Cadmus's face was puckered as he stood thinking. "You see, there's no train from here now, Doctor, until afternoon, and that'll be too late. The express don't stop, going through our village. Hello! I'll walk down to the Junction, and get on her there. She has to stop there always. That'll do it. Give me the letter, Doctor." Dr. Flaxman looked greatly relieved. He laughed, and held it out of the chaise, with a regular battery of directions. "Now recollect, I depend on you, Cadmus," he added, switching his black horse, and moving away. "I'll send the dispatch. You've more than an hour to get down to the Junction. Got money enough for your fare? All right. Good-by." And the chaise rattled off. Cadmus darted into the house, and locked that up securely. A moment later he was striding manfully down the road, bound for Rippler's Junction, a couple of miles below the village. Presently the daisy-bordered road crept alongside the level railway. A freight train, steaming and rumbling along, seemed to offer Cadmus a noisy hint, so he soon transferred himself to the track (a thing he had been soundly lectured for doing before this morning), and tramped along on the uneven ties, whistling as he rounded curves, like a locomotive itself--only locomotives don't, as a general thing, whistle "Captain Jinks." Soon Rippler's Mountain rose up in the distance before him. The railroad passed directly through this by a tunnel. At the other end of it lay Rippler's Junction, whither Cadmus was bound to catch that 10.15 express. A wagon-road ran smoothly over the top of the mountain, and came down into the town, and that was at his service. But Cadmus, hastening along toward the great black hole in the hill-side, and fancying himself to be in a much greater hurry than occasion at all required, began to ask himself why, if the railroad went through the mountain instead of over it, he, Cadmus Petry, shouldn't save time by doing the same thing. Had not those dozen lectures as to walking on the railroad been given him? Hadn't Cadmus heard that even an old and experienced "hand" dislikes nothing worse than walking through a tunnel--had rather even do a regular job of repairing in it? Did not everybody know that the Rippler's Junction Tunnel was uncommonly narrow, close, and continually shot by freight, coal, or passenger trains? To meet such in quarters so dark and dangerous requires, indeed, a very cool head and steady nerves. There comes to every man or boy a time in his life when he does a foolish or a rash thing. This was such a moment for Cadmus Petry. The great hole loomed up before him in the hill's rocky side. He looked up. Over his head, nailed to the side of the brick facing, was a black sign-board, on which, in white letters, Cadmus read the following encouraging words: --DANGER!-- ALL PERSONS ARE POSITIVELY FORBIDDEN TO WALK THROUGH THIS TUNNEL. ALL PERSONS DISOBEYING THIS CAUTION WILL RISK LIFE AND LIMB. --DANGER!--