LIKE many another Irish boy in Defiance, Ohio, Michael O'Hara had a job working on the railroad. When the potato famine struck Ireland in 1845, Michael's father had decided to risk the dangers of the New World in exchange for the empty stomachs of the Old and had brought his fine family of seven to Defiance, where he was to help build the Toledo and Illinois Railroad.

Unlike other boys working for the railroad, however, his son Michael had two unusual gifts: he could wail like a banshee and he had a quick wit. It was the haunting shriek that struck terror into the hearts of his enemies, the canal boys, one dark night, saving the new locomotive from their vengeful axes, and saving his job as well. But it was Mike's quick wit and a runaway circus lion that showed him a better solution to the feud, gaining for him and the railroad two new friends.

From the dust jacket