[Illustration:  “IS YOUR NAME DABNEY KINZER?”]

“Yes, madam,” he said, with a ceremonious bow.  “I wish to report to my father that I’ve found an acceptable house in this vicinity.”

“You do!”

Mrs. Kinzer was reading the young gentleman through and through as she spoke, but she followed her exclamation with a dozen questions, and then wound up with: 

“Go right home, then, and tell your father the only good house to let in this neighborhood will be ready for him next week, and he’d better see me at once.  Get into the buggy, Dabney.”

“A very remarkable woman!” muttered Ford Foster to himself as they drove away.  “I must make some more inquiries.”

“Mother,” said Dabney, “you wouldn’t let ’em have Ham’s house?”

“No, indeed; but I don’t mean to have our own stand empty.”  And, with that, a great deal of light began to break in on Dabney’s mind.

“That’s it, is it?” he said to himself, as he touched up the ponies.  “Well, there’ll be room enough for all of us there, and no mistake.  But what’ll Ham say?”

It was not till late the next day, however, that Ford Foster completed his inquiries.  He took the afternoon train for the city, satisfied that, much as he knew before he came, he had actually learned a good deal more which was valuable.

He was almost the only person in the car.  Trains going toward the city were apt to be thinly peopled at that time of day, but the empty cars had to be taken along all the same, for the benefit of the crowds who would be coming out, later in the afternoon and in the evening.  The railway company would have made more money with full loads both ways, but it was well they did not have one on that precise train.  Ford had turned over the seat in front of him, and stretched himself out with his feet on it.  It was almost like lying down for a boy of his length, but it was the very best position he could have taken if he had known what was coming.

Known what was coming?

Yes, there was a pig coming.

That was all, but it was quite enough, considering what that pig was about to do.  He was going where he chose, just then, and he chose not to turn out for the railway train.

“What a whistle!” Ford Foster had just exclaimed.  “It sounds more like the squeal of an iron pig than anything else.  I——­”

But at that instant there came a great jolt and a shock, and Ford found himself suddenly tumbled, all in a heap, on the seat where his feet had been.  Then came bounce after bounce and the sound of breaking glass, and then a crash.

“Off the track!” shouted Ford, as he sprang to his feet.  “I wouldn’t have missed it for anything, but I do hope nobody’s killed.”

In the tremendous excitement of the moment he could hardly have told how he got out of that car, but it did not seem ten seconds till he was standing beside the conductor and engineer, looking at the battered engine as it lay on its side in a deep ditch.  The baggage car, just behind it, was broken all to pieces, but the passenger cars did not seem to have suffered very much, and nobody was badly hurt, as the engineer and fireman had jumped off in time.