“Certainly it is, my boy,” was the calm answer, as the scientist surveyed the little group of astonished ones on the car platform below him. “Certainly I am here.”
“And—and did you——?” faltered Jerry.
“I certainly did. I captured it, the little beauty!” interrupted the scientist. “It is a most perfect specimen of the jumping Buffalo moth I have ever seen. I was passing from one car to the other when here, in the vestibule, I saw the moth. I tried to get it, but it jumped higher and higher, and I was forced to climb up. Then I got it, when it could go no farther.”
“No, what I meant,” explained Jerry, “was, did you pull the emergency air brake cord?”
“Oh, do you mean this thing?” innocently asked the professor, indicating the cord to which he was clinging with one hand. “Well, perhaps I did give it a yank. I had to hold on to it, you know, or else lose the jumping moth, and I did not want to do that. Perhaps I may have jerked the cord—this way——” and he was about to pull it again, when the conductor yelled:
“Don’t do that! Great Scott! The engineer has nervous prostration now, and we don’t want to scare him any more. Don’t pull that cord again!”
“Oh, very well,” agreed the professor, gently. “Will some one kindly give me a hand down? I don’t want to lose the moth. But why did the train stop so suddenly? Did we hit anything?”
“You stopped it,” explained Jerry, as he helped his friend down. “You put on the brakes when you pulled that cord.”
“Did I?” asked the scientist, innocently. “How odd! Well, I won’t do it again. Now to take care of my prize.”
“Well, I’ll be grub-staked!” ejaculated Harvey Brill, and as the conductor gave the engineer the signal to go ahead again, our party of friends returned to their seats, while trainmen went about explaining to the other passengers the cause of the emergency stop.