This last was a cheerful topic broached by the fussy little man whose capacity for going ahead and meeting trouble was boundless.
“Of course not!” Bob’s scorn was more reassuring than the gentlest answer. “As soon as a train stops they set signals to warn traffic. What a horrible racket every one is making! They’re all screeching at once. Get your hat, Betty, and we’ll go and find out something definite. I don’t know any more than you do, but I can’t stand this noise.”
Betty was glad to get away from the babble of sound, and they went down the first set of steps and joined the procession that was picking its way over the ties toward the engine.
“Express due in three minutes,” said a brakeman warningly, hurrying past them. “Stand well back from the tracks.”
He went on, cautioning every one he passed, and a majority of the passengers swerved over to the wide cinder path on the other side of the second track. A few persisted in walking the ties.
“Here she comes! Look out!” Bob shouted, as a trail of smoke became visible far up the track.
He had insisted that Betty stand well away from the track, and now the few persistent ones who had remained on the cleared track scrambled madly to reach safety. A woman who walked with a cane, and who had overridden her young-woman attendant’s advice that she stay in the coach until news of the accident, whatever it was, could be brought to her, was almost paralyzed with nervous fright. Bob went to her distressed attendant’s aid, and between them they half-carried, half-dragged the stubborn old person from the shining rails.
“Toto!” she gasped.
Bob stared, but Betty’s quick eye had seen. There, in the middle of the track, sat a fluffy little dog, its eyes so thickly screened with hair that it is doubtful if it could see three inches before its shining black nose. This was Toto, and the rush of events had completely bewildered him. The dog was accustomed to being held on its mistress’ lap or carried about in a covered basket, but she had decided that a short walk would give the little beast needed exercise, and it had pantingly tagged along after her, obedient, as usual, to her whims. Now she had suddenly disappeared. Well, Toto must sit down and wait for her to come back. Perhaps she might miss him and come after him right away.