"There's room on the trestle," he said; "but what if the train starts
up?"
"It ain't goin' to start--beat it while you got time," the brakeman
insisted. "The engine's takin' water at the other side. She always
takes it here."
But for once the engine did not take water. The evidence at the
inquest developed that the engineer had found no water in the tank and
started on. Scarcely had the two boys dropped from the side-door of
the box-car, and before they had made a score of steps along the
narrow way between the train and the abyss, than the train began to
move. Young Dick, quick and sure in all his perceptions and
adjustments, dropped on the instant to hands and knees on the trestle.
This gave him better holding and more space, because he crouched
beneath the overhang of the box-cars. Tim, not so quick in perceiving
and adjusting, also overcome with Celtic rage at the brakeman, instead
of dropping to hands and knees, remained upright to flare his opinion
of the brakeman, to the brakeman, in lurid and ancestral terms.
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