In the fast approaching darkness he could see these tracks only as two lines; he could not see the ties at all. The rails of the main line shone like silver in the night, but the rails of the siding must have been dull and rusty. From which Pee-wee supposed that they were not in continuous use. He craned his neck far out of the window to see how far he could follow these branch tracks with his eyes. He could only see that the line curved away behind the large building, the upper part of which was visible among the trees. As he withdrew his gaze from up the track, something small and bright red between the rails closer at hand caught his eye. He might have noticed this more particularly if his mind had not been full of another matter. As has been said of Pee-wee, whenever he did a thing he went head first. On this occasion he went back first, but with his usual headlong impulsiveness. With the one remaining match which he had he intended to examine the old time-table on the wall and try to determine whether or not the branch track was indeed a branch of the railroad. He had been sprawled across the low shelf, his neck far out of the window and now as he withdrew into the little apartment he backed against something which yielded to the pressure of his form. He realized at once what he had done. One of the long switch levers which stuck up from the floor at an angle toward him, had been pushed over so that it slanted the other way. Somewhere in the solemn, silent night and spent in the intervening area of wood and mountain and valley, sounded the deep, melodious whistle of a locomotive. CHAPTER XIX THE PANIC Struggling to his feet, Pee-wee for a moment thought more of a bruised back than of the tragic possibilities of his inadvertent act. His match expired too soon to enable him to glean any information from the old, faded time-table. It was not till he stood in darkness that the appalling thought came to him that a good deal more than a bruised back might be involved in his stumble. If he had thought quicker he would never have lost the light from that precious match for he knew that in almost every emergency darkness is a terrible handicap. For just a few seconds he stood, terrified, aghast, at the thought of what he had done. No doubt at the point where that branch left the main track there was a switch. Whether the track which branched off was just a siding or not, made little difference, so far as this emergency was concerned. The switch had no doubt been set to eliminate the branch track altogether, since the deserted neighborhood and the rusty rails indicated that the branch, or whatever it was, was no longer used. Suppose, then, that Pee-wee had opened the switch. A train coming from the _west_ would enter the branch, if it were not traveling too fast. In this latter case a catastrophe would occur at the spot.