aps, though, that those old doghouse croakers predicted."

"No," admitted the fireman, but he accompanied the word with a serious
shake of the head; "that's to come. I'm trained enough to guess that
another frost or two will end in the season that every railroad man
dreads. Wait till the whiskers get on the rails, lad, and a freshet or
two strikes 999. There's some of those culverts make me quake when I
think of the big ice gorges likely to form along Dolliver's Creek. Oh,
we'll get them--storms, snowslides and blockades. The only way is to
remember the usual winter warning, 'extra caution,' keep cool, and
stick to the cab to the last."

Summer had faded into autumn, and one or two sharp frosts had
announced the near approach of winter. The day before there had been a
slight snow flurry. A typical fall day and a moonlit night had
followed, however, and Ralph experienced the usual pleasure as they
rolled back the miles under flying wheels. They took the sharp curves
as they ran up into the hills with a scream of triumph from the
locomotive whistle every time they made a new grade.

"Waste of steam, lad, that," observed Fogg, as they rounded a curve
and struck down into a cut beyond which lay the town of Fordham.

"Better to be safe," responded Ralph. "There's a crossing right ahead
where the old spur cuts in."

"Yes, but who ever crosses it?" demanded the fireman.

"Some one did two nights ago," insisted Ralph. "I'm positive that we
just grazed a light wagon crossing the roadway leading into the cut."

"Then it was some stray farmer lost off his route," declared Fogg.
"Why, that old spur has been rusting away for over five years, to my
recollection. As to the old road beyond being a highway, that's
nonsense. There's no thoroughfare beyond the end of the spur. The road
ends at a dismantled, abandoned old factory, and nobody lives anywhere
in this section."

"Is that so?" Toot! toot! toot!

The whistle screeched out sharply. The fireman stuck his head out of
the window. Ralph had already looked ahead.

"I declare!" shouted Fogg, staring hard. "Swish--gone! But what was it
we passed?"

Ralph did not speak. He sat still in a queer kind of realization of
what they both had just seen, and in the retrospect. While he and his
fireman had been conversing, just ahead in the white moonlight he had
seen two human figures against the sky. It was a flashing glimpse
only, for the train was making a forty mile clip, but, da