Dab Kinzer | Page 9

came, he had actually acquired a good deal more knowledge
which might be of some value.
Ford was almost the only passenger in the car he had selected. Trains
going towards the city were apt to be thinly peopled at that time of day;
but the empty cars had to be taken along all the same, for the benefit of
the crowds who would be coming out later in the afternoon and in the
evening. The railway-company would have made more money with full
loads both ways, but it was well they did not have a full load on that
precise train.
Ford had turned over the seat in front of him, and stretched himself out
with his feet on it. It was almost like lying down, for a boy of his length;
and it was the very best position he could possibly have taken if he had
known what was coming.
Known what was coming?
Yes: there was a pig coming.
That was all; but it was quite enough, considering what that pig was
about to do. He was going where he chose, just then; and not only had
he chosen to walk upon the railroad-track, but he had also made up his
mind not to turn out for that locomotive and its train of cars.
He saw it, of course, for he was looking straight at it; and the engineer
saw him, but it would have been well for the pig if he had been

discovered a few seconds earlier.
"What a whistle!" exclaimed Ford Foster at that moment. "It sounds
more like the squeal of an iron pig than any thing else. I"--
But at that instant there came to him a great jolt and a shock; and Ford
found himself tumbled all in a heap, on the seat where his feet had been.
Then came bounce after bounce, and the sound of breaking glass, and
then a crash.
"Off the track," shouted Ford, as he sprang to his feet. "I wouldn't have
missed it for any thing. I do hope, though, there hasn't anybody been
killed."
In the tremendous excitement of the moment he could hardly have told
how he got out of that car; but it did not seem ten seconds before he
was standing beside the engineer and conductor of the train, looking at
the battered engine, as it lay upon its side in a deep ditch. The
baggage-car, just behind it, was broken all to pieces, but the
passenger-cars did not seem to have suffered very much; and nobody
was badly hurt, as the engineer and fireman had jumped off in time.
There had been very little left of the pig; but the conductor and the rest
seemed much disposed to say unkind things about him, and about his
owner, and about all the other pigs they could think of.
"This train'll never get in on time," said Ford to the conductor, a little
later. "How'll I get to the city?"
The railway man was not in the best of humors; and he answered, a
little groutily, "Well, young man, I don't suppose the city could get
along without you over night. The junction with the main road is only
two miles ahead, and if you're a good walker you may catch a train
there."
Some of the other passengers, none of whom were much more than
"badly shaken up," or down, had made the same discovery; and in a
few minutes more there was a long, straggling procession of

uncomfortable people, marching by the side of the railway-track, in the
hot sun. They were nearly all of them making unkind remarks about
pigs, and the faculty they had of not getting out of the way.
The conductor was right, however; and nearly all of them managed to
walk the two miles to the junction in time to go in on the other train.
Ford Foster was among the first to arrive, and he was likely to reach
home in season, in spite of the pig and his outrageous conduct.
As for his danger, he had hardly thought of that; and he again and again
declared to himself that he would not have missed so important an
adventure for any thing he could think of. It almost sounded once or
twice as if he took to himself no small amount of personal credit, not to
say glory, for having been in so remarkable an accident, and come out
of it so well.
Ford's return, when he should make it, was to take him to a great,
pompous, stylish, crowded "up-town boarding-house," in one of the
fashionable streets of the great city. There was no wonder at all that
wise people should wish to get out of such a place in such hot weather.
Still it