Page:Jungle Joe, pride of the circus; the story of a trick elephant (IA junglejoeprideof00hawk).pdf/203

 upon seeing dangers ahead when conditions are normal.

So on that black night the engineer of the section carrying Ali and Joie sat grimly at his post, with his hand upon the throttle, gazing with straining eyes at the shaft of light along the rails ahead. But this light did not penetrate a quarter as far into the gloom as usual.

Ali heard the cars bump over the switches, one after another, and then glide out upon the straight track. Gradually, the train gathered momentum, until it was finally rattling along at the usual rate, with the car-wheels singing their usual song of the singing rails, the lullaby that always put Ali to sleep nowadays. In fact he had gotten used to this lullaby of singing rails, and he could hardly sleep without it.