Come all you rounders, for I want you to hear,
     The story of a brave engineer.
Casey Jones was teh rounder's name,
     On a big eight-wheeler of a mighty fame.

Everybody knows the song about Casey Jones. Everybody knows Casey was a great engineer. Everybody doesn't know that that the song jumps the track when it says Casey was killed in the wreck of Locomotive No. 638. Because the truth is—well, it all began when Casey saw Locomotive No. 638 at the Chicago Exposition.

As soon as he laid eyes on the big eight-wheeler, Casey knew she was the locomotive for him. He wanted to sit in her cab and watch her drivers roll. He wanted to put his hand on her throttle and play his whipporwill call on her whistle. The only trouble was that next to railroading Casey liked baseball—and Superintendent Bolsun Brown thought the two didn't mix.

"You give up baseball," said Bolsun Brown, "and I'll let you take out No. 638. I'll give you the right of way from Chicago to Frisco, and you can break all records."

"I'll be glad to obleege," said Casey, "if my Tigers lose the game with the South Side Wildcats."

Then Bolsun Brown tricked Casey into losing the game, and that led, among other things, to the great feud between the Browns and the Joneses, to Casey's becoming a telegraph operator, and to the greatest tie-up in the history of railroads. How Casey tricked Bolsun and took No. 638 on her record run makes a rousing climax to a yarn that has all the rush and excitement of a crack flier high-balling down a clear stretch of track.

Ages 9 and up

From the dust jacket