doing widows and orphans out of their
land. Makes you have a mighty small opinion of the law, I declare it
does."

As he spoke the train slowed up, then stopped.

"No station," puzzled the Texan. "Let's go and find out the trouble."

He started for the door, and then the train started, bumped, and came
to a standstill again.

"You go ahead!" shouted Bob. "I have to go back and see that my
friend is all right."

CHAPTER IV

BLOCKED TRAFFIC

All was uproar and confusion in the coaches through which Bob had to
pass to reach the car where he knew Betty was. Distracted mothers
with frightened, crying children charged up and down the aisles,
excited men ran through, and the wildest guesses flew about. The
consensus of opinion was that they had hit something!

"Oh, Bob!" Betty greeted him with evident relief when he at last
reached her. "What has happened? Is any one hurt? Will another train
come up behind us and run into us?"

This last was a cheerful topic broached by the fussy little man whose
capacity for going ahead and meeting trouble was boundless.

"Of course not!" Bob's scorn was more reassuring than the gentlest
answer. "As soon as a train stops they set signals to warn traffic.
What a horrible racket every one is making! They're all screeching at
once. Get your hat, Betty, and we'll go and find out something
definite. I don't know any more than you do, but I can't stand this
noise."

Betty was glad to get away from the babble of sound, and they went
down the first set of steps and joined the procession that was
picking its way over the ties toward the engine.

"Express due in three minutes," said a brakeman warningly, hurrying
past them. "Stand well back from the tracks."

He went on, cautioning every one he passed, and a majority of the
passengers swerved over to the wide cinder path on the other side of
the second track. A few persisted in walking the ties.

"Here she comes! Look out!" Bob shouted, as a trail of smoke became
visible far up the track.

He had insisted that Betty stand well away from the track, and now
the few persistent ones who had remained on the cleared track
scrambled madly to reach safety. A woman who walked with a cane, and
who had overridden her young-woman attendant's advice that she stay
in the coach until news of the accident, whatever it was, could be
brought to her, was almost paralyzed with nervous fright. Bob went to
her distressed attendant's aid, and bet