So the august officials of the great Pen Yan gave no employment to the
poor boy who had come so far for a situation, whether he deserved a
better fate or not.

Meanwhile, the boy, unconscious that his fate had already been decided
upon, hastened to the Fairfax Station, to take the homeward-bound train,
which would be due in a few minutes.

The Pen Yan railway system forms upon the map of that part of the
country a stupendous letter Y. The Fairfax Fork running north-northwest
makes one branch of the arm meeting at the Big Y, as the junction is
called--the line of the upper arm, where the two tracks unite in one to
reach across a mountainous, often sparsely-settled, country for over
three hundred miles. At the time we write it was a single-track road
from the Big Y to its terminus.

The boy had to wait but a little while for the accommodation, which was
on time, and stepping aboard, he was soon homeward bound. He was
absorbed in meditations when he was roused from his rather unpleasant
reverie by the voice of the conductor, who had taken a seat near by him
to chat a few minutes with a friend.

"It is a strange coincidence, Sam, and it puts me in mind of an
adventure I had several years ago, and which came near punching my
through ticket."

"An adventure, Henry? Give us the story."

"As soon as we have passed Greenburn. I shall have plenty of leisure
then."

Without dreaming how soon he should recall it with startling vividness,
our hero, with a boy's interest, listened to the conductor's story:

"Ten years ago I was engineer on the Tehicipa and Los Angeles Road, a
branch of the Southern Pacific. Those were troublesome times. What with
the guerillas and Indians that infested the country, to say nothing of
other dangers, we never knew when we were safe, if we ever were.

[Illustration {map}]

"One evening--just about such an evening as this, too--we had barely
stopped at a way station when some one rushed up to the train and said
Gray Gerardo's band was coming to attack us.

"Gerardo was considered the worst desperado in that lawless country, and
knowing we had a lot of the yellow ore on board, I knew the outlaw was
after it.

"The conductor cut our stop short, but before I could get under way the
outlaws were upon us. From their sounds one would have thought all the
fiends from the lower world had been let loose.

"The boys fought like tigers, and it was a wild scene for a few minutes.
My fireman--a plucky