re to go back into the car, and Rose went with him. As they were
climbing the steps into the vestibule a brakeman came running forward
along the cinder path beside the tracks.

"All aboard! Back into the cars, people!" he shouted. "We're going to
steam back. Get aboard!"

Russ and Margy being the only Bunker children in sight, Mr. Bunker
"shooed" them back to the Pullman car. He saw Rose and Mun Bun
disappearing up the high steps, and he presumed Laddie and Violet were
ahead. The train had started and the four children and daddy came to
mother's seat before it was discovered that there were two little
Bunkers missing.

"Oh, Charles!" gasped Mrs. Bunker. "Where are they?" The train began to
move more rapidly. "They are left behind!"

"No, Amy, I don't think so," Mr. Bunker told her soothingly. "I looked
all about before I got aboard and there wasn't a chick nor child in
sight. I was one of the last passengers to get aboard. The section men
had even got upon their handcar and were pumping away up the east-bound
track. There is not a soul left at that place."

"Then where are they?" cried Mother Bunker, without being relieved in
the least by his statement.

"I think they are aboard the train--somewhere. They got into the wrong
car by mistake. We will look for them," said Mr. Bunker.

So he went forward, while Russ started back through the rear cars, both
looking and asking for the twins. As we quite well know, Vi and Laddie
were not aboard the train at all, and the others found this to be a fact
within a very few minutes. Back daddy and Russ came to the rest of the
family.

"I knew they were left behind!" Mother Bunker declared again, and this
time nobody tried to reassure her.

Her alarm was shared by daddy and the older children. Even Margy began
to cry a little, although, ordinarily, she wasn't much of a cry-baby.
She wanted to know if they had to go on to Cowboy Jack's and leave Vi
and Laddie behind them--and if they would never find them again.

"Of course we'll find them," Rose assured the little girl. "They aren't
really lost. They just missed the train."

Daddy hurried to find their conductor and talk with him. He came back
with the news that the train was only going to run back a few miles to
where there was a cross-over switch, and then the train would steam back
again into the cut on the east-bound track. The conductor promised to
stop there so Mr. Bunker could look for the lost children.

But Mot