with the B. & M. entitles a man to know his rights."

"Very active service just now, Mr. Wacker?" insinuated Bart pleasantly.

Lem Wacker flushed and winced, for the pointed question struck home.

"I don't want no mistering!" he growled. "Lem's good enough for me. And
I don't take no call-down from any stuck-up kid, I want you to
understand that."

"You'd better get to the crossing if you're making any pretense of real
work," suggested Bart just then.

As he spoke Bart pointed through the open window across the tracks to
the switch shanty at the side of the street crossing.

A train was coming. Mr. Lemuel Wacker was "subbing" as extra for the
superannuated old cripple whose sole duty was to wave a flag as trains
went by. To this duty Wacker sprang with alacrity.

Bart dismissed the man from his mind, and, whistling a cheery tune, bent
over the book in which he had been writing for the past twenty minutes.

This was the register of the local express office of the B. & M., and
at present, as Bart had said, he was "running it."

The express shed was a one-story, substantial frame building having two
rooms. It stood in the center of a network of tracks close to the
freight depot and switch tower, and a platform ran its length front and
rear.