"Locked! It's locked on the outside! What shall I do?
What shall I do?" he cried.
Phil sat down weak and dizzy. There was nothing, so far as he could see, that could be done to liberate himself from his imprisonment. Chancing to put his hand to his head, he discovered a lump there as large as a goose egg.
"I know—let me think—something—somebody must have hit me an awful crack. Now I remember—yes, I remember falling down in the yard there just as if something had struck me. Who could have done such a cruel thing?"
Phil thought and thought, but the more he thought about it the more perplexed did he become. All at once he started up, with a sudden realization that the train was slowing down. He could hear the air brakes grating and grinding and squealing against the car wheels below him, until finally the train came to a dead stop.
"Now is my chance to make somebody hear," Phil cried, springing up and groping for the door again.
He shouted at the top of his voice, then beat against the heavy door with fists and feet, but not a sign could he get that anyone heard him.
As a matter of fact, no one was near him at that moment. The long freight train had stopped at a water tank far out in the country, and the trainmen were at the extreme ends of the train.
In a few moments the train started with such a jerk that Forrest was thrown off his feet. He sprang up again, hoping that the train might be going past a station there, and that someone might hear him. Then he began rattling at and kicking the door again.
It was all to no purpose.
Finally, in utter exhaustion, the lad sank to the floor, soon falling into a deep sleep. How long he slept he did not know when at last he awakened.