otive made a long shaft like a searchlight 'way far ahead, and we
could see the man walking along the track in that shaft, swinging his
lantern. Our car was all bright, too. It seemed awful lonesome where he
was going, far ahead in the dark. The locomotive kept going _pfff, pfff,
pfff_, just like a horse stamping his foot, because he's in a hurry to
start. It seemed kind of as if it didn't want to wait.

"Have we come to the siding?" I asked the man on the platform.

"You'll have to take the switch," he said.

"We wouldn't take anything that didn't belong to us," Connie said;
"you'll have to give it to us if you want us to take it."

"I don't care so much about having one, anyway," I said. I guess that
man thought we were crazy.

"We'll give you the run," he said.

"I wouldn't blame you for doing that if we took the switch," Wig told
him. Gee, he had to laugh.

Pretty soon the man who was far ahead began swinging his lantern around
in a circle. Then the engine gave a kind of a quick, shrill whistle, and
we started again. We went a little faster than before and then, all of a
sudden, we saw the engine standing quite a way off, and already the men
on our car were turning the hand brakes. Our car was rattling along all
by itself. In about half a minute, _kerlick, kerlick_, it went on a
switch and then the men began yanking on the brake handles for all they
were worth.

But I knew that old car all right, and its brakes were pretty near as
bad as its couplings.

"Oh, merrily, merrily on we roll," Connie began singing.

"What's the matter with this plaguey old boat?" one of the men said, all
the while bracing his feet and pulling and pulling on the wheel.

"It likes to go off on a hike by itself," I said; "you should worry.
When it stops, it stops."

"Well, it better stop pretty soon," he said, "or else----Here, get hold
of this wheel, you kids, and pull."

"Them brakes got about as much bite in 'em as a ki-oodle," the man said;
"how old is this old scow? 'Bout a hundred, I guess."

"This old car is all right," I told him; "a scout must have respect for
age--page something-or-other-scout handbook. We may be old ourselves
some day. What do we care, yo ho?"

He said, "Well, I hope the brakes on your tongue will work better than
they do now."

"The pleasure is mine," I told him.

Two of us were pulling away as hard as we could, helping one of the
trainmen, two were helping the man on the other platform, and