Even while he spoke there sounded far away in the distance, so far that it was like only a faint echo, the whistle of an approaching locomotive.  The man hobbled down the track a yard or so and stopped.  “What do you suppose they’ll do?” he asked.  “There are so many bends in this road, the train may come right on to ’em before the engineer sees ’em.  S’pose they’ll jump off, or turn and try to come back?”

Jonesy glanced around wildly a second, and then sprang forward toward the man.

“Give me the switch-key!” he cried, in a high voice, shrill with excitement.  “You can’t run, but I can.  Give me the switch-key!” Perplexed by the sudden turn of affairs and the little fellow’s commanding tone, the man took the key from his pocket.  He realised his own helplessness to do anything, and there was something in Jonesy’s manner that inspired confidence.  He felt that the child’s quick wit had grasped the situation and formed some sensible plan of action.

Again the whistle sounded in the distance, and, snatching the key, Jonesy was off down the track like an arrow.  The section boss, leaning heavily on his cane, limped after him as fast as he could.

Keith and the Little Colonel, having gathered the moss and started back home, were rolling leisurely along, still talking of magicians and their ilk.

“What if we should meet a dragon?” cried the Little Colonel.  “A dragon with a scaly green tail, and red eyes and a fiery tongue.  What would you do then?”

“I’d say, ‘What!  Ho!  Thou monster!’ and cleave him in twain with my good broadsword, and when he saw its shining blade smite through the air he’d just curl up and die.”

Keith looked back to smile at the bright laughing face beside him.  Then he caught sight of something over his shoulder that made him pause.  “Oh, look!” he cried, pointing over the tree-tops behind them.  A little puff of smoke, rising up in the distance, trailed along the sky like a long banner.  At the same instant, out of the smoke, sounded the whistle of an approaching engine.  The track behind them had so many turns, he could not judge of their distance from it, and for an instant he stopped working the handle bar up and down, too thoroughly frightened to know what to do.  An older child might have acted differently; might have jumped from the hand-car and left it to be run into by the approaching train, or have hurried back around the bend to flag the engine.  But Keith had only one idea left:  that was to keep ahead of the train as long as possible.  It seemed so far away he thought they could surely reach the depot before it caught up with them, and his sturdy little arms bent to the task.

For a moment there was a real pleasure in the exertion.  He felt with an excited thrill that he was really running away with the Little Colonel, and rescuing her from a pursuing danger.  Suddenly the whistle sounded again, and this time it seemed so close behind them that the Little Colonel gave a terrified glance over her shoulder and then screamed at the sight of the great snorting monster, breathing out fire and smoke, worse than any scaly-tailed dragon that she had ever imagined.  It was far down the track but they could hear its terrible rumble as it rushed over a trestle, and the singing of the wires overhead.