Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 445

"The Winning Hand" This serialized story by Captain Fred Whittaker follows John Ray, a well-dressed young tramp traveling toward Chicago by rail. When Ray discovers a Bessemer rail fractured near a steep embankment, he flags down an approaching train by waving his coat, narrowly preventing a catastrophic accident. The engineer and conductor, initially angry, recognize the danger when the broken rail snaps upward—it would have derailed the locomotive and sent cars plummeting into a valley below. Ray, claiming carpenter skills and mechanical aptitude, proposes an ingenious solution: using beams from the baggage car to brace the broken rail temporarily. His improvised support allows the engine to cross safely. The grateful conductor, Abner Jones, offers Ray free passage to Chicago and brings him to meet Mr. Wallis, a wealthy passenger traveling in a private railway carriage with his entourage, including a young woman and Wallis's son Percy, who regards the disheveled Ray with aristocratic disdain.