d
formerly lain.

"Why, that isn't a hole in the ground at all!" cried Laddie, first to
realize that what had made the train stop was something different from
what they had all expected.

"Oh!" shouted Violet. "It's a great, big rock that's fallen down the
hill."

"Well," said Russ, soberly, "I guess it's a washout at that. For the
rain must have washed it out of the hillside. See! There is the hole up
there in the bank."

"You are right, Russ," said Daddy Bunker. "It is a washout, and it will
take a long time to get that big rock off of the track so that the train
can go on."

The rock that had fallen completely blocked the west-bound track, as
daddy said. And a good deal of earth and gravel had fallen with it so
that the rails of the east-bound track were likewise buried. There was
already a gang of trackmen clearing away this gravel; but, as the
children's father had told them, it would take many hours to remove the
great boulder.

"Suppose our train had been going by when the rock fell?" suggested Russ
to Rose.

"What would the rock have done to us?" asked Vi, who heard her brother
say this.

"I guess it would have done something," replied Russ solemnly.

"It would have pushed us right off the track," declared Rose, nodding
her head.

"And what would it have done then?" demanded Vi.

"I wish you wouldn't, Vi," complained her twin suddenly.

"Wish I wouldn't what?"

"Ask so many questions."

"Why not?"

"Why, I was just thinking of a riddle about that big rock; and now it's
all gone," sighed Laddie.

"No, it isn't gone at all," Vi said wonderingly. "Daddy says it will
take hours to move it."

"Oh! That old rock!" said Laddie. "I meant my riddle. That's all gone."

"I guess it wasn't a very good riddle, then, if it went so easy," said
the critical Vi. "Oh, look there!"

"At what?" exclaimed her twin, following Vi to the fence beside the
railroad bed.

"See that path, Laddie? I guess we could climb right up that hill and
see down into that hole where the big rock washed out."

"So we could," agreed the boy. "Let's."

Daddy and the other children were some yards away, but in plain sight.
Indeed, they would be in sight if Vi and Laddie climbed to the very top
of the bank. It did not seem to either of the twins that they needed to
ask permission to climb the path when daddy was so near and could see
them by just looking up. So they hopped over the low fence and began to
climb.

It was an