"I don't care what you have done during the last three years, or what you know," interrupted Joe, as he ran back to the track and signaled "down brakes" with his lamp. "There's a rock on the track—What are you trying to do, you loon?" exclaimed Joe, hotly, as the man made an effort to push him away and take his lamp from him. "Let me alone or I will report you. There'll be a wreck here in a minute more, and you will lose your place on the road."
Although the man didn't like the idea of allowing an outsider to interfere with his business, Joe's words had just the effect upon him that the boy intended they should have, and after a little hesitation he began signaling with his own light. Between them they succeeded in attracting the attention of the engineer, who called for brakes, and stopped his train within a few feet of the place where Joe and the track-walker stood.
"What's the trouble?" he asked from his cab window; and while Joe was explaining, the conductor came up and listened. The latter looked first at my master and then at me, and presently said:
"You didn't ride across the trestle, of course."
"Of course I did," replied Joe, "I couldn't have got across any other way. I would have been afraid to walk that narrow plank in the dark. How high is it above the water?"
"Sixty feet in some places, and the trestle is just half a mile long," answered the conductor. "Here, boys, put that wheel into the baggage car. Young man, you come with me, and I will take you to Dorchester."
"That's where we want to go," said Joe, surprised to learn that he and his friends had been riding on the back track ever since they struck the railroad.
In obedience to the conductor's order I was hoisted into the baggage car, placed against a pile of trunks so that I could see through the wide-open door and the engineer pulled slowly ahead. I had little idea how far we had run after leaving the trestle, but we were fully five minutes in getting back to it, and much longer in crossing it. There seemed to be no bottom to the gulf it spanned. It was so deep that I could see nothing but the tops of the trees that grew in it. About the time we got to the other end of it the baggage-master, who had been leaning half-way out the opposite door, drew in his head long enough to remark to some one whom I took to be his assistant:
"There's a chap out there calling for brakes the best he knows how," and I straightway made up my mind that it must be Roy Sheldon. "This would be a bad place for an accident with such a trainful of passengers as we've got. There's the rock," he added, a moment later, "and it's as big as this car."