"Maybe that man is swinging the lantern so the town can get off the track," Wig said; "anyhow, I bet something is going to happen."
It was pitch dark all around, except that the headlight of the locomotive made a long shaft like a searchlight 'way far ahead, and we could see the man walking along the track in that shaft, swinging his lantern. Our car was all bright, too. It seemed awful lonesome where he was going, far ahead in the dark. The locomotive kept going pfff, pfff, pfff, just like a horse stamping his foot, because he's in a hurry to start. It seemed kind of as if it didn't want to wait.
"Have we come to the siding?" I asked the man on the platform.
"You'll have to take the switch," he said.
"We wouldn't take anything that didn't belong to us," Connie said; "you'll have to give it to us if you want us to take it."
"I don't care so much about having one, anyway," I said. I guess that man thought we were crazy.
"We'll give you the run," he said.
"I wouldn't blame you for doing that if we took the switch," Wig told him. Gee, he had to laugh.
Pretty soon the man who was far ahead began swinging his lantern around in a circle. Then the engine gave a kind of a quick, shrill whistle, and we started again. We went a little faster than before and then, all of a sudden, we saw the engine standing quite a way off, and already the men on our car were turning the hand brakes. Our car was rattling along all by itself. In about half a minute, kerlick, kerlick, it went on a switch and then the men began yanking on the brake handles for all they were worth.
But I knew that old car all right, and its brakes were pretty near as bad as its couplings.