Keith was straining every muscle now, but it was like running in a
nightmare. His arms moved up and down at a furious speed, but it seemed
to him that the hand-car was glued to one spot. It seemed, too, that it
had been hours since they first discovered that the engine was after
them, and he felt that he would soon be too exhausted to move another
stroke. Would the depot never never come in sight?
Just then they shot around the curve and caught sight of Jonesy at the
depot switch, wildly beckoning with his cap and shouting for them to
come on. At that sight, with one supreme effort Keith put his
fast-failing strength to the test, and sent the hand-car rolling forward
faster than ever. It shot past the switch that Jonesy had unlocked and
off to the side-track, just as the train bore down upon them around the
last bend.
There was barely time for Jonesy to set the switch again before it
thundered on along the main track past the little depot. Being a
special, it did not stop. As it went shrieking by, the engineer cast a
curious glance at a hand-car on the side-track. A little girl sat on it,
a pretty golden-haired child with dark eyes big with fright, and her
face as white as her dress. He wondered what was the matter.
For a moment after the shrieking train whizzed by everything seemed
deathly still. Keith sat leaning against the embankment, white and limp
from exhaustion and the excitement of his close escape.
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