would want a side-rod to go wrong; and just there and then
Georgie's rod went very wrong indeed.

Half-way between centres the big steel bar on his side, dipping then so
fast you couldn't have seen it even in daylight, snapped like a stick of
licorice. The hind-end ripped up into the cab like the nose of a
sword-fish, tearing and smashing with appalling force and fury.

Georgie McNeal's seat burst under him as if a stick of giant-powder had
exploded. He was jammed against the cab roof like a link-pin and fell
sprawling, while the monster steel flail threshed and tore through the
cab with every lightning revolution of the great driver from which it
swung.

It was a frightful moment. Anything thought or done must be thought and
done at once. It was either to stop that train--and quickly--or to pound
along until the 244 jumped the track, and lit in the river, with thirty
cars of coal to cover it.

Instantly--so Dad Hamilton afterwards told me--instantly the boy,
scrambling to his feet, reached for his throttle--reached for it through
a rain of iron blows, and staggered back with his right arm hanging like
a broken wing from his shoulder. And back again after it--after the
throttle with his left; slipping and creeping carefully this time up the
throttle lever until, straining and twisting and dodging, he caught the
latch and pushed it tightly home, Dad whistling vigorously the while for
brakes.

Relieved of the tremendous head on the cylinder the old engine calmed
down enough to let the two men collect themselves. Rapidly as the brakes
could do it, the long train was brought up standing, and Georgie, helped
by his fireman, dropped out of the cab, and they set about
disconnecting--the engineer with his one arm--the formidable ends of the
broken rod.

It was a slow, difficult piece of work to do. In spite of their most
active efforts the rain chilled them to the marrow. The train-crew gave
them as much help as willing hands could, which wasn't much; but by
every man doing something they got things fixed, called in their flagmen
just before daybreak, and started home. When the sun rose, Georgie, grim
and silent, the throttle in his left hand, was urging the old engine
along on a dog-trot across the Blackwood flats; and so, limping in on
one side, the kid brought his train into the Zanesville yards, with Dad
Hamilton unable to make himself helpful enough, unable to show his
appreciation of the skill and the grit that th