"I know it, Sam. I wish we could make him come back."
As Dick finished he saw a chance to stop and at once dismounted.
Then he yelled at the top of his lungs:
"Tom, stop! Stop, or you'll run into the railroad train!"
Sam also came to a halt and set up a shout. But Tom was now speeding along like the wind and did not hear them.
Nearer and nearer he shot to the railroad tracks. Then the whistle of the locomotive broke upon his ears and he turned pale.
"I don't want to run into that train," he muttered, and tried to bring his bicycle to a halt.
But the movement did not avail without a brake, and so he was compelled to seek for some side path into which he might guide his machine.
But, alas! the road was hemmed in with a heavy woods on one side and a field of rocks on the other. A sudden stop, therefore, would mean a bad spill, and Tom had no desire to break his bones by any such proceeding.
Nearer and nearer he drew to the railroad crossing. He could now hear the puffing of the engine quite plainly and caught a glimpse of the long train over the rocks to his left. On he bounded until the crossing itself came into view. He was less than a hundred yards from it—and the oncoming engine was about the same distance away!
There are some moments in one's life that seem hours, and the present fraction of time was of that sort to poor Tom. He had a vision of a terrific smash-up, and of Dick and Sam picking up his lifeless remains from the railroad tracks. "I'm a goner!" he muttered, and then, just before the tracks were reached, he made one wild, desperate leap in the direction of a number of bushes skirting the woods. He turned over and over, hit hard—and for several seconds knew no more.