“Number Two!” echoed the conductor, blankly. “But then—why weren’t we smashed to kindling wood?”
“Blamed if I know,” answered the engineer, turning to clamber back on his engine. “And I don’t much care. I reckon we’re done, anyway.”
And they were, for a railroad never forgives or overlooks a mistake so serious as this.
Jim Anderson came out of the house a moment later with an order from the trainmaster for the freight to back into the yards, and the flyer to follow.
Only the driving storm had kept the passengers on the flyer from coming out to inquire what the matter was; and when the conductor swung himself on board again, he was greeted with a volley of questions. What was the trouble? What had happened?
“Trouble?” he repeated, with a stare of surprise. “There wasn’t any. We had to stop for orders, that was all.”
“You stopped pretty sudden, it seems to me,” growled one old traveller.
“The engineer didn’t see the stop signal till he was right on it,” answered the conductor, blandly.
“Snow so thick, you know.”
And the passengers returned to their seats satisfied, and none of them ever knew how narrow their escape had been—for it is the policy of all railroads that the passengers are never to know of mistakes and dangers, if the knowledge can by any means be kept from them.