UP IN THE AIR
"This is a pretty wild country," Westy said; "it's all mountains. Do you
hear the echo of the engine?"
Just as clear as could be, I could hear the sound of the engine echoing
back from the mountains; the chugging and rattling sounded double, like.
Then, pretty soon, it kind of died away.
After about half a minute, Westy and I just sat staring at each other,
listening.
"That's funny," he said; "it seems to be going farther away."
"It sounds like the trains when you hear them at Temple Camp," I said.
He said, "That isn't our train, it's another train; it's over that way.
We didn't hear it before, on account of ours."
I guess neither of us said anything for about half a minute, and all the
while we could hear the rattling of the train, away off somewhere.
I said, "Westy, we're slowing down; it feels kind of funny; do you
notice?"
"How?" he said.
"We're slowing down and there isn't any knocking of the cars against
each other."
We both listened and all the while we could hear the rattling of a train
far away.
"It feels just the same as it felt when we rolled down the siding," I
said; "I don't know, kind of funny--easy like."
He opened the window and then shouted, "_Look, look!_ This car's all
alone. Look off there."
Away ahead of us, but a little over to one side, we could see a bright
spot moving along and little bright dots in back of it. I knew it was
the brightness thrown by a headlight and the lights showing through car
windows. It was _our_ train scooting along around the mountains. Our car
kept slowing down very easy sort of, as if there was nothing pulling it
or holding it back either. I knew the feeling, because I had been on
that car when it was like that before. It went slower and slower and
slower and then the wheels sounded different--sort of hollow, kind of.
Then the car just crawled along and at last it stopped.
"Look down," Westy said; "I can't see the ground. Do you hear water
rushing?"
I looked out of the window and down, down, down, till I couldn't see
anything but just the dark. But I could hear water way down there.
"We're on a high bridge," I said.
Just then the wind blew strong and it brought the noise of that train
near again. And it shook the bridge, too, ever so little.
Westy said, "Roy, we're a couple of hundred feet up. You know just how
the water in Black Gully sounds up near Temple Camp. That's over two
hundred feet."
"What happened, do you suppose?" I asked him.
"Coupling broke, I guess," he said. "Let's have one of those lifters
from the stove."
We dropped one of the iron lifters and listened to hear it fall. But all
we could hear was a little splash, away far down.
"This bridge must be terribly high," Westy said; "feel how it shakes in
the wind."
"This is a dickens of a spooky place to be," I told him; "especially in
a strong wind."
"You said it," Westy answered.
Gee whiz, I've often felt kind of shaky going over a high bridge in a
train, but to be left standing in the middle of one; _oh, boy_!
"Let's go and see what happened," he said.
We got the red lantern from the back platform of the car and went
through to the other platform and held it down. There was nothing at all
beneath us, except ties very far apart, and the rails and the heavy
steel runners outside the rails. The coupling was broken, all right. I
guess that coupling must have been an old timer.
"Hang the lantern on the rail," Westy said, "while I get down and see
what happened."
"Look out what you're doing," I said; "there's two or three hundred feet
of space below you. Watch your step."
He lay on the platform so as to be able to reach down and look down
where the coupling was, and find out just what had happened.
"Hold the light down," he said.
Gee, I can't tell you just how it happened. Westy says he was to blame
and I say I was to blame. He said he knocked the lantern out of my hand,
but, gee whiz, I should have kept it out of his way. Anyway, it went
tumbling down and it went so far that it looked like just a little red
speck. It stayed lighted till it crashed away down in the bottom of
that place. And the light turned yellow and spread a little bit, then
went out. I guess the oil spilled on a rock down there. Anyway, it
looked like miles.
Westy was breathing hard and I guess I was, too. He said, "Have you got
that time table? What time did our conductor say that train from Buffalo
comes through?"
I said, "About midnight. We're in a pretty bad fix. I guess I'd better
wake the fellows up, hey?"
We were both pretty serious.