. It is not his way. He will tell you so himself. "Go up?" he asks. "Go up where?" Let the limited go, without you. This man is worthy of your studied attention. Give it to him. You are standing with him beside a curving bit of single-track. The country is soft and restful and quiet, save for the chattering of the crickets and the distant call of your train which has gone a-roaring down the line. The August day is indolent--but the section gang is not. The temperature is close to ninety, but the gang is tamping at the track with the enthusiasm of volunteer firemen at a blaze in a lumberyard. It is only its foreman who has deigned to give you a few minutes of his attention. [Illustration: THE SECTION GANG In the section-boss and his men is vested the responsibility of making the steel highway safe. A single broken rail may send the best driven locomotive into the ditch--a mass of tangled and useless scrap iron.] "Up where?" he asks once again--then answers his own question: "To some stuffy sort of office? Not by a long shot! I'm built for the road, for track work. This road needs me here. We're only single-track as yet on this division; but next summer we'll be getting eastbound and westbound, and then a bigger routing of the through stuff. Tonight the fastest through train in this state will come through here, at nearer seventy miles an hour than sixty, and my track's got to be in order--every foot of the 37,000 feet of it." "That's your job," you say to him. "Part of it," he replies. "My job is seven miles long and has more kinks to it than an eel's tail. See here!" He points to a splice-bar, almost under your feet. You look at it. You are frank to admit that it looks just like any other splice-bar that you have ever seen; but the section-boss shows you a discoloration on it, hardly larger than a silver dollar. "Salt water from a leaky refrigerator car did that. We've got to look out for it all the time--especially on the bridges." You choke a desire to ask him how he knows and merely inquire: "Are you responsible for the bridges too?"