A 3-year-old boy was reported missing from a library outside San Francisco. About an hour later, Tim Watson, a Valley Transportation Authority bus driver, saw a man and boy on his bus who resembled the description of the suspect and child. At first, Tim didn’t think much of it — but moments later he noticed the boy was crying. It was enough to make this bus driver, a dad with two kids of his own, tap into his paternal instincts.

The victim was described as a three-year-old child in plaid shorts and red shoes; the suspect, a man 
in his 20s wearing jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt and carrying a 
tan backpack.

Tim felt his stomach drop when he realized that a man with a toddler on his hip had boarded the bus just ten minutes earlier. 
Tim distinctly remembered the boy’s plaid shorts.

Tim glanced in one of his mirrors and saw the pair sitting in the last seat at the back of the nearly empty bus. Before alerting authorities, he wanted to confirm their identities. Pulling into a McDonald’s parking lot, he announced that he needed to look for a lost bag.

He moved slowly down the aisle, peering under each seat, until he approached the last row. As he bent down, Tim avoided eye contact with the man. “I saw 
the boy’s red shoes,” says Tim. “But 
I knew I had to keep cool.”

Sources: sosharethis.com, Reader’s Digest