“Here is where they landed,” I added, pointing to the prints, and also to some deep lines gored in the sand by a couple of boats, which had been hauled up on the beach.
“Who landed? I don’t understand it.”
“I do; an enemy has done this. The Wimpletonians have been over here during the night and torn up your track.”
“If they did, it will be a sorry day for them,” said Faxon, grating his teeth and shaking his head.
“These footprints were made by dandy boots, and all the party were boys. It’s as plain as the nose on Colonel Wimpleton’s face;” and the great man of Centreport was troubled with a long proboscis.
“They’ll catch it for this.”
We walked along till we came to Grass Brook, and there we found the rails thrown into the deep water at the mouth of it. The end of one of them lay within my reach, and I pulled it out. Using this as a lever, we pried up the wheels of the dummy, and, after an hour of severe exertion, we succeeded in putting the car upon the track.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE GRAND PICNIC.
It is not necessary for me to quote any of the big words which Major Toppleton used when I told him the Wimpletonians had been over and torn up a quarter of a mile of the track of the Lake Shore Railroad. I did not deem it best, as he asked no questions, to augment his wrath by telling him the dummy had been off the track. He was more impatient, if possible, to have the road completed than the boys were. He procured the services of a score of mechanics and laborers, and we hastened with them to the dismantled portion of the road. The rails were fished up from the deep water, and before twelve o’clock the track was in as good order as ever.