tail lights of the local disappeared. No one aboard would
miss Toddles until they got into Big Cloud--and found him gone. Which is
Irish for saying that no one would attempt to keep track of a newsboy's
idiosyncrasies on a train; it would be asking too much of any train
crew; and, besides, there was no mention of it in the rules.

It was a long while before Toddles stirred; a very long while before
consciousness crept slowly back to him. Then he moved, tried to get
up--and fell back with a quick, sharp cry of pain. He lay still, then,
for a moment. His ankle hurt him frightfully, and his back, and his
shoulder, too. He put his hand to his face where something seemed to be
trickling warm--and brought it away wet. Toddles, grim little warrior,
tried to think. They hadn't been going very fast when he fell off. If
they had, he would have been killed. As it was, he was hurt, badly hurt,
and his head swam, nauseating him.

Where was he? Was he near any help? He'd have to get help somewhere,
or--or with the cold and--and everything he'd probably die out here
before morning. Toddles shouted out--again and again. Perhaps his voice
was too weak to carry very far; anyway, there was no reply.

He looked up at the top of the embankment, clamped his teeth, and
started to crawl. If he got up there, perhaps he could tell where he
was. It had taken Toddles a matter of seconds to roll down; it took him
ten minutes of untold agony to get up. Then he dashed his hand across
his eyes where the blood was, and cried a little with the surge of
relief. East, down the track, only a few yards away, the green eye of a
switch lamp winked at him.

Where there was a switch lamp there was a siding, and where there was a
siding there was promise of a station. Toddles, with the sudden uplift
upon him, got to his feet and started along the track--two steps--and
went down again. He couldn't walk, the pain was more than he could
bear--his right ankle, his left shoulder, and his back--hopping only
made it worse--it was easier to crawl.

And so Toddles crawled.

It took him a long time even to pass the switch light. The pain made him
weak, his senses seemed to trail off giddily every now and then, and
he'd find himself lying flat and still beside the track. It was a white,
drawn face that Toddles lifted up each time he started on
again--miserably white, except where the blood kept trickling from his
forehead.

And then Toddles' heart, stout as it was,