The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch Part 8

Indeed after the first day Ted and Janet found it so. They wished, more than once, that they could get out and run about, but they could not except when the train stopped longer than usual in some big city. Then their father would take them to the platform for a little run up and down.

True they could walk up and down the aisle of the car, but this was not much fun, as the coach swayed so they were tossed against the sides of the seats and bruised.

"I'll be glad when we get to Uncle Frank's ranch," said Janet as she crawled into the berth above her mother, who slept with Trouble.

"So'll I," agreed Teddy, who climbed up the funny little ladder to go to bed in the berth above his father. "I want a pony ride!"

On through the night rumbled and roared the train, the whistle sounding mournfully in the darkness as the engineer blew it at the crossings.

Ted and Janet were sleeping soundly, Janet dreaming she had a new doll, dressed like an Indian papoose, or baby, while Ted dreamed he was on a wild pony that wanted to roll over and over instead of galloping straight on.

Suddenly there was a loud crash that sounded through the whole train.

The engine whistled shrilly and then came a jar that shook up everyone.

Teddy found himself rolling out of his berth and he grabbed the curtains just in time to save himself.

"Oh, Daddy!" he cried, "what's the matter?"

"What is it?" called Jan from her berth, while women in the coach were screaming and men were calling to one another.

"What is it, d.i.c.k?" cried Mrs. Martin.

"I think we've had a collision," answered her husband.

"Did our train bunk into another?" asked Ted.

"I'm afraid so," replied his father.

CHAPTER V

AT RING ROSY RANCH

There was so much noise in the sleeping-car where the Curlytops and others had been peacefully traveling through the night, that, at first, it was hard to tell what had happened.

All that anyone knew was that there had been a severe jolt--a "bunk"

Teddy called it--and that the train had come to a sudden stop. So quickly had it stopped, in fact, that a fat man, who was asleep in a berth just behind Mr. Martin, had tumbled out and now sat in the aisle of the car, gazing about him, a queer look on his sleepy face, for he was not yet fully awake.

"I say!" cried the fat man. "Who pushed me out of bed?"

Even though they were much frightened, Mrs. Martin and some of the other men and women could not help laughing at this. And the laughter did more to quiet them than anything else.

"Well, I guess no one here is much hurt--if at all," said Daddy Martin, as he put on a pair of soft slippers he had ready in the little hammock that held his clothes inside the berth. "I'll go and see if I can find out what the matter is."

"An', Daddy, bring me suffin t'eat!" exclaimed Trouble, poking his head out between the curtains of the berth where he had been sleeping with his mother when the collision happened.

"There's one boy that's got sense," said a tall thin man, who was helping the fat man to get to his feet. "He isn't hurt, anyhow."

"Thank goodness, no," said Mrs. Martin, who, as had some of the other women, had on a dressing gown. Mrs. Martin was looking at Trouble, whom she had taken up in her arms. "He hasn't a scratch on him," she said, "though I heard him slam right against the side of the car. He was next to the window."

"It's a mercy we weren't all of us tossed out of the windows when the train stopped so suddenly, the way it did," said a little old woman.

"It's a mercy, too," smiled another woman who had previously made friends with Jan and Teddy, "that the Curlytops did not come hurtling down out of those upper berths."

Mr. Martin, after making sure his family was all right, partly dressed and went out with some of the other men. The train had come to a standstill, and Jan and Ted, looking out of the windows of their berths, could see men moving about in the darkness outside with flaring torches.

"Maybe it's robbers," said Teddy in a whisper.

"Robbers don't stop trains," objected Janet.

"Yes they do!" declared her brother positively. "Train robbers do. Don't they, Mother?"

"Oh, don't talk about such things now, Teddy boy. Be thankful you are all right and hope that no one is hurt in the collision."

"That's what I say!" exclaimed the fat man. "So it's a collision, is it?

I dreamed we were in a storm and that I was blown out of bed."

"Well, you fell out, which is much the same thing," said the thin man.

"Our car doesn't seem to be hurt, anyhow."

Ted and Janet came out into the aisle in their pajamas. They looked all about them but, aside from seeing a number of men and women who were greatly excited, nothing else appeared to be the matter. Then in came their father with some of the other men.

"It isn't a bad collision," said Daddy Martin. "Our engine hit a freight car that was on a side track, but too close to our rails to be pa.s.sed safely. It jarred up our engine and the front cars quite a bit, and our engine is off the track, but no one is hurt."

"That's good!" exclaimed Mrs. Martin. "I mean that no one is hurt."

"How are they going to get the engine back on the track?" Teddy wanted to know. "Can't I go out and watch 'em?"

"I want to go, too!" exclaimed Janet.

"Indeed you can't--in the dark!" exclaimed her father. "Besides, the railroad men don't want you in the way. They asked us all to go to our coaches and wait. They'll soon have the engine back on the rails they said."

Everyone was awake now, and several children in the car, like Trouble, were hungry. The porter who had been hurrying to and fro said he could get the children some hot milk from the dining-car, and this he did.

Some of the grown folks wanted coffee and sandwiches, and these having been brought in, there was quite a merry picnic in the coach, even if the train had been in a collision.

Then there was much puffing and whistling of the engine. The Curlytops, looking out of the window again, saw more men hurrying here and there with flaring torches which flickered and smoked. These were the trainmen helping to get the engine back on the rails, which they did by using iron wedges or "jumpers," much as a trolley car in your city streets is put back on the rails once it slips off.

At last there was another "bunk" to the train, as Teddy called it. At this several women screamed.

"It's all right," said Daddy Martin. "They've got the engine back on the rails and it has just backed up to couple on, or fasten itself, to the cars again. Now we'll go forward again."

And they did--in a little while. It did not take the Curlytops or Trouble long to fall asleep once more, but some of the older people were kept awake until morning, they said afterward. They were afraid of another collision.

But none came, and though the train was a little late the accident really did not amount to much, though it might have been a bad one had the freight car been a little farther over on the track so the engine had run squarely into it.