Nevertheless I should have liked to know when a train would be coming past to disturb my slumbers.
Just as I was dozing over, I heard footsteps along the rails. They came closer and closer, but I could see nothing. The night was pitch-dark. As the footsteps came opposite to me, I made out the form of a man against the starlit sky. He did not see me.
"Say, bo, can you tell me how many trains pass here to-night?" I asked.
He jumped as if struck in the back.
"Only a couple, brother," he replied to where the air had spoken, "one of them in about half an hour and the other about one in the morning;—but they won't worry you," he added.
Sure enough in half an hour's time I heard the distant rumble of a train. I began to wonder if I had not rolled any closer to the rails than when I lay down. The earth shook and a red glare appeared in the distance, and with a mighty roar the huge train came thundering through an opening in the trees. Although I knew I was at a safe distance, the feeling of impending annihilation swooped suddenly down upon me. "Don't be an ass," said I, "what's the use of getting the wind up?" And the next second it seemed that the rushing torrent of steel and fire was but an inch from my head. Clatter bang-thump, clatter-bang-thump, for twenty long seconds, and the intruder was gone. In another minute not a sound broke the silence of the midsummer night.
Thinking what an excellent test of self-control it would be to pitch my bed between the rails, but disinclined to do so on account of the possibility of a cow-catcher being in front of the trains, I rolled over into heavy slumber.
In half an hour I was awake again and the same process was repeated. I deemed then that I should be left in peace for the night. But my friend had not reckoned on the freight trains. Only the passenger trains were of account to him!
Regularly every half-hour they thundered past. At dawn I had counted thirteen in all. I resolved not to sleep on a railway embankment again, even though it be in company with the Mississippi.