thing--very thin--you
know the kind--rails and telegraph wires glistening like the
decorations on a Christmas tree--very pretty--and also very nasty
running on a mountain grade. Likewise, the rain, in a way rain has,
had dripped from the car roofs to the platforms--the local did not
boast any closed vestibules--and had also been blown upon the car steps
with the sweep of the wind, and, having frozen, it stayed there. Not a
very serious matter; annoying, perhaps, but not serious, demanding a
little extra caution, that was all.

Toddles was in high fettle that night. He had been getting on famously
of late; even Bob Donkin had admitted it. Toddles, with his stack of
books and magazines, an unusually big one, for a number of the new
periodicals were out that day, was dreaming rosy dreams to himself as
he started from the door of the first-class smoker to the door of the
first-class coach. In another hour now he'd be up in the despatcher's
room at Big Cloud for his nightly sitting with Bob Donkin. He could
see Bob Donkin there now; and he could hear the big despatcher growl at
him in his bluff way: "Use your head--use your head--_Hoogan_!" It was
always "Hoogan," never "Toddles." "Use your head"--Donkin was
everlastingly drumming that into him; for the despatcher used to
confront him suddenly with imaginary and hair-raising emergencies, and
demand Toddles' instant solution. Toddles realized that Donkin was
getting to the heart of things, and that some day he, Toddles, would be
a great despatcher--like Donkin. "Use your head, Hoogan"--that's the
way Donkin talked--"anybody can learn a key, but that doesn't make a
railroad man out of him. It's the man when trouble comes who can think
quick and think _right_. Use your----"

Toddles stepped out on the platform--and walked on ice. But that
wasn't Toddles' undoing. The trouble with Toddles was that he was
walking on air at the same time. It was treacherous running, they were
nosing a curve, and in the cab, Kinneard, at the throttle, checked with
a little jerk at the "air." And with the jerk, Toddles slipped; and
with the slip, the center of gravity of the stack of periodicals
shifted, and they bulged ominously from the middle. Toddles grabbed at
them--and his heels went out from under him. He ricochetted down the
steps, snatched desperately at the handrail, missed it, shot out from
the train, and, head, heels, arms and body going every which way at
once, rolle