* * * *

When we got to Skiddyunk, the sheriff and one of his men were already
there. But there wasn't any sign of the two fellows. Then the train
started backing up along the Slopson Branch and the two sheriffs stayed
on it. Pretty soon we were back almost to where we had started from.
There wasn't any station at Ridgeboro, but the sheriffs looked all
around the closed-up store, in the wood-shed and under the platform.
Then the train backed down the siding and very gently bunked into the
Brewster's Centre car. There were men swinging lights and shouting to
each other, while one coupled our car to the train. Then there was a lot
more shouting and swinging lights and then we started.

We stood on the back platform of our own car and I could see the moon
just beginning to shine on the part of the lake that we were moving away
from. The wheels rattled, rattled; and it seemed kind of as if the car
was saying _so long, so long, so long_----

Pretty soon, away across the lake, we could see a light and we knew it
was the fire at _Camp Smile Awhile_. Then we passed the store that was
all closed up tight and I said, "so long, store. So long, _Camp Smile
Awhile_." And while we stood out there on the back platform, the wheels
kept saying, "S'long, s'long, s'long, s'long, s'long...."

Gee whiz, I was sorry.

CHAPTER XXIII

CRAZY STUFF

One thing sure, those auto thieves weren't on our train; they didn't get
on at any of those three places, Ozone Valley or Ridgeboro or Skiddyunk.
The two sheriffs got off at Skiddyunk again, to keep a watch when the
late train came through. The Skiddyunk Station was all dark. As we left
it the wheels kept saying, "s'long, s'long," and pretty soon we couldn't
see it at all, and I knew that the country where we had had so much fun
was way back there in the dark and that probably we'd never see it any
more.

That was a single-track railroad and as we stood on the back platform,
we could see the two shiny rails going away back into the dark.

"Let's go and sit down," I said; "I'm tired."

We had a shoe box full of eats that the girls at _Camp Smile Awhile_ had
given us and, yum, yum, those sandwiches were good.

Pretty soon a brakeman came staggering through, holding onto the seats.
He had a red lantern and he hung it on the back platform. "So's the
flyer won't bunk her nose into us," he said.

"Reg'lar private car, you kids got," he said.

I said, "When d