Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/290

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
280
THE STEEL HORSE.

fact the ground about looked as though a large party of men had been at work there for a long time and presently the boy discovered marks upon the bowlder itself which might have been made with a spade or crowbar.

"Were we all blind that we didn't notice these things when we first came here?" said Roy to himself. "Probably we were so highly excited that we couldn't notice any thing except the rock. The fiends who put this thing on the track with the intention of wrecking the train ought to be hanged without judge or jury, lam glad I didn't know what I know now, for I wouldn't have had the courage to stay here alone."

Just then the thought flashed through Roy's mind that perhaps the would-be train-wreckers were concealed somewhere in the vicinity waiting for the time when they could descend into the gulf and complete their work, and that their evil eyes might at that very moment be fastened upon him, while they were discussing plans for getting him out of their way. If Joe and Arthur had known all this, would they have been so ready to dash off into the