AT THE SANDERSON HOUSE When the Rover boys reached the head of the train they found an excited crowd beginning to collect.

The locomotive of the express had cut into the last freight car a distance of several feet, smashing a number of boxes and barrels and likewise the headlight of the engine.
Nobody had been hurt, for which everybody was thankful.

But the engineer of the express was very angry.
"Why didn't you send a man back with a flag or put a torpedo on the track ?" he demanded of the freight train conductor.
"Did send a man back," was the answer, "but he didn't go back far enough--hadn't time.

This happened only a few minutes ago." "You can't expect me to stop in a hundred feet," growled the engineer.
As a matter of fact he had not stopped in many times that distance.
"Well, I did what I could," grumbled the freight conductor.
By making inquiries the Rover boys learned that the freight train had jumped a frog at a switch and part of the cars were on one track and part on another.

Two trucks were broken, and nobody could tell how long it would take to clear the track upon which the express stood.
"May be an hour, but more likely it will be six or eight," said one of the brakemen to Tom.