Page:Ralph on the Railroad.djvu/20

6 passenger, perilously clinging to the brace bars, or wedged against the trucks under the middle coach.

The dust and grime must have half-blinded him, the roar have deafened, for he staggered about now in an aimless, distracted way, hobbling and wincing as he tried to get his cramped muscles into normal play.

"What you doing?" roared the old watchman, on a run, and waving his club threateningly.

"I've done it!" muttered the boy dolefully. He kept hobbling about to get his tensioned nerves unlimbered, edging away from the approaching watchman as fast as he could.

"Show me!" he panted, appealingly to Ralph.

The latter understood the predicament and wish. He moved his hand very meaningly, and the stowaway seemed to comprehend, for he glided to where a heap of ties barricaded a dead-end track. Rubbing the blinding dirt from his eyes, he cleared the heap, dropped on the other side, and ran down a narrow lane bounded on one side by a brick wall and on the other by a ten-foot picket fence.

"Third one in a week!" growled the watchman. "Got to stop! Against the law, and second one lost a foot!"

Ralph moved along, crossed four tracks and a