other car to read and to look at the scenery. Thus several hours
slipped by, when of a sudden came the jar and shock that told them
something out of the ordinary had happened.




CHAPTER II

AT THE SANDERSON HOUSE


When the Rover boys reached the head of the train they found an
excited crowd beginning to collect. The locomotive of the express had
cut into the last freight car a distance of several feet, smashing a
number of boxes and barrels and likewise the headlight of the engine.
Nobody had been hurt, for which everybody was thankful. But the
engineer of the express was very angry.

"Why didn't you send a man back with a flag or put a torpedo on the
track?" he demanded of the freight train conductor.

"Did send a man back," was the answer, "but he didn't go back far
enough--hadn't time. This happened only a few minutes ago."

"You can't expect me to stop in a hundred feet," growled the engineer.
As a matter of fact he had not stopped in many times that distance.

"Well, I did what I could," grumbled the freight conductor.