Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/287

 and together they made it up not to say a word about it in the hearing of the passengers for fear of frightening them."

"What in the world did the passengers have to be frightened about so long as Joe and I stopped the train and averted the disaster? They ought to be tickled."

"Well, they wouldn't be if they knew how that rock came to be on the track. You probably did not see the conductor when he threw some pieces of round wood over the brink into the ravine, but I did, and I know that they were the rollers that were used to bring that bowlder into place after it had been tumbled down from the bluff. There's train-wreckers in this country, I tell you."

Roy's bike was so excited over what might have happened if we had found that railroad half an hour later, that he could not tell a straight story; but this is what I managed to draw from him after much patient and ingenious questioning:

When Joe and I disappeared in one direction and Arthur Hastings and his wheel sped swiftly away in the other, Roy Sheldon seated