"That's good. I was hoping you'd say that, for there's a lot of work piled up. The other boy was promoted just the other day, and I've been holding the place open. That will be your desk there in the corner, and your principal business for the present will be to see that each official here gets promptly the correspondence addressed to him. That basketful of letters yonder has to be sorted out and delivered. In this tray on my desk I put the messages I want delivered at once. Understand?" "Yes, sir," answered Allan, and immediately took possession of the pack of envelopes lying in the tray. He sat down at his desk, with a little glow of pride that it was really his, and sorted the letters. Three were addressed to the master mechanic, three to the company's freight agent, two to the yardmaster, and five or six more to other officials. As soon as he got them sorted, he put on his hat and started to deliver them. The trainmaster watched him as he left the office, and then smiled across at the chief-dispatcher. "Bright boy that," he commented. "Did you notice--he didn't ask a single question; just went ahead and did as he was told--and he didn't have to be told twice, either." The chief dispatcher nodded. "Yes," he said; "he'll be a valuable boy to have about." "He's already proved his value to this road," added Mr. Schofield, and turned back to his work. No one familiar with Allan West's history will dispute the justice of the remark. It was just a year before that the boy had secured a place on the road as section-hand--a year fraught with adventure, which had culminated in his saving the pay-car, carrying the men's Christmas money, from falling into the hands of a gang of desperate wreckers. The lives of a dozen men would have been sacrificed had the attempt succeeded. That it did not succeed was due to the ready wit with which the boy had managed to defeat the plan laid by the wreckers, and to the sheer grit which had carried him through a situation of appalling danger. He had barely escaped with his life; he had spent slow weeks recovering from the all-but-fatal bullet-wound he had received there. It was during this period of convalescence, spent at the little cottage of Jack Welsh, the foreman under whom he had worked on section, that the trainmaster had come to him with the offer of a position in his office--a position not important in itself, but opening the way to promotion, whenever that promotion should be deserved. Allan had accepted the offer joyfully--how joyfully those who have read the story of his adventures in "The Young Section-Hand" will remember--and at last he was ready to begin his new duties, where yet other adventures awaited him. CHAPTER II A RESCUE