"Eating my lunch. Always eat it sitting on the floor, you know,"

growled the boy, at which there was a roar from the others.

"What are they trying to do out there?" questioned Phil.

"Going to shift us about on another track, I guess. I was nearly thrown down when I tried to get on the platform. I never saw a road where they were so rough. Did you?"

"Yes; I rode on one the other night that could beat this,"

grinned Phil.

A few minutes later the car got under motion, pushed by a switching engine, and began banging along merrily over switches, tearing through the yard at high speed.

"We seem to be in a hurry 'bout something," grunted Teddy.

"Maybe they've hooked us on the wrong train, and we're bound for somewhere else."

"No, I don't think so," replied Phil. "You should be used to this sort of thing by this time."

"I don't care as long as the food holds out. It doesn't make any difference where they take us."

"What section does this car go out on tonight, steward?"

questioned Phil.

"The last. Goes out with the sleepers."

"That explains it. They are shifting us around, making up the last section and to get us out of the way of section No. 2.

I never can keep these trains straight in my mind, they change them so frequently. But it's better than riding in a canvas wagon over a rough country road, isn't it, Teddy?"

"Worse," grunted the lad. "You never know when you're going to get your everlasting b.u.mp, and you don't have any net to fall in when you do. Hey, they're at it again!"

His words were almost prophetic.

There followed a sudden jolt, a deafening crash, accompanied by cries from the cooks and waiters at the far end of the car.

"Get a net!" howled Teddy.

"We're off the rails," cried the performers.

"Look out for yourselves!"

Little Dimples was hurled from her stool at the lunch counter, and launched straight toward a window from which the gla.s.s was showering into the car.

Phil made a spring, catching her in his arms. But the impact and the jolt were too much for him. He went down in a heap, Little Dimples falling half over him.

He made a desperate grab for her, but the woman's skirts slipped through his hand and she plunged on toward the far end of the car.

"Look out for the coffee boiler."

A yell from a waiter told them that the warning had come too late. The man had gotten a large part of the contents of the boiler over him.

But all at once those in the car began to realize that something else was occurring. Somehow, they could feel the accommodation car wavering as if on the brink of a precipice. Then it began to settle slowly and the mystified performers and car hands thought it was going to rest where it was on the ties.

Instead, the car took a sudden lurch.

"We're going over something!" cried a voice.

Phil, who had scrambled quickly to his feet, half-dazed from the fall, stood irresolutely for a few seconds then began making his way toward where Little Dimples had fallen.

At that moment young Forrest was hurled with great force against the side of the car. Everything in the car seemed suddenly to have become the center of a miniature cyclone. Dishes, cooking utensils, tables and chairs were flying through the air, the noise within the car accompanied by a sickening, grinding series of crashes from without.

Groans were already distinguishable above the deafening crashes.

Those who were able to think realized that the accommodation car was falling over an embankment of some sort.

Through accident or design, what is known as a "blind switch" had been turned while the engine was shunting the accommodation car about the yards. The result was that the car had left the rails, b.u.mped along on the ties for a distance, then had toppled over an embankment that was some twenty feet high.

It seemed as if all in that ill-fated car must be killed or maimed for life. A series of shrill blasts from the engine called for help.

The crash had been heard all over the railroad yards.

Railroad men and circus men had rushed toward the spot where the accommodation car had gone over the embankment, Mr. Sparling among the number. He had just arrived at the yards when the accident occurred.

Fortunately, the wrecking crew was ready for instant service, and these men were rushed without an instant's delay to the outskirts of the yard where the wreck had occurred.

However, ere the men got there a startling cry rose from hundreds of throats.

"Fire! The car is on fire!"

"Break in the doors! Smash the sides in!"

Yet no one seemed to have the presence of mind to do anything.

Phil had been hurled through a broken widow, landing halfway down the bank, on the uphill side of the car, else he must have been crushed to death. But so thoroughly dazed was he that he was unable to move.

Finally someone discovered him and picked him up.

"Here's one of them," announced a bystander. "It's a kid, too."

Mr. Sparling came charging down the bank.

"Who is it? Where is he?" he bellowed.

"Here."

"It's Phil Forrest," cried one of the showmen, recognizing the lad, whose face was streaked where it had been cut by the jagged gla.s.s in the broken window.

"Is he killed?"

"No; he's alive. He's coming around now."

Phil sat up and rubbed his eyes.