begun, was coming a big locomotive
drawing a long passenger train. The man with the earrings reached Vi and
Laddie the very next moment.

"Look-a da train!" he cried. "You bambinoes want-a get run over--yes?"

"We're not Bambinoes, Mister," said Laddie. "We're Bunkers."

Vi could not quench her usual curiosity, although the man seemed so
strange in her eyes. She asked:

"Why do you wear rings in your ears? Please, why do you wear 'em?"

CHAPTER XII

CAVALLO AT LAST

The man with the earrings led the twins over the other track so that
they would be sufficiently far from the train. To his surprise the
engine began to slow down, the engineer and fireman waved their hands as
they leaned out of the window and door of the cab, and by and by the
train rumbled to a stop.

"That looks just like our train," Laddie announced confidently. "Only
ours was traveling on this nearer track. Maybe the two trains were
racing and our train got ahead in spite of the washout."

Vi stuck to her subject. She scarcely looked at the train when it first
stopped. Her gaze was fastened upon the flagman who had showed such
anxiety for her safety and that of Laddie.

"Say, please, Mister," she continued to ask, "what makes you wear
earrings?"

A Pullman coach had halted just opposite the spot where the twins and
the flagman stood. They saw several people at two of the windows, waving
to them. Then Russ Bunker popped out of the front door of the car and
down the steps.

"Look! Look! Here they are!" Russ shouted, as he ran toward his brother
and sister and the man who wore earrings.

"Why, Russ Bunker!" ejaculated Vi, "how did you come on that train? Were
you left behind, too?"

"Come on! Hurry up!" the oldest Bunker boy replied. "This is our train.
And the engineer will stop only a minute. Do you know, it costs three
dollars and thirty-three and a third cents every time the train stops?
The brakeman told me so."

"Why does it cost that much?" demanded Vi, forgetting the Italian
flagman and his earrings, as Russ hurried her toward the car steps. "Are
you sure about the third of a cent, Russ?"

Laddie looked back and waved his hand to the man who wore earrings.
"Good-bye!" he called to the man.

"Good-a-bye!" cried the flagman in return, smiling very broadly.
"Good-a-bye!"

"Why does he talk so funny?" asked Vi, panting, as Russ helped her up
the car steps and into the vestibule.

"He talks broken English," said Russ in