Quick as thought we saw the act—and that Tip saw it, too. He slid back, with feet braced hard on the crosspiece, and swung the sled a trifle to the right.
He was pale—but not half so white as Mat, who stood glaring at him like one fascinated. It was right on the last bridge, over the big fall—that old wooden bridge with its crazy railing!
We were too horror-struck even to cry out, and there was no sound from the white faces on the sled. I can remember yet how the great falls roared, as out of a dead hush; how Tip’s teeth showed, and that the steering-rope was sunk deep in his wrists. How many things made themselves seen and felt in that instant!
The sled struck the slender switch exactly square. We looked to see its occupants fly off into space; but, though Tip was snapped forward until his knees bruised his face, those wiry legs saved him and the rest, who were half piled upon him.
The flying ends of the switch told the story. Tip had steered upon the slenderer end, and the swift, high-tempered runners had chopped it in two, as was his hope, and without too great a shock.
Had the switch resisted never so little! It seemed to us—and does to me yet—almost a miracle of escape. But for Tip’s instant wit, the whole party would have broken their necks on the hill, or crashed through the rail to the falls.
That day broke the back of the Cannonball Railroad. No one would so much as look at Burpee; but we felt that the responsibility rested further back.
Of course, Mat had not told him to throw the switch, and doubtless made himself believe that he had no blame in the matter. But the rest of us—well, even boys sometimes know how to read between the lines.
Tip never opened his month about the matter, and promptly stopped any attempted reference to it. He had plenty of companions now, and treated them in his square-toed boy way, as though nothing had ever happened.
A week after the switch episode, the crowd, including Tip, was straggling up the hill as Mat and his few remaining satellites came down on the “Avalanche.” Just as they reached the grist-mill, a loaded wood-sledge stalled at the tannery corner—the snow was soft that day. The sled was, for the same reason, not going half so fast as usual, but quite fast enough. Seeing the dangerous passage thus blockaded, Mat began to get panicky, and the sled wobbled.