"Why, that isn't a hole in the ground at all!" cried Laddie, first to realize that what had made the train stop was something different from what they had all expected.
"Oh!" shouted Violet. "It's a great, big rock that's fallen down the hill."
"Well," said Russ, soberly, "I guess it's a washout at that. For the rain must have washed it out of the hillside. See! There is the hole up there in the bank."
"You are right, Russ," said Daddy Bunker. "It is a washout, and it will take a long time to get that big rock off of the track so that the train can go on."
The rock that had fallen completely blocked the west-bound track, as daddy said. And a good deal of earth and gravel had fallen with it so that the rails of the east-bound track were likewise buried. There was already a gang of trackmen clearing away this gravel; but, as the children's father had told them, it would take many hours to remove the great boulder.
"Suppose our train had been going by when the rock fell?" suggested Russ to Rose.
"What would the rock have done to us?" asked Vi, who heard her brother say this.
"I guess it would have done something," replied Russ solemnly.
"It would have pushed us right off the track," declared Rose, nodding her head.