“But what about the train?” asked Betty.

“Oh, I’ll stop that all right.  I’ll flag it, and Jimmie and me’ll put in a new rail.  You’ll be noticin’ that we have ’em here and there along the line,” and he showed them where, a little distance down the track, there were a number placed in racks made of posts, so that they might not rust.

From his pocket the track-walker pulled a red flag.  It seemed that he carried it there for just such emergencies.  He tied it to his pick handle, and stuck the latter in the track some distance away from the broken rail.

“The engineer’ll see that,” he said, “and stop.  Now I’ll go get Jimmie and we’ll put in a new rail.  You young ladies—­why, th’ railroad company’ll be very thankful to you.  If you was to stop here now, and the passengers of the train were told of what you found—­why, they might even make up a purse for you.  They did that to Mike Malone once, when he flagged the Century Flier when it was goin’ to slip over a broken bridge.  I’ll tell ’em how it was, and how you—­”

“No—­no—­we can’t stay!” exclaimed Betty.  “If you will look after the broken rail we’ll go on.  We must get to Broxton.”

“Oh, sure, it’ll not take the likes of you long to be doin’ that,” complimented the man, with a trace of brogue in his voice.  “You look equal to doin’ twice as much.”

“Well, we don’t want to be caught in the rain,” spoke Mollie.

“Ah, ‘twill be nothin’ more than a sun shower, it will make your complexions better—­not that you need it though,” he hastened to add.  “Good luck to you, and many thanks for tellin’ me about this broken rail.  ‘Tis poor Jimmie who’d be blamed for not seein’ it, and him with a sick wife.  Good-bye to you!”

The girls, satisfied that the train would be flagged in time, soon left the track, the last glimpse they had of the workman being as he hurried off to summon his partner to replace the broken rail.

That he did so was proved a little later, for when the girls were walking along the road that ran parallel to the railroad line some distance farther on, the express dashed by at a speed which seemed to indicate that the engineer was making up for lost time.

Several days later the girls read in a local paper of how the train had been stopped while two track-walkers fitted a perfect rail in place of the broken one.  And something of themselves was told.  For the track-walker they had met had talked of the young ladies he had met, and there was much printed speculation about them.

“I’m glad we didn’t give our names,” said Grace.  “Our folks might have worried if they had read of it.”

“But we might have gotten a reward,” said Mollie.

“Never mind—­we have the five hundred dollars,” exclaimed Grace.

“It may already be claimed,” spoke Betty.

When they had seen the express go safely by, thankful that they had had a small share in preventing a possible loss of life, the girls continued on their way.  They stopped for lunch in a little grove of trees, brewing tea, and partaking of the cake, bread and meat Amy’s cousin had provided.  Amy had torn her skirt on a barbed wire fence and the rent was sewed up beside the road.