"I s'pose I mustn't take off my boots ?" "Poor old Tony," cried Dan.

"Here, let me carry you," and he hoisted his tired little brother on to his shoulders.

But Dan was tired too, and the way was long, and they had either to walk in single file along the tiny track worn beside the sleepers, or over the sleepers themselves, and that meant progressing by a series of hops and jumps, which might perhaps be amusing for a few minutes at the beginning of a day's pleasuring, but is very far from amusing when one is tired and the way is long.

The summer evening was warm too.
"I wish the old 'Rover' would come along," panted Dan at the end of about a quarter of an hour's march.

"I'd get those fellows to give us a lift for part of the way at any rate." "Oh," sighed Betty, "how lovely that would be! But things don't happen when you want them to, do they ?" Miss Betty's sad and cynical view of life was wrong though, for not so very much later the familiar rumbling and shaking, and puffing and rattling, reached their ears once more, and coming, too, from the direction of Wenbridge.
In a state of anxious excitement they all stood to await it.