Page:Ralph on the Railroad.djvu/1037

Rh evening. "We haven't had any of the direful mishaps, though, that those old doghouse croakers predicted."

"No," admitted the fireman, but he accompanied the word with a serious shake of the head; "that's to come. I'm trained enough to guess that another frost or two will end in the season that every railroad man dreads. Wait till the whiskers get on the rails, lad, and a freshet or two strikes 999. There's some of those culverts make me quake when I think of the big ice gorges likely to form along Dolliver's Creek. Oh, we'll get them—storms, snowslides and blockades. The only way is to remember the usual winter warning, 'extra caution,' keep cool, and stick to the cab to the last."

Summer had faded into autumn, and one or two sharp frosts had announced the near approach of winter. The day before there had been a slight snow flurry. A typical fall day and a moonlit night had followed, however, and Ralph experienced the usual pleasure as they rolled back the miles under flying wheels. They took the sharp curves as they ran up into the hills with a scream of triumph from the locomotive whistle every time they made a new grade.

"Waste of steam, lad, that," observed Fogg, as