In the soap box was a bag, and unless the girls were greatly mistaken Joe and Roger Dale had been nutting over toward The Beeches, and the bag was filled with hickory nuts and chestnuts in their shells and burrs. Roger, who was the youngest, and whom Dorothy continued to look upon as a baby, occupied the box with the nuts. Joe, who was fifteen, straddled the plank with his feet on the rests and steered. The boys’ vehicle was going like the wind. It looked as though a small stone in the road, or an uncertain jerk by Joe on the steering lines, would throw the contraption on which they rode sideways and dump out the boys. “Enough to give one heart disease,” said Tavia. “I declare! small brothers are a nuisance. When I’m at home in Dalton I have to wear blinders so as not to see _my_ kid brothers at their antics.” “If something should happen, Tavia!” murmured Dorothy. “Something is always happening. But not often is it something bad,” said Tavia, coolly. “‘There’s a swate little cherub that sits up aloft, and kapes out an eye for poor Jack,’ as the Irish tar says. And there is a similar cherub looking out for small boys—or a special providence.” The train was now high on the embankment over the roadway. The two boys sliding down the hill looked very small, indeed, below the car windows. “Suppose a wagon should start up the hill,” murmured Dorothy. “There’s none in sight. I never saw the road more deserted—oh, Doro!” Tavia uttered this cry before she thought. She had looked far ahead to the foot of the hill and had seen something that her friend had not yet observed. “What is it?” gasped Dorothy, whose gaze was still fixed upon her brothers. “My dear! The bridge!” The words burst from Tavia involuntarily. She could not keep them in. At the foot of the hill the road forked as has before been shown. To the left it crossed the railroad tracks at grade. Of course, these reckless boys had not intended to try for the crossing ahead of the train. But the main road, which kept straight on beside the tracks, crossed the creek on a wooden bridge. Tavia, looking ahead, saw that the bridge boards were up and there was a rough fence built across the main road! “They’ll be killed!” screamed Dorothy Dale, and sank back into her chair. The train was now pitching down the grade. It was still a mile to the foot of the slope where railroad and highway were on a level again. The boys in their little “scooter” were traveling faster than the train itself, for the brakes had been applied when the descent was begun. The boys and their vehicle, surrounded by a little halo of dust, were now far ahead of the chair car in which their sister and Tavia rode. The girls, clinging to each other, craned their necks to see ahead. There were not many other passengers in the car and nobody chanced to notice the horror-stricken girls.