"This is a pretty wild country," Westy said; "it's all mountains. Do you hear the echo of the engine?"

Just as clear as could be, I could hear the sound of the engine echoing back from the mountains; the chugging and rattling sounded double, like. Then, pretty soon, it kind of died away.

After about half a minute, Westy and I just sat staring at each other, listening.

"That's funny," he said; "it seems to be going farther away."

"It sounds like the trains when you hear them at Temple Camp," I said.

He said, "That isn't our train, it's another train; it's over that way. We didn't hear it before, on account of ours."

I guess neither of us said anything for about half a minute, and all the while we could hear the rattling of the train, away off somewhere.

I said, "Westy, we're slowing down; it feels kind of funny; do you notice?"

"How?" he said.

"We're slowing down and there isn't any knocking of the cars against each other."

We both listened and all the while we could hear the rattling of a train far away.

"It feels just the same as it felt when we rolled down the siding," I said; "I don't know, kind of funny—easy like."

He opened the window and then shouted, "Look, look! This car's all alone. Look off there."

Away ahead of us, but a little over to one side, we could see a bright spot moving along and little bright dots in back of it. I knew it was the brightness thrown by a headlight and the lights showing through car windows. It was our train scooting along around the mountains. Our car kept slowing down very easy sort of, as if there was nothing pulling it or holding it back either. I knew the feeling, because I had been on that car when it was like that before. It went slower and slower and slower and then the wheels sounded different—sort of hollow, kind of. Then the car just crawled along and at last it stopped.

"Look down," Westy said; "I can't see the ground. Do you hear water rushing?"

I looked out of the window and down, down, down, till I couldn't see anything but just the dark. But I could hear water way down there.

"We're on a high bridge," I said.

Just then the wind blew strong and it brought the noise of that train near again. And it shook the bridge, too, ever so little.

Westy said, "Roy, we're a couple of hundred feet up. You know just how the water in Black Gully sounds up near Temple Camp. That's over two hundred feet."

"What happened, do you suppose?" I asked him.

"Coupling broke, I guess," he said. "Let's have one of those lifters from the stove."

We dropped one of the iron lifters and listened to hear it fall. But all we could hear was a little splash, away far down.

"This bridge must be terribly high," Westy said; "feel how it shakes in the wind."

"This is a dickens of a spooky place to be," I told him; "especially in a strong wind."

"You said it," Westy answered.

Gee whiz, I've often felt kind of shaky going over a high bridge in a train, but to be left standing in the middle of one; oh, boy!

"Let's go and see what happened," he said.

We got the red lantern from the back platform of the car and went through to the other platform and held it down. There was nothing at all beneath us, except ties very far apart, and the rails and the heavy steel runners outside the rails. The coupling was broken, all right. I guess that coupling must have been an old timer.

"Hang the lantern on the rail," Westy said, "while I get down and see what happened."

"Look out what you're doing," I said; "there's two or three hundred feet of space below you. Watch your step."

He lay on the platform so as to be able to reach down and look down where the coupling was, and find out just what had happened.

"Hold the light down," he said.

Gee, I can't tell you just how it happened. Westy says he was to blame and I say I was to blame. He said he knocked the lantern out of my hand, but, gee whiz, I should have kept it out of his way. Anyway, it went tumbling down and it went so far that it looked like just a little red speck. It stayed lighted till it crashed away down in the bottom of that place. And the light turned yellow and spread a little bit, then went out. I guess the oil spilled on a rock down there. Anyway, it looked like miles.

Westy was breathing hard and I guess I was, too. He said, "Have you got that time table? What time did our conductor say that train from Buffalo comes through?"

I said, "About midnight. We're in a pretty bad fix. I guess I'd better wake the fellows up, hey?"

We were both pretty serious.