It was a beautiful morning, and the boys sang and joked as the trolley car bore them toward the Maplewood hills.
Perhaps two-thirds of the journey had been made when the car stopped to let a passenger off. It started up and proceeded slowly onto a curve of the track, where there was a high embankment on one side.
Suddenly, without warning, the car left the track, but the motorman instantly shut off the power.
They stopped with one corner of the car lurching over the embankment.
Already some of the boys had leaped off, and there was a general scramble when the car stopped.
“Pretty near a bad accident,” said Hodge, shaking his head.
“Pretty near it!” exclaimed the pale-faced motorman. “I should say so! If I hadn’t stopped to let that passenger off, I should have been driving this car at usual speed round the curve here, and we must have gone down the embankment.”
“I’d like to know how it happened, anyway,” declared the conductor. “There was no reason why we should jump the track. We were apparently creeping along.”
Together with the motorman he made an examination, and in a few moments both men betrayed consternation and excitement. They called the passengers to look at one of the rails.
“See here,” said the motorman, “this rail has been monkeyed with! It is loose. The rails are spread here. This was no accident! Some one did the job with the deliberate intention of running this car off the track!”