He tried carrying Morris in his arms, but after the first few yards he had to give up. Instead, he took him by the wrists and dragged him as he might have dragged a sack of potatoes. It was hard work getting him through the fence, but easier when that obstacle was negotiated, for the descent helped. At the bottom of the bank it was necessary to worm in and out between bushes, while briars caught at him and tripped him as he toiled backward toward the further side of the gully. Twice he stopped to regain his breath and mop his streaming face. And it was while he was taking his second rest that a buzzing, humming sound came to him from the direction of town, a sound that grew louder even while he turned to look. Far down the track, visible here for a half-mile, came one of the big trolleys, swaying from side to side and eating up the rails in its rapid flight. There was but one thing to do, and Gordon did it. Dropping Morris’ wrists, he set off at a run for the track. Once he tripped and measured his length in the briars, but he was up again in the instant, while, almost at hand as it seemed, the buzzing and throbbing of the rails sounded. When he finally reached the foot of the bank it seemed that he had not enough strength left to climb it. But climb it he did, somehow, with toes digging into the loose gravel and hands clutching at the infrequent tufts of grass or weeds. And when he reached the top and the side of the track the plunging car was almost up to him. He knelt there on the edge of the embankment and waved his arms, shouting at the top of his exhausted lungs. A screech from the whistle sent its warning and then the big car was hurtling past him, the motorman casting a puzzled, indifferent glance as he shot by and the few passengers turning inquiring faces toward the boy crouched beside the track. Dust enveloped him and a great despair crushed him, and he did what was perhaps the one thing that could have stopped the car. He crumpled up in a heap at the ends of the ties and then rolled, slowly at first and then gaining momentum as he went, down the gravel slope into a clump of bushes at the bottom. The conductor, who had leaned outboard at the warning shriek of the whistle, had seen the boy and had kept his eyes on him as the car had gone past. “Some kid wants to get on,” he explained to a passenger beside him on the rear platform, “but there’s no stop here.” Then his hand flew to the bell-cord. Boys didn’t crumple up like that and go rolling down embankments for the fun of it! With a loud grinding of brakes the big car came shivering to a stop a hundred yards along the track. The conductor tugged again at the cord and slowly the car crept backward. By that time the passengers were on their feet and the conductor was hanging over the steps. Then he had dropped and was plunging down the embankment in a cloud of dust and a cascade of loose gravel, the passenger on the platform following more carefully.