round the house."

"Mars Phil! O Mars Phil!" called the old man.

There was no reply.

Peter looked round the corner of the house, but Phil was nowhere
visible. The old man went round to the back yard, and called again,
but did not find the child.

"I hyuhs de train comin'; I 'spec's he's gone up ter de railroad
track," he said, when he had returned to the front of the house. "I'll
run up dere an' fetch 'im back."

"Yes, do, Peter," returned the colonel. "He's probably all right, but
you'd better see about him."

Little Phil, seeing his father absorbed in the newspaper, and not
wishing to disturb him, had amused himself by going to the gate and
looking down the street toward the railroad track. He had been doing
this scarcely a moment, when he saw a black cat come out of a
neighbour's gate and go down the street.

Phil instantly recalled Uncle Peter's story of the black cat. Perhaps
this was the same one!

Phil had often been warned about the railroad.

"Keep 'way f'm dat railroad track, honey," the old man had repeated
more than once. "It's as dange'ous as a gun, and a gun is dange'ous
widout lock, stock, er bairl: I knowed a man oncet w'at beat 'is wife
ter def wid a ramrod, an' wuz hung fer it in a' ole fiel' down by de
ha'nted house. Dat gun couldn't hol' powder ner shot, but was
dange'ous 'nuff ter kill two folks. So you jes' better keep 'way f'm
dat railroad track, chile."

But Phil was a child, with the making of a man, and the wisest of men
sometimes forget. For the moment Phil saw nothing but the cat, and
wished for nothing more than to talk to it.

So Phil, unperceived by the colonel, set out to overtake the black
cat. The cat seemed in no hurry, and Phil had very nearly caught up
with him--or her, as the case might be--when the black cat, having
reached the railroad siding, walked under a flat car which stood
there, and leaping to one of the truck bars, composed itself,
presumably for a nap. In order to get close enough to the cat for
conversational purposes, Phil stooped under the overhanging end of the
car, and kneeled down beside the truck.

"Kitty, Kitty!" he called, invitingly.

The black cat opened her big yellow eyes with every evidence of lazy
amiability.

Peter shuffled toward the corner as fast as his rickety old limbs
would carry him. When he reached the corner he saw a car standing on
the track. There was a brakeman at one end, holding a coupling link in
one hand, and a couplin