During all this excitement a couple of trainmen had gone ahead and examined the old switch. They found it set as it had been for seven years past, securely fixed and powerless to beguile a train to catastrophe. Its deadly fangs had been pulled; a little iron wedge locked it securely and no amount of pulling could have changed it. The lever against which Pee-wee had stumbled had long been disconnected. But they did not bother to tell Pee-wee this; they were in too great a hurry to get away. All they told him was that he had better keep away from railroad property. So the owner of the sturdy little brown arm that held the red lantern out and of the keen, anxious eyes that watched the dying ember down below, never knew that his splendid exploit had been quite superfluous. He had stopped a train of eleven cars and two baggage cars (he counted them as the train moved away) and he had done it because he “had resources” and that was all he thought about. As he stood in the road, a tiny figure in the vast darkness waiting for the train to move away, the passengers waved cheerily to him and the funny travelling man called down out of the smoking room of the Pullman for him not to worry about the license disagreeing with the goat for it was only a license for a small car. “You bet your life he won’t get this,” called Pee-wee, clutching the judge’s letter. “Gee whiz, you bet your life he won’t get this.” CHAPTER XXIV PEE-WEE FIXES IT As the train moved past him, Pee-wee was conscious of a feeling of loneliness; it was so bright and cheery inside the cars. Now that his spirit was no longer supported by the emergency, and his suspense was gone, the deserted houses and the woods oppressed him. Moreover, now that he had time to think of other things, he was haunted with misgivings about Townsend. Suppose they should hold him in jail. That great oracle, Justice Dopett, had not said that they would _not_ do so. Suppose they should. Pee-wee wondered what he should do if Townsend did not return in an hour—two hours. Neither of them had any money, Pee-wee realized that. The goat had elected himself treasurer. Well, he would wait a little while, maybe an hour, and then he would start walking to the nearest town where he supposed his friend would be held as a hostage. “Gee whiz, one thing anyway, I always treated animals good,” he complained aloud. He left the woods and the deserted houses to infer that the goat had been a thankless creature. He was hungry now, too, and there seemed no prospect of supper. He might search in the darkness for moss which he knew to be a scout “resource” for baffling the demon of starvation. But he did not feel like eating moss. He wanted some fried bacon. It seemed as if fate had been very unkind to him. The billy goat had the driver’s license and all the money and Liz had all the food . . .