It is true that he went scout pace along railroad lines in the country for the ties seemed to be just fitted to the stride of his small legs. He occasionally used a rail as a tight rope, balancing an apple on his head, a stunt which he had learned from Hervey Willetts, a blithesome young daredevil at Temple Camp. But little metal pedestals along the way he shunned.
And now he saw himself as the author of a horrible catastrophe. He tried to recall and decide from which direction the distant whistle had sounded, and to relieve his mind with the thought that perhaps it had not been along this railroad at all. But he found little consolation in these self-queries and thoughts.
Up to this time, Pee-wee was just a terror-stricken boy, horrified and in awful suspense at what he had inadvertently done. And only a few seconds had elapsed. Suddenly he found himself, as one might say, and with a little nervous laugh at his own silly imagination, he grabbed the tall lever to pull it back again. But it would not pull. His first panic had been caused by the fact that he had moved it at all. He was now in a very delirium of fear at not being able to pull it over. Whatever he had done was irrevocable. And probably fatal.
CHAPTER XX
THE SCOUT
Distracted, frenzied, Pee-wee knelt in the darkness and felt about at the base of the long lever. It seemed to enter a metal housing in the floor. More than this, his hurried examination revealed nothing.
He tried again to pull the handle over but it would not budge. He had a frightful feeling that everything he did made matters worse. He was losing his morale.
Suddenly he thought of the other lever close by the one he had moved. What was that for? The lever which had manipulated the gates was of another pattern and away from these two. What was this other one for? If he pushed it over would it undo what he had done? Were the two movements of the switch controlled by the two levers? Maybe, for there was no other switch. Yet there might be another somewhere.
Should he take a chance and push over this other lever?
Oh, if Townsend would only come. If Townsend would only come! He put his small hand on the other lever and took it off again. He knelt again to see if he could feel any cogwheels or anything through the grooves in which the levers moved. Oh, if he only had a light and could see. If he could only see!