Anyway, pretty soon the excitement was all over, except that Pee-wee kept things going. Nothing but an earthquake would stop _him_. It was pretty bright in our car on account of the headlight from the engine. We moved along so slowly that I guess I could walk just as fast. The fireman paid us a good visit. He was an awful nice fellow. He could bend his left thumb way back. He said he would be an engineer pretty soon.
Jiminy, I hope he"s one by now.
He told us that the engineer was going to push us as far as Flimdunk Siding and leave us there and that another train would pick us up the next day. He said both our couplings were rusted out and no good and one of them would have to be fixed before we could be taken on.
He said, "We can"t push you far like this; "tisn"t safe and we have to just crawl."
"Flimdunk suits _us_ all right," I told him; "we"re not particular.
Columbus didn"t know where he was going anyway, and to-morrow"s Columbus Day. We should worry."
He said he guessed Number 23 would pick us up.
"_Good night!_" I told him, "that means more adventures. I suppose that"s the skiddo special. Probably we"ll be dumped off a cliff. All in the game."
He laughed and said that probably we wouldn"t have any more trouble, because Number 23 made a quick run straight to Jersey City.
"What does it want to go to Jersey City for?" Wig asked him.
He said, "Well, it doesn"t stay there long."
"I don"t blame it," Connie piped up.
He told us that when we got to Jersey City a Northern local would pick us up and drop us at Bridgeboro.
"All right, just as you say," I told him.
Anyway, we weren"t going to worry about it. When we got home we"d get home, that was all. And when we didn"t, we wouldn"t.
After the fireman went away, we fixed two seats facing each other and sprawled all over them. I guess we were getting pretty sleepy.
"Shout to the engineer to turn off that headlight and we"ll go to sleep," Wig said.
"Let"s make some turnovers first," Pee-wee said.
"All right, _you_ make them," I said.
Then followed a big chunk of silence.
All of a sudden Connie started singing:
"We stood on the bridge at midnight."
"Keep your feet off me," I said; "what do you think I am? A door-mat?"
"Let"s make up another verse," Wig said.
"Let"s put Flimdunk in it!" Pee-wee shouted.
Pretty soon all of us were singing:
"We stood on the bridge at midnight, We stood on the bridge at midnight, We stood on the bridge at midnight."
Then somebody sang:
"We came near getting a bunk, We came near getting a bunk."
Then we all sang:
"We stood on the bridge at midnight, We came near getting a bunk; We came near getting a bunk; We came----"
"We flashed them POTS!" Pee-wee yelled.
"Now we"re on our way to Flimdunk," Westy said.
So pretty soon this is what we were all singing:
"We stood on the bridge at midnight, We came near getting a bunk; We flashed them POTS for an S--O--S, Now we"re on our way to Flimdunk."
Gee whiz, I have to admit we"re a crazy bunch in our patrol.
CHAPTER x.x.xI
FLIMDUNK SIDING
After a little while, Pee-wee fell asleep, but the rest of us stayed awake, because we wanted to see what kind of a place we were going to stop at.
For about fifteen or twenty minutes the engine pushed us awfully slow, then we stopped, and a couple of men went between our car and the engine and did something to that long iron bar. We watched them from the platform. Then one of the men went through our car to the other platform and the other one stayed on the platform near the engine. Another man started along the track with a lantern.
"The plot grows thicker," I said; "what"s going to happen now?"
"Search me," Connie said; "look around and see if you see Flimdunk anywhere--not inside the car, you crazy Indian."
I was looking inside the car for it.
"How could we tell it if we saw it?" Connie asked us.
"Can"t you tell a village when you see one? It"ll look like a young town," Westy said.
"The fireman didn"t say anything about a town anyway," I told them; "he just said Flimdunk Siding."
"Maybe that man is swinging the lantern so the town can get off the track," Wig said; "anyhow, I bet something is going to happen."
It was pitch dark all around, except that the headlight of the locomotive made a long shaft like a searchlight "way far ahead, and we could see the man walking along the track in that shaft, swinging his lantern. Our car was all bright, too. It seemed awful lonesome where he was going, far ahead in the dark. The locomotive kept going _pfff, pfff, pfff_, just like a horse stamping his foot, because he"s in a hurry to start. It seemed kind of as if it didn"t want to wait.
"Have we come to the siding?" I asked the man on the platform.