the next bend," shouted Keith, as they
passed him. "Whoop-la! this is fine, and not a bit hard to work!"

"What will the wicked queen think when she can't find us?" asked Lloyd,
laughing happily, as they sped on down the track.

"She'll think that I am a magician and have spirited you away," said
Keith.

"Then if you are a magician you ought to change her into a nasty black
spidah, to pay her back fo' shuttin' me up with them!" Lloyd was
delighted with this new play. For the time it seemed as if she really
were escaping from a castle prison. Faster and faster they went. Jonesy,
who had followed them to the second curve, stood watching them with
wistful eyes, wishing he could be with them. They passed the depot, and
then the hand-car seemed to grow smaller and smaller as it rolled away,
until it was only a moving speck in the distance. Then he turned and
walked back to the section-house.

"I s'pect we've gone about far enough," said Keith, after awhile. "We'd
better turn around now and go back, or the picnic will all be over
before we get our share. Let's wait here a minute till I rest my arms,
and then we'll start."

The place where they had stopped was the loneliest part of the track
that could be found in miles, on either side. It was in the midst of a
thick beech woods, and the twitter of a bird, now and then, was the only
sound in all the deep stillness.

"What lovely green moss on that bank!" cried the Little Colonel.
"Wouldn't it make a beautiful carpet for our playhouse down by the
old mill?"

"I'll get you some," said Keith, gallantly springing from the car and
clambering up the bank. Taking out his knife, he began to cut great
squares of the velvety green moss, and pile it up to carry back to
the hand-car.

Meanwhile Jonesy waited at the section-house, digging his heels into the
cinders that lined the track, and looking impatiently down the road.
Presently the section boss came limping along painfully, and sat down on
the bank in the warm spring sunshine. He had dropped a piece of heavy
machinery on his foot, the week before, and was only able to hobble
short distances.

Everybody in the Valley was interested in Jonesy since the fire and the
Benefit had made him so well known, and the man was glad of this
opportunity to satisfy his curiosity about the boy. Jonesy, with all the
fearlessness of a little street gamin brought up in a big city, answered
him fearlessly, even saucily at times, much to the