was the town of Bristol we
were approaching. I did not know what necessitated slackening in
speed. All I knew was that I wanted to get off. I strained my eyes in
the darkness for a street-crossing on which to land. I was pretty well
down the train, and before my car was in the town the engine was past
the station and I could feel her making speed again.

Then came the street. It was too dark to see how wide it was or what
was on the other side. I knew I needed all of that street if I was to
remain on my feet after I struck. I dropped off on the near side. It
sounds easy. By "dropped off" I mean just this: I first of all, on the
side-ladder, thrust my body forward as far as I could in the direction
the train was going--this to give as much space as possible in which
to gain backward momentum when I swung off. Then I swung, swung out
and backward, backward with all my might, and let go--at the same time
throwing myself backward as if I intended to strike the ground on the
back of my head. The whole effort was to overcome as much as possible
the primary forward momentum the train had imparted to my body. When
my feet hit the grit, my body was lying backward on the air at an
angle of forty-five degrees. I had reduced the forward momentum some,
for when my feet struck, I did not immediately pitch forward on my
face. Instead, my body rose to the perpendicular and began to incline
forward. In point of fact, my body proper still retained much
momentum, while my feet, through contact with the earth, had lost all
their momentum. This momentum the feet had lost I had to supply anew
by lifting them as rapidly as I could and running them forward in
order to keep them under my forward-moving body. The result was that
my feet beat a rapid and explosive tattoo clear across the street. I
didn't dare stop them. If I had, I'd have pitched forward. It was up
to me to keep on going.

I was an involuntary projectile, worrying about what was on the other
side of the street and hoping that it wouldn't be a stone wall or a
telegraph pole. And just then I hit something. Horrors! I saw it just
the instant before the disaster--of all things, a bull, standing there
in the darkness. We went down together, rolling over and over; and the
automatic process was such in that miserable creature that in the
moment of impact he reached out and clutched me and never let go. We
were both knocked out, and he held on to a very lamb-like hobo while
he recover