Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/159

 in the great war, and troop-trains had the right of way.

Cedar Bend is a smoky, noisy, manufacturing town in Indiana. It is also a railroad junction of no mean order, so it is a place where trouble is liable to occur.

The first section of the circus outfit had come into town and had been shunted upon a switch. The second section had been following it very closely, instead of half an hour behind, which is the usual way, so the second section was standing on the main track.

Investigation has never fully established how it happened, but a troop-train crashed into the rear end of it, and at the same time a local freight crashed into the front end. Then switch-men in the yards saw a sight that they had rarely seen before. The train buckled, and ten of the heavy cars reared in air. It looked for all the world like a huge serpent that had reared its back. This of course broke all the couplings, so the cars came down in a