They went across the farmyard and stood
under the pear-tree - all except George, who stayed behind the haystack with
the food, frowning. Julian called up to the window above: 'Jock!'
 'Hallo! He didn't whack me. Mum wouldn't
let him.  Where's dear Cecil?'
'I don't know. Probably in the darkest
corner of one of the barns,' said Julian. 'Jock, if things are difficult in the
daytime, come up at night. We've got to see you somehow.'
'Right,' said Jock. 'How do I look? Like a
real Red Indian?'
'You look frightful,' grinned Julian. 'I
wonder old Timmy knew you.'
'Where's George?' asked Jock.
'Sulking behind the haystack,' said Dick.
'We shall have an awful day with her now. You let the cat properly out of the
bag, you idjit!'
'Yes. I'm a ninny and an idjit,' said Jock,
and Anne giggled. 'Look - there's Cecil. You might tell him to beware of the
bull, will you?'
'Is there a bull?' said Anne, looking
alarmed.
'No. But that's no reason why he shouldn't
beware of one,' grinned Jock. 'So long! Have a nice day!'
The three left him, and strolled over to
Cecil, who had just appeared out of a dark little shed. He made a
face at them, and stood ready to run to the
dairy where Mrs Andrews was busy.
Julian suddenly clutched Dick and pointed
behind Cecil. The bull! Beware of the bull!' he yelled suddenly.
Dick entered into the joke. The bull's
loose! Look out! Beware of the bull!' he shouted.
Anne gave a shriek. It all sounded so real
that, although she knew it was a joke, she felt half-scared. The bull!' she
cried.
Cecil turned green. His legs shook.
'W-w-w-where is it?' he stammered.
'Look out behind you!' yelled Julian,
pointing.  He
threw himself against Mrs Andrews.
'Save me, save me! The bull's chasing me.'
'But there's no bull here,' said Mrs
Andrews, in surprise. 'Really, Cecil!
Helpless with laughter, the three children
made their way back to George. They tried to tell her about the make-believe
bull, but she turned away and wouldn't listen. Julian shrugged his shoulders.
Best to leave George to herself when she was in one of her rages! She didn't
lose her temper as often as she used to, but when she did she was very trying
indeed.
They went back to the camp with the basket
of food. Timmy followed soberly. He knew something was wrong with George and he
was unhappy. His tail was down, and he looked miserable. George wouldn't even
pat him.
When they got back to the camp, George
flared up.
 Fancy taking Jock and not letting
me go! I think you're absolute beasts. I never really thought you'd do a thing
like that, you and Dick.'
'Don't be silly, George,' said Julian. 'I
told you we didn't mean to let you and Anne go. I'll tell you all that happened
- and it's pretty thrilling!'
'What? Tell me quickly!' begged Anne, but
George obstinately turned away her head as if she was not interested.
Julian began to relate all the curious
happenings of the night. Anne listened breathlessly. George was listening too,
though she pretended not to. She was very angry and very hurt.
'Well, there you are,' said Julian, when he
had finished. 'If that's what people mean by spook-trains, there was one
puffing in and out of that tunnel all right! I felt pretty scared, I can tell
you. Sorry you weren't there too, George - but I didn't want to leave Anne
alone.'
George was not accepting any apologies. She
still looked furious.
'I suppose Timmy went with you,' she said.
'I think that was horrid of him - to go without waking me, when he knew I'd
like to be with you on the adventure.'
'Oh, don't be so silly,' said Dick, in
disgust. 'Fancy being angry with old Tim, too! You're making him miserable. And
anyway, he didn't come with us. He just came to meet us when we got back, and
then went off to keep Jock company on his way back to the farm.'
'Oh,' said George, and she reached out her
hand to pat Timmy, who was filled with delight. 'At least Timmy was loyal to me
then. That's something.'
There was a silence. Nobody ever knew quite
how to treat George when she was in one of her moods. It
was really best to leave her to herself,
but they couldn't very well go off and leave the camp just because George was
there, cross and sulky.
Anne took hold of George's arm. She was
miserable when George behaved like this. 'George,' she began, 'there's no need
to be cross with me, too. / haven't done anything!'
'If you weren't such a little coward, too
afraid to go with us, I'd have been able to go too,' said George unkindly,
dragging her arm away.
Julian was disgusted. He saw Anne's hurt
face and was angry with George.
'Shut up, George,' he said. 'You're being
horrid, saying catty things like that! I'm astonished at you.'
George was ashamed of herself, but she was
too proud to say so. She glared at Julian.
'And I'm astonished at you,' she said.
'After all the adventures we've had together, you try to keep me out of this
one. But you will let me come next time, won't you, Julian?'
'What! After your frightful behaviour
today?' said Julian, who could be just as obstinate as George when he wanted
to. 'Certainly not. This is my adventure and Dick's - and perhaps Jock's. Not
yours or Anne's.'
He got up and stalked down the hill with
Dick. George sat pulling bits of heather off the stems, looking mutinous and
angry. Anne blinked back tears. She hated this sort of thing. She got up to get
dinner ready. Perhaps after a good meal they would all feel better.
Mr Luffy was sitting outside his tent,
reading. He had already seen the children that morning. He looked up, smiling.
'Hallo! Come to talk to me?'
'Yes,' said Julian, an idea uncurling
itself in his mind. 'Could I have a look at that map of yours, Mr
Luffy? The big one you've got showing every
mile of these moorlands?'
'Of course. It's in the tent somewhere,'
said Mr Luffy.
The boys found it and opened it. Dick at
once guessed why Julian wanted it. Mr Luffy went on reading.
'It shows the railways that run under the
moorlands too, doesn't it?' said Julian. Mr Luffy nodded.
'Yes. There are quite a few lines. I
suppose it was easier to tunnel under the moors from valley to valley rather
than make a permanent way over the top of them. In any case, a railway over the
moors would probably be completely snowed up in the wintertime.'
The boys bent their heads over the big map;
it showed the railways as dotted lines when they went underground, but by long
black lines when they appeared in the open air, in the various valleys.
They found exactly where they were. Then
Julian's finger ran down the map a little and came to where a small line showed
itself at the end of a dotted line.
He looked at Dick, who nodded. Yes - that
showed where the tunnel was, out of which the 'spook-train' had come, and the
lines to the deserted yard. Julian's finger went back from the yard to the
tunnel, where the dotted lines began. His finger traced the dotted lines a
little way till they became whole lines again. That was where the train came
out into another valley!
Then his finger showed where the tunnel
that led from the yard appeared to join up with another one, that also ran for
some distance before coming out into yet another valley. The boys looked at one
another in silence.
Mr Luffy suddenly spotted a day-flying moth
and
got up to follow it. The boys took the
chance of talking to one another.
'The spook-train either runs through its
own tunnel to the valley beyond - or it turns off into this fork and runs along
to the other valley,' said Julian, in a low voice. 'I tell you what we'll do,
Dick. We'll get Mr Luffy to run us down to the nearest town to buy something -
and we'll slip along to the station there and see if we can't make a few
inquiries about these two tunnels. We may find out something.'
'Good idea,' said Dick, as Mr Luffy came
back. 'I say, sir, are you very busy today? Could you possibly run us down to
the nearest town after dinner?'
'Certainly, certainly,' said Mr Luffy,
amiably. The boys looked at one another in delight. Now they might find out
something! But they wouldn't take George with them. No - they would punish her
for her bad temper by leaving her behind!
13
A thrilling plan
Anne called them to dinner. 'Come along!'
she cried. Tve got it all ready. Tell Mr Luffy there's plenty for him, too.'
Mr Luffy came along willingly. He thought
Anne was a marvellous camp-housekeeper. He looked approvingly at the spread set
out on a white cloth on the ground.
'Hm! Salad. Hard-boiled eggs. Slices of
ham. And what's this - apple-pie! My goodness!
Anne laughed. 'No. All this came from the
farm, of course. Except the lime juice and water.'
George ate with the others, but said hardly
a word. She was brooding over her wrongs, and Mr Luffy looked at her several
times, puzzled.
'Are you quite well, George?' he said,
suddenly. George went red.
'Yes, thank you,' she said, and tried to be
more herself, though she couldn't raise a smile at all. Mr Luffy watched her,
and was relieved to see that she ate as much as the others. Probably had some
sort of row, he guessed correctly. Well, it would blow over! He knew better
than to interfere.
They finished lunch and drank all the lime
juice. It was a hot day and they were very thirsty indeed. Timmy emptied all
his dish of water and went and gazed longingly into the canvas bucket of
washing-
water. But he was too well-behaved to drink
it, now that he knew he mustn't. Anne laughed, and poured some more water into
his dish.
'Well,' said Mr Luffy, beginning to fill
his old brown pipe, 'if anyone wants to come into town with me this afternoon,
I'll be starting in fifteen minutes.'
Til come!' said Anne, at once. 'It won't
take George and me long to wash-up these things. Will you come too, George?'
'No,' said George, and the boys heaved a
sigh of relief. They had guessed she wouldn't want to come with them - but, if
she'd know what they were going to try and find out, she would have come all
right!
Tm going for a walk with Timmy,' said
George, when all the washing-up had been done.
'All right,' said Anne, who secretly
thought that George would be much better left on her own to work off her ill-feelings
that afternoon. 'See you later.'
George and Timmy set off. The others went
with Mr Luffy to where his car was parked beside the great rock. They got in.
'Hi! The trailer's fastened to it,' called
Julian. 'Wait a bit. Let me get out and undo it. We don't want to take an empty
trailer bumping along behind us for miles.'
'Dear me. I always forget to undo the
trailer,' said Mr Luffy, vexed. 'The times I take it along without meaning to!'
The children winked at one another. Dear old
Luffy! He was always doing things like that.
They went off in the car, jolting over the
rough road till they came to the smooth highway. They stopped in the centre of
the town. Mr Luffy said he would meet
them for tea at five o'clock at the hotel
opposite the parking-place.
The three of them set off together, leaving
Mr Luffy to go to the library and browse there. It seemed funny to be without George.
Anne didn't much like it, and said so.
'Well, we don't like going off without
George either,' said Julian. 'But honestly, she can't behave like that and get
away with it. I thought she'd grown out of that sort of thing.'
'Well, you know how she adores an
adventure,' said Anne. 'Oh dear - if I hadn't felt so scared you'd have taken
me along, and George would have gone too. It's quite true what she said about
me being a coward.'
'You're not,' said Dick. 'You can't help
being scared of things sometimes - after all, you're the youngest of us - but
being scared doesn't make you a coward. I've known you to be as brave as any of
us when you've been scared stiff!'
'Where are we going?' asked Anne. The boys
told her, and her eyes sparkled.
'Oh - are we going to find out where the
spook-train comes from? It might come from one of two valleys then, judging
from the map.'
'Yes. The tunnels aren't really very long
ones,' said Julian. 'Not more than a mile, I should think. We thought we'd make
some inquiries at the station and see if there's anyone who knows anything
about the old railway yard and the tunnel beyond. We shan't say a word about
the spook-train of course.'
They walked into the station. They went up
to a railway plan and studied it. It didn't tell them much. Julian turned to a
young porter who was wheeling some luggage along.
'I say! Could you help us? We're camping up
on the
moorlands, and we're quite near a deserted
railway yard with lines that run into an old tunnel. Why isn't the yard used
any more?'
'Don't know,' said the boy. 'You should ask
old Tucky there - see him? He knows all the tunnels under the moors like the
back of his hand. Worked in them all when he was a boy.'
'Thanks,' said Dick, pleased. They went
over to where an old whiskered porter was sitting in the sun, enjoying a rest
till the next train came in.
'Excuse me,' said Julian politely.  They must be very, very interesting.'
'My father and my grandfather built those
tunnels,' said the old porter, looking up at the children out of small faded
eyes that watered in the strong sunlight. 'And I've been guard on all the
trains that ran through them.'
He mumbled a long string of names, going
through all the list of tunnels in his mind. The children waited patiently till
he had finished.
There's a tunnel near where we're camping
on the moorlands,' said Julian, getting a word in at last. 'We're not far from
Olly's Farm. We came across an old deserted railway yard, with lines that led
into a tunnel. Do you know it?'
'Oh yes, that's an old tunnel,' said Tucky,
nodding his grey head, on which his porter's cap sat all crooked. 'Hasn't been
used for many a long year. Nor the yard either. Wasn't enough traffic there,
far as I remember.  Tunnel isn't used any more.'
The boys exchanged glances. So it wasn't
used any more! Well, they knew better.
'The tunnel joins another, doesn't it?'
said Julian.
The porter, pleased at their interest in
the old tunnels he knew so well, got up and went into an office behind. He came
out with a dirty, much-used map, which he spread out on his knee. His black
finger-nail pointed to a mark on the map.
That's the yard, see? It was called O'lly's
Yard, after the farm. There're the lines to the tunnel. Here's the tunnel. It
runs right through to Kilty Vale - there it is. And here's where it used to
join the tunnel to Roker's Vale. But that was bricked up years ago. Something
happened there - the roof fell in, I think it was - and the company decided not
to use the tunnel to Roker's Vale at all.'
The children listened with the utmost
interest. Julian reasoned things out in his mind. If that spook-train came from
anywhere then it must come from Kilty Vale, because that was the only place the
lines went to now, since the way to Roker's Vale had been bricked up where the
tunnels joined.
'I suppose no trains run through the tunnel
from Kilty Vale to Olly's Yard now, then?' he said.
Tucky snorted. 'Didn't I tell you it hasn't
been used for years? The yard at Kilty Vale's been turned into something else,
though the lines are still there. There's been no engine through that tunnel
since I was a young man.'
This was all very, very interesting. Julian
thanked old Tucky so profusely that he wanted to tell the children everything
all over again. He even gave them the old map.
'Oh, thanks,' said Julian, delighted to have
it. He looked at the others. 'This'll be jolly useful!' he said, and they
nodded.
They left the pleased old man and went out
into the town. They found a little park and sat down on a seat.
They were longing to discuss all that Tucky
had told them.
'It's jolly strange,' said Dick. 'No trains
run there now - the tunnel's not been used for ages - and Olly's Yard must have
been derelict for years.'
'And yet, there appear to be trains that
come and go!' said Julian.
'Then, they must be spook-trains,' said
Anne, her eyes wide and puzzled. 'Julian, they must be, mustn't they?'
'Looks like it,' said Julian. 'It's most
mysterious. I can't understand it.'
'Ju,' said Dick, suddenly. 'I know what
we'll do! We'll wait one night again till we see the spook-train come out of
the tunnel to the yard. Then one of us can sprint off to the other end of the
tunnel - it's only about a mile long - and wait for it to come out the other
side! Then we'll find out why a train still runs from Kilty Vale to Olly's Yard
through that old tunnel.'
'Jolly good idea,' said Julian, thrilled.
'What about tonight? If Jock comes, he can go, too. If he doesn't, just you and
I will go. Nat George.'
They all felt excited. Anne wondered if she
would be brave enough to go too, but she knew that when the night came she
wouldn't feel half as brave as she did now! No, she wouldn't go. There was
really no need for her to join in this adventure at present. It hadn't even
turned out to be a proper one yet - it was only an unsolved mystery!
George hadn't come back from her walk when
they reached the camp. They waited for her, and at last she appeared with
Timmy, looking tired out.
 'I've walked my temper off! Don't know what came over me.'
'That's all right,' said Julian amiably.
'Forget it.'
They were all very glad that George had
recovered her temper, for she was a very prickly person indeed when she was
angry. She was rather subdued and said nothing at all about spook-trains or
tunnels. So they said nothing either.
The night was fine and clear. Stars shone
out brilliantly again in the sky. The children said good night to Mr Luffy at
ten o'clock and got into their sleeping-bags. Julian and Dick did not mean to
go exploring till midnight, so they lay and talked quietly.
About eleven o'clock they heard somebody
moving cautiously outside. They wondered if it was Jock, but he did not call
out to them. Who could it be?
Then Julian saw a familiar head outlined
against the starlit sky. It was George. But what in the world was she doing? He
couldn't make it out at all. Whatever it was, she wasn't making any noise over
it, and she obviously thought the boys were asleep.
At last she disappeared.  He felt
about, and his fingers brushed against some string. He grinned to himself and
got back into the tent.
'I've found out what George was
doing," he whispered. 'She's put string across the entrance of our tent,
and I bet it runs to her tent and she's tied it to her big toe or something, so
that if we go out without her she'll feel the pull of the string when we go
through it and wake up and follow us!'
'Good old George,' chuckled Dick. 'Well,
she'll be unlucky. We'll squeeze out under the sides of the tent!'
Which was what they did do at about a
minute past twelve! They didn't disturb George's string at all.
They were out on the heather and away down
the slope while George was sleeping soundly in her tent beside Anne, waiting
for the pull on her toe which didn't come. Poor George!
The boys arrived at the deserted railway
yard and looked to see if Wooden-Leg Sam's candle was alight. It was. So the
spook-train hadn't come along that night, yet.
They were just scrambling down to the yard
when they heard the train coming. There was the same rumbling noise as before,
muffled by the tunnel - and then out of the tunnel, again with no lamps, came
the spook-train, clanking on its way to the yard!
'Quick, Dick! You sprint off to the tunnel
opening and watch for the train to go back in again. And I'll find my way across
the moor to the other end of the tunnel. There was a path marked on that old
map, and I'll follow that!' Julian's words tumbled over each other in his
excitement. Til jolly well watch for the spook-train to complete its journey,
and see if it vanishes into thin air or what!'
And off he went to find the path that led
over the moors to the other end of the tunnel. He meant to see what happened at
the other end if he had to run all the way!
14
Jock comes to camp
Julian found the path quite by chance and
went along it as fast as he could. He used his torch, for he did not think he
would meet anyone out on such a lonely way at that time of night. The path was
very much overgrown, but he could follow it fairly easily, even running at
times.
'If that spook-train stops about twenty
minutes in the yard again, as it did before, it will give me just about time to
reach the other end of the tunnel,' panted Julian. Til be at Kilty's Yard
before it comes.'
It seemed a very long way. But at last the
path led downwards, and some way below him Julian could see what might be a
railway yard. Then he saw that big sheds were built there - or what looked like
big sheds in the starlight.
He remembered what the old porter had said.
Kilty's Yard was used for something else now-maybe the lines had been taken up.
Maybe even the tunnel had been stopped up, too. He slipped quickly down the
path and came into what had once been the old railway yard. Big buildings
loomed up on every side. Julian thought they must be workshops of some kind. He
switched his torch on and off very quickly, but the short flash had shown him
what he was looking for -two pairs of railway lines. They were old and rusty,
but he knew they must lead to the tunnel.
He followed them closely, right up to the
black
mouth of the dark tunnel. He couldn't see
inside at all. He switched his torch on and off quickly. Yes - the lines led
right inside the tunnel. Julian stopped and wondered what to do.
Til sneak into the tunnel a little way and
see if it's bricked up anywhere,' he thought. So in he went, walking between
one pair of lines. He put on his torch, certain that no one would see its light
and challenge him to say what he was doing out so late at night.
The tunnel stretched before him, a great
yawning hole, disappearing into deep blackness. It was certainly not bricked
up. Julian saw a little niche in the brickwork of the tunnel and decided to
crouch in it. It was one of the niches made for workmen to stand in when trains
went by in the old days.
Julian crouched down in the dirty old niche
and waited. He glanced at the luminous face of his watch. He had been twenty
minutes getting here. Maybe the train would be along in a few minutes. He would
be very, very close to it! Julian couldn't help wishing that Dick was with him.
It was so eerie waiting there in the dark for a mysterious train that
apparently belonged to no one and came and went from nowhere to nowhere!
He waited and he waited. Once he thought he
heard a rumble far away down the tunnel, and he held his breath, feeling
certain that the train was coming. But it didn't come. Julian waited for half
an hour and still the train had not appeared. What had happened to it?
Til wait another ten minutes and then I'm
going,' Julian decided. Tve had about enough of hiding in a dark, dirty tunnel
waiting for a train that doesn't come! Maybe it has decided to stay in Olly's
Yard for the night.'
After ten minutes he gave it up. He left
the tunnel, went into Kilty's Yard and then up the path to the
moors. He hurried along it, eager to see if
Dick was at the other end of the tunnel. Surely he would wait there till Julian
came back!
Dick was there, tired and impatient. When
he saw a quick flash from Julian's torch he answered it with his own. The two
boys joined company thankfully.
'You have been ages!' said Dick,
reproachfully. 'What happened? The spook-train went back into the tunnel ages
and ages ago. It only stayed about twenty minutes in the yard again.'
'Went back into the tunnel!' exclaimed
Julian. 'Did it really? Well, it never came out the other side! I waited for
ages. I never even heard it - though I did hear a very faint rumble once, or
thought I did.'
The boys fell silent, puzzled and
mystified. What sort of a train was this that puffed out of a tunnel at dead of
night, and went back again, but didn't appear out of the other end?
'I suppose the entrance to that second
tunnel the porter told us about is really bricked up?' said Julian at last. 'If
it wasn't, the train could go down there, of course.'
'Yes. That's the only solution, if the
train's a real one and not a spook one,' agreed Dick. 'Well, we can't go
exploring the tunnels now - let's wait and do it in the daytime. I've had
enough tonight!'
Julian had had enough too. In silence the
two boys went back to camp. They quite forgot the string in front of their
tent, and scrambled right through it. They got into the sleeping-bags
thankfully.
The string, fastened to George's big toe
through a hole she had cut in her sleeping-bag, pulled hard, and George woke up
with a jump. Timmy was awake, having heard the boys come back. He licked George
when she sat up.
George had not undressed properly. She slipped
quickly out of her bag and crawled out of her tent. Now she would catch the two
boys going off secretly and follow them!
But there was no sign or sound of them
anywhere around. She crawled silently to their tent.  Julian snored a little,
and Dick breathed so deeply that George could quite well hear him as she
crouched outside, listening. She was very puzzled. Someone had pulled at her
toe - so somebody must have scrambled through that string. After listening for
a few minutes, she gave it up and went back to her tent.
In the morning, George was furious! Julian
and Dick related their night's adventure, and George could hardly believe that
once again they had gone without her - and that they had managed to get away
without disturbing the string! Dick saw George's face and couldn't help
laughing.
'Sorry, old thing. We discovered your
little trick and avoided it when we set out - but typically, we forgot all
about it coming back. We must have given your toe a frightful tug. Did we? I
suppose you did tie the other end of the string to your toe?'
George looked as if she could throw all the
breakfast things at him. Fortunately for everyone, Jock arrived at that moment.
He didn't wear his usual beaming smile but seemed rather subdued.
'Hallo, Jock!' said Julian. 'Just in time
for a spot of breakfast. Sit down and join us.'
'I can't,' said Jock. 'I've only a few
minutes. Listen. Isn't it rotten - I'm to go away and stay with my stepfather's
sister for two weeks! Two weeks! You'll be gone when I come back, won't you?'
'Yes. But, Jock, why have you got to go
away?' said
Dick, surprised. 'Has there been a row or
something?'
'I don't know,' said Jock. 'Mum won't say,
but she looks pretty miserable. My stepfather's in a frightful temper. It's my
opinion they want me out of the way for some reason. I don't know this sister
of my stepfather's very well - only met her once - but she's pretty awful.'
'Well, come over here and stay with us, if
they want to get rid of you,' said Julian, sorry for Jock. Jock's face
brightened.
'I say, that's a fine idea!' he said.
'Smashing,' agreed Dick. 'Well, I don't see
what's to stop you. If they want to get rid of you, it can't matter where you
go for a fortnight. We'd love to have you.'
'Right. I'll come,' said Jock. 'I'll not
say a word about it, though, to my stepfather. I'll let Mum into the secret.
She was going to take me away today, but I'll just tell her I'm coming to you
instead. I don't think she'll split on me, and I hope she'll square things with
my step-aunt.'
jock's face beamed again now. The others
beamed back, even George, and Timmy wagged his tail. It would be nice to have
Jock - and what a lot they had to tell him.
He went off to break the news to his
mother, while the others washed up and cleared things away. George became sulky
again when Jock was gone. She simply could not or would not realise that Julian
meant what he said!
When they began to discuss everything that
had happened the night before, George refused to listen.  'You wouldn't let me
join you when I wanted to, and now I shan't take any interest in the matter.'
And she walked off with Timmy, not saying
where she was going.
'Well, let her go,' said Julian,
exasperated and cross. 'What does she expect me to do? Climb down and say we'll
let her come the next night we go?'
'We said we'd go in the daytime,' said
Dick. 'She could come then, because if Anne doesn't want to come it won't
matter leaving her here alone in the daytime.'
'You're right,' said Julian. 'Let's call
her back and tell her.' But by that time George was out of hearing.
'She's taken sandwiches,' said Anne. 'She
means to be gone all day. Isn't she an idiot?'
Jock came back after a time, with two rugs
and an extra jersey and more food. 'I had hard work to persuade Mum,' he said.
'But she said yes at last. Though mind you, I'd have come anyhow! I'm not going
to be shoved about by my stepfather just out of spite. I say - isn't this
great! I never thought I'd be camping out with you. If there isn't room in your
tent for me, Julian, I can sleep out on the heather.'
'There'll be room,' said Julian. 'Hallo, Mr
Luffy! You've been out early!'
Mr Luffy came up and glanced at Jock. 'Ah,
is this your friend from the farm? How do you do? Come to spend a few days with
us? I see you have an armful of rugs!'
'Yes. Jock's coming to camp a bit with us,'
said Julian. 'Look at all the food he's brought. Enough to stand a siege!'
'It is indeed,' said Mr Luffy. 'Well, I'm
going to go through some of my specimens this morning. What are you going to
do?'
'Oh, mess about till lunchtime,' said
Julian. 'Then we might go for a walk.'
Mr Luffy went back to his tent and they
could hear him whistling softly as he set to work. Suddenly Jock sat up
straight and looked alarmed.
'What's the matter?' asked Dick. Then he
heard what Jock had heard.
That's my stepfather's whistle,' said Jock.
'He's whistling for me.  'If you're not here he can't take you back! Come on! Maybe he'll get
tired of looking for you, and go.'
Nobody could think of a better idea, and
certainly nobody wanted to face a furious Mr Andrews. All four shot down the
slope and made their way to where the heather was high and thick. They burrowed
into it and lay still, hidden by some high bracken.
Mr Andrews's voice could soon be heard,
shouting for Jock, but no Jock appeared. Mr Andrews came out by Mr Luffy's
tent. Mr Luffy, surprised at the shouting, put his head out of his tent to see
what it was all about. He didn't like the look of Mr Andrews at all.
'Where's Jock?' Mr Andrews demanded,
scowling at him.
'I really do not know,' said Mr Luffy.
'He's got to come back,' said Mr Andrews,
roughly. 'I won't have him hanging about here with those kids.'
'What's wrong with them?' inquired Mr
Luffy. 'I must say I find them very well-behaved and pleasant-mannered. '
Mr Andrews stared at Mr Luffy, and put him
down as a silly, harmless old fellow who would probably help him to get Jock
back if he went about it the right way.
'Now look here,' said Mr Andrews. 'I don't
know
who you are, but you must be a friend of
the children's. And if so, then I'd better warn you they're running into
danger. See?'
'Really? In what way?' asked Mr Luffy,
mildly and disbelievingly.
'Well, there's bad and dangerous places
about these moorlands,' said Mr Andrews. 'Very bad. I know them. And those
children have been messing about in them. See? And if Jock comes here, he'll
start messing about too, and I don't want him to get into any danger. It would
break his mother's heart.'
'Quite, 'said Mr Luffy.
'Well, will you talk to him and send him
back?' said Mr Andrews. 'That railway yard now - that's a most dangerous place.
And folks do say that there're spook-trains there. I wouldn't want Jock to be
mixed up in anything of that sort.'
'Quite,' said Mr Luffy again, looking
closely at Mr Andrews. 'You seem very concerned about this - er -railway yard.'
'Me? Oh, no,' said Mr Andrews. 'Never been
near the horrible place. I wouldn't want to see spook-trains - make me run a
mile! It's just that I don't want Jock to get into danger. I'd be most obliged
if you'd talk to him and send him home, when they all come back from wherever
they are.'
'Quite,' said Mr Luffy again, most
irritatingly. Mr Andrews gazed at Mr Luffy's bland face and suddenly wished he
could smack it. 'Quite, quite, quite!' Gr-r-r-r-r-r-r!
He turned and went away. When he had gone
for some time, and was a small speck in the distance, Mr Luffy called loudly.
'He's gone! Please send Jock here so that I
can - er -address a few words to him.'
Four children appeared from their heathery
hiding-place. Jock went over to Mr Luffy, looking mutinous.
'I just wanted to say,' said Mr Luffy,
'that I quite understand why you want to be away from your stepfather, and that
I consider it's no business of mine where you go in order to get away from
him!'
Jock grinned. 'Oh, thanks awfully,' he
said. 'I thought you were going to send me back!' He rushed over to the others.
'It's all right,' he said. 'I'm going to stay, and, I say - what about going
and exploring down that tunnel after lunch? We might find that spook-train
then!'
'Good idea!' said Julian. 'We will! Poor
old George -she'll miss that little adventure too!'
15
George has an adventure
George had gone off with one fixed idea in
her mind. She was going to find out something about that mysterious tunnel! She
thought she would walk over the moorlands to Kilty's Yard, and see what she
could see there. Maybe she could walk right back through the tunnel itself!
She soon came to Olly's Yard. There it lay
below her, with Wooden-Leg Sam pottering about. She went down to speak to him.
He didn't see or hear her coming and jumped violently when she called to him.
He swung round, squinting at her fiercely.
'You clear off!' he shouted. 'I've been told to keep you children out of here,
see? Do you want me to lose my job?'
'Who told you to keep us out?' asked
George, puzzled as to who could have known they had been in the yard.
'He did, see?' said the old man. He rubbed
his eyes, and then peered at George short-sightedly again. 'I've broken my
glasses,' he said.
'Who's "he" - the person who told
you to keep us out?' said George.
But the old watchman seemed to have one of
his sudden strange changes of temper again. He bent down and picked up a large
cinder. He was about to fling it at George when Timmy gave a loud and menacing
growl. Sam dropped his arm.
'You clear out,' he said. 'You don't want
to get a poor old man like me into trouble, do you?  You wouldn't get Wooden-Leg Sam into trouble, would you?'
George turned to go. She decided to take
the path that led to the tunnel and peep inside. But when she got there there
was nothing to see. She didn't feel that she wanted to walk all alone inside
that dark mouth, so she took the path that Julian had taken the night before,
over the top of the tunnel. But she left it half-way to look at a curious bump
that jutted up from the heather just there.
She scraped away at the heather and found
something hard beneath. She pulled at it but it would not give. Timmy, thinking
she was obligingly digging for rabbits, came to help. He scrambled below the
heather - and then he suddenly gave a bark of fright and disappeared!
George screamed: 'Timmy! What have you
done? Where are you?'
To her enormous relief she heard Timmy's
bark some way down. Where could he be? She called again, and once more Timmy
barked.
George tugged at the tufts of heather, and
then suddenly she saw what the curious mound was. It was a built-up vent-hole
for the old tunnel - a place where the smoke came curling out in the days when
trains ran there often. It had been barred across with iron, but the bars had
rusted and fallen in, and heather had grown thickly over them.
'Oh, Timmy, you must have fallen down the
vent,' said George, anxiously. 'But not very far down. Wait a bit and I'll see
what I can do. If only the others were here to help!'
But they weren't, and George had to work
all by
herself to try and get down to the broken
bars. It took her a very long time, but at last she had them exposed, and saw
where Timmy had fallen down.
He kept giving short little barks, as if to
say: 'It's all right. I can wait. I'm not hurt!'
George had to sit down and take a rest
after her efforts. She was hungry, but she said to herself that she would not
eat till she had somehow got down to Timmy, and found out where he was. Soon
she began her task again.
She climbed down through the fallen-in
vent. It was very difficult, and she was terrified of the rusty old iron bars
breaking off under her weight. But they didn't.
Once down in the vent she discovered steps
made of great iron nails projecting out. Some of them had thin rungs across.
There had evidently once been a ladder up to the top of the vent. Most of the
rungs had gone, but the iron nails that supported them still stood in the brick
walls of the old round vent.  He was quite
near her now.
Cautiously she went down the great hole.
Her foot touched Timmy. He had fallen on a collection of broken iron bars,
which, caught in part of the old iron ladder, stuck out from it, and made a
rough landing-place for the dog to fall on.
'Oh, Timmy,' said George, horrified.
'However am I going to get you out of here? This hole goes right down into the
tunnel.'
 It was equally impossible to get him down. He could never climb down the
iron ladder, especially as it had so many rungs missing.
George was in despair. 'Oh, Timmy! Why did
I lose my temper and walk out on the others to do some exploring all by myself?
Don't fall, Timmy. You'll break your legs if you do.'
Timmy had no intention of falling. He was
frightened, but so far his curious landing-place felt firm. He kept quite
still.
'Listen, Tim,' said George, at last. 'The
only thing I can think of is to climb down round it somehow and see how far it
is to the tunnel itself. There might even be someone there to help! No, that's
silly. There can't be. But I might find an old rope - anything - that I could
use to help you down with.
George gave Timmy a reassuring pat, and
then began to feel about for the iron rungs with her feet. Further down they
were all there, and it was easy to climb lower and lower. She was soon down in
the tunnel itself. She had her torch with her and switched it on. Then she
nearly gave a scream of horror.
Just near to her was a silent train! She
could almost touch the engine. Was it - could it be - the spook-train itself?
George stared at it, breathing fast.
It looked very, very old and out-of-date.
It was smaller than the trains she was used to - the engine was smaller and so
were the trucks. The funnel was longer and the wheels were different from those
of ordinary trains. George stared at the silent train by the light of her
torch, her mind in a muddle. She really didn't know what to think!
It must be the spook-train! It had come
from this tunnel the night before, and had gone back again - and it hadn't run
all the way through to Kilty's Yard, because Julian had watched for it, and it
hadn't come out there. No - it had run here, to the middle of the dark tunnel,
and there it stood, waiting for night so that it might run again.
George shivered. The train belonged to
years and years ago! Who drove it at night? Did anybody? Or did it run along
without a driver, remembering its old days and old ways? No, that was silly.
Trains didn't think or remember. George shook herself and remembered Timmy.
And just at that very moment, poor Timmy
lost his foot-hold on the iron bars, and fell! He had stretched out to listen
for George, his foot had slipped- and now he was hurtling down the vent! He
gave a mournful howl.
He struck against part of the ladder and
that stopped his headlong fall for a moment. But down he went again, scrabbling
as he fell, trying to get hold of something to save himself.
George heard him howl and knew he was
falling. She was so horror-stricken that she simply couldn't move. She stood
there at the bottom of the vent like a statue, not even breathing.
Timmy fell with a thump beside her, and a
groan was jerked out of him. In a trice George was down by him on her knees.
'Timmy! Are you hurt? Are you alive? Oh, Timmy, say something!'
'Woof,' said Timmy, and got up rather
unsteadily on his four legs. He had fallen on a pile of the softest soot! The
smoke of many, many years had sooted the walls of the vent, and the weather had
sent it down to the bottom, until quite a pile had collected at one side. Timmy
had fallen plump in the middle of it, and almost buried himself. He shook
himself violently, and soot flew out all over George.
She didn't know or care.  She felt about and found the
soft pile that had saved Timmy from being hurt.
'It's soot! I came down the other side of
the vent, so I didn't know the soot was there. Oh, Timmy, what a bit of luck
for you! I thought you'd be killed - or at least badly hurt,' said George.
He licked her sooty nose and didn't like
the taste of it.
George stood up. She didn't like the idea
of climbing up that horrid vent again - and, anyway, Timmy couldn't. The only
thing to do was to walk out of the tunnel. She wouldn't have fancied walking
through the tunnel before, in case she met the spook-train-but here it was,
close beside her, and she had been so concerned about Timmy that she had quite
forgotten it.
Timmy went over to the engine and smelt the
wheels. Then he jumped up into the cab. Somehow the sight of Timmy doing that
took away all George's fear. If Timmy could jump up into the spook-train, there
couldn't be much for her to be afraid of!
She decided to examine the trucks. There
were four of them, all covered trucks. Shining her torch, she climbed up into
one of them, pulling Timmy up behind her. She expected to find it quite empty,
unloaded many, many years ago by long-forgotten rail way men.
But it was loaded with boxes! George was
surprised. Why did a spook-train run about with boxes in it? She shone her
torch on to one - and then quickly switched it out!
She had heard a noise in the tunnel. She
crouched down in the truck, put her hand on Timmy's collar, and listened. Timmy
listened, too, the hackles rising on his neck.
It was a clanging noise. Then there came a
bang.
Then a light shone out, and the tunnel was
suddenly as bright as day!
The light came from a great lamp in the
side of the tunnel. George peeped cautiously out through a crack in the truck.
She saw that this place must be where the tunnel forked. One fork went on to
Kilty's Yard - but surely the other fork was supposed to be bricked up? George
followed the lines with her eyes. One set went on down the tunnel to Kilty's
Yard, the other set ran straight into a great wall, which was built across the
second tunnel, that once led to Roker's Yard.
'Yes - it is bricked up, just as the old porter
told Julian,' said George to herself. And then she stared in the greatest
amazement, clutching the side of the truck, hardly believing her eyes.
Part of the wall was opening before her!
Before her very eyes, a great mass of it slid back in the centre of the wall -
back and back - until a strange-shaped opening, about the size of the train
itself, showed in the thick wall. George gasped. Whatever could be happening?
A man came through the opening. George felt
sure she had seen him before somewhere. He came up to the engine of the train
and swung himself into the cab.
There were all sorts of sounds then from
the cab. What was the man doing? Starting the fire to run the train? George did
not dare to try and see. She was trembling now, and Timmy pressed himself
against her to comfort her.
Then came another set of noises - steam
noises. The man must be going to start the engine moving. Smoke came from the
funnel. More noises, and some clanks and clangs.
It suddenly occurred to George that the man
might be going to take the train through that little opening in
the bricked-up wall.  She would be in the truck,
hidden behind that wall, and the wall would be closed so that she couldn't
escape.
'I must get out before it's too late,'
thought George, in a panic. 'I only hope the man doesn't see me!'
But just as she was about to try and get
out, the engine gave a loud 'choo-choo', and began to move backwards! It ran
down the lines a little way, then forward again, and this time its wheels were
on the set of lines that led to the second tunnel, where the small opening now
showed so clearly in the wall.
George didn't dare to get out of the moving
train. So there she crouched as the engine steamed quickly to the hole in the
wall that stretched right across the other tunnel. That hole just fitted it! It
must have been made for it, thought George, as the train moved through it.
The train went right through and came out
in another tunnel. Here there was a bright light, too. George peered out
through the crack. There was more than a tunnel here! What looked like vast
caves stretched away on each side of the tunnel, and men lounged about in them.
Who on earth were they, and what were they doing with that old train?
There was a curious noise at the back of
the train. The hole in the stout brick wall closed up once more! Now there was
no way in or out. 'It's like the Open-Sesame trick in Ali Baba and the Forty
Thieves,' thought George. 'And, like Ali Baba, I'm in the cave -and don't know
the way to get myself out! Thank goodness Timmy is with me!'
The train was now at a standstill.  This tunnel must be bricked up in two places - and in between was
this extraordinary
cavern, or whatever it was. George puzzled
her head over the strange place, but couldn't make head or tail ofit.
'Well! Whatever would the others say if
they knew you and I were actually in the spook-train itself, tucked away in its
hiding-place where nobody in the world can find it?' whispered George to Timmy.
'What are we to do, Timmy?'
Timmy wagged his tail cautiously. He didn't
understand all this. He wanted to lie low for a bit and see how things turned
out.
'We'll wait till the men have gone away,
Timmy,' whispered George. 'That is, if they ever do! Then we'll get out and see
if we can manage that Open-Sesame entrance and get away. We'd better tell Mr
Luffy about all this. There's something very strange and very mysterious here -
and we've fallen headlong into it!'
16
In the tunnel again
Jock was really enjoying himself at the
camp. He had a picnic lunch with the others, and ate as much as they did,
looking very happy. Mr Luffy joined them, and Jock beamed at him, feeling that
he was a real friend.
'Where's George?' asked Mr Luffy.
'Gone off by herself,' said Julian.
'Have you quarrelled, by any chance?' said
Mr Luffy.
'A bit,' said Julian. 'We have to let
George get over it by herself, Mr Luffy. She's like that.'
'Where's she gone?' said Mr Luffy, helping
himself to a tomato. 'Why isn't she back to dinner?'
'She's taken hers with her,' said Anne. 'I
feel a bit worried about her, somehow. I hope she's all right.'
Mr Luffy looked alarmed. 'I feel a bit
worried myself,' he said. 'Still, she's got Timmy with her.'
'We're going off on a bit of exploring,'
said Julian, when they had all finished eating. 'What are you going to do, Mr
Luffy?'
'I think I'll come with you,' said Mr
Luffy, unexpectedly. The children's hearts sank. They couldn't possibly go
exploring for spook-trains in the tunnel if Mr Luffy was with them.
'Well - I don't think it will be very
interesting for you, sir,' said Julian, rather feebly. However, Mr Luffy took
the hint and'realised he wasn't wanted that afternoon.
'Right,' he said. 'In that case I'll stay
here and mess about.'
The children sighed with relief. Anne
cleared up, with Jock helping her, and then they called good-bye to Mr Luffy
and set off, taking their tea with them.
 He was so
pleased to be with the others, and he kept thinking of sleeping in the camp
that night - what am it would be! Good old Mr Luffy, taking his side like that.
He bounded after the others joyfully as they went off to the old railway yard.
Wooden-Leg Sam was pottering about there as
usual. They waved to him, but he didn't wave back. Instead he shook his fist at
them and tried to bawl in his husky voice: 'You clear out! Trespassing, that's
what you are.  'Poor old man - thinking of chasing us with that wooden leg of
his. We won't give him the chance. We'll just walk along here, climb down the
lines and walk up them to the tunnel.'
Which is what they did, much to the rage of
poor Sam. He yelled till his voice gave out, but they took no notice, and
walked quickly up the lines. The mouth of the tunnel looked very round and
black as they came near.
'Now we'll jolly well walk right through
this tunnel and see where that spook-train is that came out of it the other
night,' said Julian. 'It didn't come out the other end, so it must be somewhere
in the middle of the tunnel.'
'If it's a real spook-train, it might
completely disappear,' said Anne, not liking the look of the dark tunnel at
all. The others laughed.
'It won't have disappeared,' said Dick. 'We
shall come across it somewhere, and we'll examine it
thoroughly and try and find out exactly
what it is, and why it comes and goes in such a mysterious manner.'

They walked up the middle of one pair of lines, Julian in front keeping a sharp
look-out for anything in the shape of a train!
The lines ran on and on. The children's
voices sounded weird and echoing in the long tunnel. Anne kept close to Dick,
and half wished she hadn't come. Then she remembered that George had called her
a coward, and she put up her head, determined not to show that she was scared.
Jock talked almost without stopping.  I call this a proper adventure,
hunting for spook-trains in a dark tunnel. It makes me feel nice and shivery
all over. I do hope we find the train. It simply must be here somewhere!'
They walked on and on and on. But there was
no sign of any train. They came to where the tunnel forked into the second one,
that used to run to Roker's Vale. Julian flashed his torch on the enormous
brick wall that stretched across the second tunnel.
'Yes, it's well and truly bricked up,' he
said. 'So that only leaves this tunnel to explore. Come on.'
They went on again, little knowing that
George and Timmy were behind that brick wall, hidden in a truck of the
spook-train itself! They walked on and on down the lines, and found nothing
interesting at all.
They saw a little round circle of bright
light some way in front of them. 'See that?' said Julian. 'That must be the end
of this tunnel - the opening that goes into Kilty's Yard. Well, if the train
isn't between here and Kilty's Yard, it's gone!'
In silence they walked down the rest of the
tunnel,
and came out into the open air. Workshops
were built all over Kilty's Yard. The entrance to the tunnel was weed-grown and
neglected. Weeds grew even across the lines there.
'Well, no train has been out of this tunnel
here for years,' said Julian, looking at the thick weeds. 'The wheels would
have chopped the weeds to bits.'
'It's extraordinary,' said Dick, puzzled.
'We've been right through the tunnel and there's no train there at all, yet we
know it goes in and out of it. What's happened to it?'
'It is a spook-train,' said Jock, his face
red with excitement. 'Must be. It only exists at night, and then comes out on
its lines, like it used to do years ago.'
'I don't like thinking that,' said Anne,
troubled. 'It's a horrid thought.'
'What are we going to do now?' Julian
asked. 'We seem to have come to a blank. No train, nothing to see, empty
tunnel.  'I know
we shan't see the train this time any more than we did the last time, but you
never know!'
'I'm not coming through that tunnel again,'
said Anne. 'I want to be out in the sun. I'll walk over the top of the tunnel,
along the path there that Julian took the other night and you three can walk
back, and meet me at the other end.'
'Right,' said Julian and the three boys
disappeared into the dark tunnel. Anne ran up the path that led alongside the
top of it. How good it was to be in the open air again! That horrid tunnel! She
ran along cheerfully, glad to be out in the sun.
She got to the other end of the tunnel
quite quickly, and sat down on the path above the yard to wait for the
others. She looked for Wooden-Leg Sam. He
was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he was in his little hut.
She hadn't been there for more than two
minutes when something surprising happened. A car came bumping slowly down the
rough track to the yard! Anne sat up and watched.  Why, it was - surely it was Mr Andrews,
Jock's stepfather!
He went over to Sam's hut and threw open
the door. Anne could hear the sound of voices. Then she heard another noise -
the sound of a heavy lorry coming. She saw it come cautiously down the steep,
rough track. It ran into an old tumbledown shed and stayed there. Then three
men came out and Anne stared at them. Where had she seen them before?
'Of course! They're the farm labourers at
Jock's farm!' she thought. 'But what are they doing here? How very strange!'
Mr Andrews joined the men and, to Anne's
dismay, they began to walk up the lines to the tunnel! Her heart almost
stopped. Goodness, Julian, Dick and Jock were still in that tunnel, walking
through it. They would bump right into Mr Andrews and his men - and then what
would happen? Mr Andrews had warned them against going there, and had ordered
Jock not to go.
Anne stared at the four men walking into
the far-off mouth of the tunnel. What could she do? How could she warn the
boys? She couldn't! She would just have to stay there and wait for them to come
out - probably chased by a furious Mr Andrews and the other men. Oh dear, dear
- if they were caught they would probably all get an awful telling off! What
could she do?
'I can only wait,' thought poor Anne.
'There's nothing else to do. Oh, do come, Julian, Dick and Jock. I daren't do
anything but wait for you.'
She waited and waited. It was now long past
tea-time. Julian had the tea, so there was nothing for Anne to eat. Nobody came
out of the tunnel. Not a sound was heard. Anne at last decided to go down and
ask Wooden-Leg Sam a few questions. So, rather afraid, the girl set off down to
the yard.
Sam was in his hut, drinking cocoa, and
looking very sour. Something had evidently gone wrong. When he saw Anne's
shadow across the doorway he got up at once, shaking his fist.
 You went into
that tunnel this afternoon, and so I went up and telephoned Mr Andrews to come
and catch you all, poking your noses in all the time? How did you get out of
that tunnel? Are the others with you? Didn't Mr Andrews catch you, eh?'
Anne listened to all this in horror. So old
Sam had actually managed to telephone Mr Andrews, and tell tales on them - so
that Jock's stepfather and his men had come to catch them. This was worse than
ever.
'You come in here,' said Sam suddenly, and
he darted his big arm at her. 'Come on. I don't know where the others are, but
I'll get one of you!'
Anne gave a scream and ran away at top
speed. Wooden-Leg Sam went after her for a few yards and then gave it up. He
bent down and picked up a handful of cinders. A shower of them fell all round
Anne, and made her run faster than ever.
She tore up the path to the heather, and
was soon on the moors again, panting and sobbing. 'Oh, Julian! Oh, Dick! What's
happened to you? Oh, where's George? If only she would come home, she'd be
brave enough to look for them, but I'm not. I must tell Mr Luffy. He'll know
what to do!' She ran on and on, her feet catching continually in
the tufts of thick heather. She kept
falling over and scrambling up again. She now had only one idea in her mind -
to find Mr Luffy and tell him every single thing! Yes, she would tell him about
the spook-trains and all. There was something strange and important about the
whole thing now, and she wanted a grown-up's help.
She staggered on and on. 'Mr Luffy! Oh, Mr
Luffy, where are you? MR LUFFY!'
But no Mr Luffy answered her. She came
round the gorse bushes she thought were the ones sheltering the camp - but,
alas, the camp was not there. Anne had lost her way!
'I'm lost,' said Anne, the tears running
down her cheeks. 'But I mustn't get scared. I must try to find the right path
now. Oh, dear, I'm quite lost! Mr LUFFY!'
Poor Anne. She stumbled on blindly, hoping
to come to the camp, calling every now and again. 'Mr Luffy. Can you hear me?
MR LUFFFFFFFY!'
17
An amazing find
In the meantime, what had happened to the
three boys walking back through the tunnel? They had gone slowly along
examining the lines to see if a train could have possibly run along them
recently. Few weeds grew in the dark airless tunnel, so they could not tell by
those.
But, when they came about half-way, Julian
noticed an interesting thing. 'Look,' he said, flashing his torch on to the
lines before and behind them. 'See that? The lines are black and rusty behind
us now, but here this pair of lines is quite bright - as if they had been used
a lot.'
He was right. Behind them stretched black
and rusty lines, sometimes buckled in places - but in front of them, stretching
to the mouth of the tunnel leading to Olly's Yard, the lines were bright, as if
train-wheels had run along them.
'That's funny,' said Dick. 'Looks as if the
spook-train ran only from here to Olly's Yard and back. But why? And where in
the world is it now? It's vanished into thin air!'
Julian was as puzzled as Dick. Where could
a train be if it was not in the tunnel? It had obviously run to the middle of
the tunnel, and then stopped - but where had it gone now?
'Let's go to the mouth of the tunnel and
see if the lines are bright all the way,' said Julian at last. 'We
can't discover much here - unless the train
suddenly materialises in front of us!'
They went on down the tunnel, their torches
flashing on the lines in front of them. They talked earnestly as they went.
They didn't see four men waiting for them, four men who crouched in a little
niche at the side of the tunnel, waiting there in the dark.
'Well,' said Julian, 'I think -' and then
he stopped, because four dark figures suddenly pounced on the three boys and
held them fast. Julian gave a shout and struggled, but the man who had hold of
him was far too strong to escape from. Their torches were flung to the ground.
Julian's broke, and the other two torches lay there, their beams shining on the
feet of the struggling company.
It didn't take more than twenty seconds to
make each boy a captive, his arms behind his back. Julian tried to kick, but
his captor twisted his arm so fiercely that he groaned in pain and stopped his
kicking.
'Look here! What's all this about?'
demanded Dick. 'Who are you, and what do you think you're doing? We're only
three boys exploring an old tunnel. What's the harm in that?'
'Take them all away,' said a voice that
everyone recognised at once.
'Mr Andrews! Is it you?' cried Julian. 'Set
us free. You know us - the boys at the camp. And Jock's here too. What do you
think you're doing?'
Mr Andrews didn't answer, but he gave poor
Jock a box on the right ear that almost sent him to the ground.
Their captors turned them about, and led
them roughly up the tunnel, towards the middle. Nobody had a torch so it was
all done in the darkness and the
three boys stumbled badly, though the men
seemed sure-footed enough.
They
came to a halt after a time. Mr Andrews left them and Julian heard him go off
somewhere to the left. Then there came a curious noise - a bang, a clank, and
then a sliding, grating sound. What could be happening? Julian strained his
eyes in the darkness, but he could see nothing at all.
He didn't know that Mr Andrews was opening
the bricked-up wall through which the train had gone. He didn't know that he
and the others were being pushed out of the first tunnel into the other one,
through the curious hole in the wall. The three boys were shoved along in the
darkness, not daring to protest.
Now they were in the curious place between
the two walls which were built right across the place where the second tunnel
forked from the first one. The place where the spook-train stood in silence -
the place where George was, still hidden in one of the trucks with Timmy! But
nobody knew that, of course; not even Mr Andrews guessed that a girl and a dog
were listening in a truck nearby!
He put on a torch and flashed it in the
faces of the three boys, who, although they were not showing any fear, felt
rather scared all the same. This was so weird and unexpected, and they had no
idea where they were at all.
'You were warned not to go down to that
yard,' said the voice of one of the men. 'You were told it was a bad and
dangerous place. So it is. And you've got to suffer for not taking heed of the
warning! You'll be tied up and left here till we've finished our business.
Maybe that'll be three days, maybe it'll be three weeks!'
'Look here, you can't keep us prisoner for
all that time!' said Julian, alarmed. 'Why, there will be search
parties out for us all over the place! They
will be sure to find us.'
'Oh, no they won't,' said the voice. 'Nobody
will find you here. Now, Peters - tie 'em up!'
 They had
their legs tied, and their arms too, and were set down roughly against a wall.
Julian protested again.
'What are you doing this for? We're quite
harmless. We don't know a thing about your business, whatever it is.'
'We're not taking any chances,' said the
voice.
'What about Mum?' said Jock suddenly, to
his stepfather. 'She'll be worried.'
'Well, let her be worried,' said the voice
again, answering before Mr Andrews could say a word. 'It's your own fault. You
were warned.'
The feet of the four men moved away. Then
there came the same noises again as the boys had heard before. They were made
by the hole in the wall closing up, but the boys didn't know that. They
couldn't imagine what they were. The noises stopped and there was dead silence.
There was also pitch darkness. The three boys strained their ears, and felt
sure that the men had gone.
'Well! The brutes! Whatever are they up
to?' said Julian in a low voice, trying to loosen the ropes round his hands.
'They've got some secret to hide,' said
Dick. 'Gosh, they've tied my feet so tightly that the rope is cutting into my
flesh.'
'What's going to happen?' came Jock's
scared voice. This adventure didn't seem quite so grand to him now.
'Sh!' said Julian suddenly. 'I can hear
something!'
They all lay and listened. What was it they
could hear?
'It's - it's a dbg whining,' said Dick,
suddenly.
It was. It was Timmy in the truck with
George. He had heard the voices of the boys he knew, and he wanted to get to
them. But George, not sure yet that the men had gone, still had her hand on his
collar. Her heart beat for joy to think she was alone no longer. The three boys
- and Anne, too, perhaps - were there, in the same strange place as she and
Timmy were.
The boys listened hard. The whining came
again. Then, George let go her hold of Timmy's collar, and he leapt headlong
out of the truck. His feet pattered eagerly over the ground.
'Timmy! I say, Dick - it's Timmy!' cried
Julian, in joy. 'Where did he come from? Timmy, is it really you?'
'Woof,' said Timmy, and licked Dick next
and then Jock.
'Where's George then?' wondered Dick.
'Here," said a voice, and out of the truck scrambled George,
switching on her torch as she did so. She went over to the boys. 'Whatever's
happened? How did you come here? Were you captured or something?'
'Yes,' said Julian. 'But, George-where are
we? And what are you doing here too? It's like a peculiar dream!'
Til cut your ropes first, before I stop to
explain anything,' said George, and she took out her sharp knife. In a few
moments she had cut the boys' bonds, and they all sat up, rubbing their sore
ankles and wrists, groaning.
'Thanks, George! Now I feel fine,' said
Julian,
getting up. 'Where are we? Gracious, is
that an engine there? WhaVs it doing here?'
'That, Julian, is the spook-train!' said
George, with a laugh. 'Yes, it is, really.'
'But we walked all the way down the tunnel
and out of the other end, without finding it,' said Julian puzzled. 'It's most
mysterious.'
'Listen, Ju,' said George. 'You know where
that second tunnel is bricked up, don't you? Well, there's a way in through the
wall - a whole bit of it moves back in a sort of Open-Sesame manner! The
spook-train can run in through the hole, on the rails. Once it's beyond the
wall it stops, and the hole is closed up again.'
George switched her torch round to show the
astonished boys the wall through which they had come. Then she swung her torch
to the big wall opposite. 'See that?' she said. 'There are two walls across
this second tunnel, with a big space in between - where the spook-train hides!
Clever, isn't it?'
'It would be, if I could see any sense in
it,' said Julian. 'But I can't. Why should anyone mess about with a silly
spook-train at night?'
'That's what we've got to find out,' said
George. 'And now's our chance. Look, Julian - look at all the caves stretching
out on either side of the tunnel here. They would make wonderful
hiding-places!'
'What for?' said Dick. 'I can't make head
or tail of this!'
George swung her torch on the three boys
and then asked a sudden question: 'I say - where's Anne?'
'Anne! She didn't want to come back with us
through the tunnel, so she ran over the moorlands to meet us at the other end,
by Olly's Yard,' said Julian. 'She'll be worried stiff, won't she, when we
don't turn up? I only hope she doesn't come wandering up the
tunnel to meet us - she'll run into those
men if she does.'
Everyone felt worried. Anne hated the
tunnel and she would be very frightened if people pounced on her in the
darkness. Julian turned to George.
'Swing your torch round and let's see these
caves. There doesn't seem to be anyone here now. We could have a snoop round.'
George swung her torch round, and Julian
saw vast and apparently fathomless caves stretching out on either side, cut out
of the sides of the tunnel. Jock saw something else. By the light of the torch
he caught sight of a switch on the wall. Perhaps it opened the hole in the
wall.
He crossed to it and pulled it down.
Immediately the place was flooded with a bright light. It was a light-switch he
had found. They all blinked in the sudden glare.
'That's better,' said Julian, pleased.
'Good for you, Jock! Now we can see what we're doing.'
He looked at the spook-train standing
silently near them on its rails. It certainly looked very old and forgotten -
as if it belonged to the last century, not to this.
'It's quite a museum piece,' said Julian,
with interest. 'So that's what we heard puffing in and out of the tunnel at
night - old Spooky!'
'I hid in that truck there,' said George,
pointing, and she told them her own adventure. The boys could hardly believe
she had actually puffed into this secret place, hidden on the spook-train
itself!
'Come on - now let's look at these caves,'
said Dick. They went over to the nearest one. It was packed with crates and
boxes of all kinds. Julian pulled one open and whistled.
'All black market stuff, I imagine. Look
here-crates of tea, crates of whisky and brandy, boxes and boxes of stuff-
goodness knows what! This is a real black market hiding-place!'
The boys explored a little further. The
caves were piled high with valuable stuff, worth thousands of pounds.
'All stolen, I suppose,' said Dick. 'But
what do they do with it? I mean - how do they dispose of it? They bring it here
in the train, of course, and hide it - but they must have some way of getting
rid of it.'
'Would they repack it on the^rain and run
it back to the yard when they had enough lorries to take it away?' said Julian.
'No!' said Dick. 'Of course not. Let me see
- they steal it, pile it on to lorries at night, take it somewhere temporarily
. . .'
'Yes - to my mother's farm!' said Jock, in
a scared voice. 'All those lorries there in the barn - that's what they're used
for! And they come down to Olly's Yard at night and the stuff is loaded in
secret on the old train that comes puffing out to meet them - and then it's
taken back here and hidden!'
'Wheeeee-ew!' Julian whistled. 'You're
right, Jock! That's just what happens. What a cunning plot - to use a perfectly
honest little farm as a hiding-place, to stock the farm with black-market men
for labourers - no wonder they are such bad workers - and to wait for dark
nights to run the stuff down to the yard and load it on the train!'
'Your stepfather must make a lot of money
at this game,' said Dick to Jock.
'Yes. That's why he can afford to pour
money into the farm,' said Jock, miserably. 'Poor Mum. This will break her
heart. All the same, I don't think my step-
father's the chief one in this. There's
somebody behind him.'
'Yes,' said Julian, thinking of the mean
little Mr Andrews, with his big nose and weak chin. 'There probably is. Now -
I've thought of something else. If this stuff is got rid of in any other way
except down the tunnel it came up, there must somewhere be a way out of these
caves!'
'I believe you're right,' said George. 'And
if there is - we'll find it! And what's more, we'll escape that way!'
'Come on!' said Julian, and he switched off
the glaring light. 'Your torch will give enough light now. We'll try this cave
first. Keep your eyes open, all of you!'
18
A way of escape
The four children and Timmy went into the
big cave. They made their way round piles of boxes, chests and crates,
marvelling at the amount the men must have stolen from time to time.
'These aren't man-made caves,' said Julian.
'They're natural. I expect the roof did perhaps fall in where the two tunnels
met, and the entrance between them was actually blocked up.'
'But were two walls built then?' said Dick.
'Oh, no. We can't guess how it was that
this black market hiding-place came into existence,' said Julian, 'but it might
perhaps have been known there were caves here - and when someone came prospecting
along the tunnel one day, maybe they even found an old train buried under a
roof-fall or something like that.'
'And resurrected it, and built another wall
secretly for a hiding-place - and used the train for their own purposes!' said
Dick. 'Made that secret entrance, too. How ingenious!'
'Or it's possible the place was built
during the last war,' said Julian. 'Maybe secret experiments were carried on
here - and given up afterwards. The place might have been discovered by the
black marketeers then, and used in this clever way. We can't tell!'
They had wandered for a good way in the
cave by now, without finding anything of interest beyond the
boxes and chests of all kinds of goods.
Then they came to where a pile was very neatly arranged, with numbers chalked
on boxes that were built up one on top of another. Julian halted.
'Now this looks as if these boxes were
about to be shifted off somewhere,' he said. 'All put in order and numbered.
Surely the exit must be somewhere here?'
He
took George's torch from her and flashed it all round. Then he found what he
wanted. The beam of light shone steadily on a strong roughly-made wooden door,
set in the wall of the cave. They went over to it in excitement.
'This is what we want!' said Julian. 'I bet
this is the exit to some very lonely part of the moors, not far from a road
that lorries can come along to collect any goods carried out of here! There are
some very deserted roads over these moors, running in the middle of miles of lonely
moorland.'
'It's a clever organisation,' said Dick.
'Lorries stored at an innocent farm, full of goods for hiding in the
tunnel-caves at a convenient time. The train comes out in the dark to collect
the goods, and takes them back here, till the hue and cry after the goods has
died down. Then out they go through this door to the moorlands, down to the
lorries which come to collect them and whisk them away to the black market!'
'I told you how I saw Peters late one
night, locking up the barn, didn't I?' said Jock, excitedly. 'Well, he must
have got the lorry full of stolen goods then - and the next night he loaded
them on to the spook-train!'
'That's about it,' said Julian, who had
been trying the door to see if he could open it. 'I say, this door's maddening.
I can't make it budge an inch. There's no lock that I can see.'
They all shoved hard, but the door would
not give at
all. It was very stout and strong, though
rough and unfinished. Panting and hot, the four of them at last gave it up.
'Do you know what I think?' said Dick. 'I
think the beastly thing has got something jammed hard against it on the
outside.'
'Sure to have, when you come to think of
it,' said Julian. 'It will be well hidden too - heather and bracken and stuff
all over it. Nobody would ever find it. I suppose the lorry-drivers come across
from the road to open the door when they want to collect the goods. And shut it
and jam it after them.'
'No way of escape there, then,' said George
in disappointment.
' 'Fraid not,' said Julian. George gave a
sigh.
'Tired, old thing?' Julian asked kindly.
'Or hungry?'
'Both, 'said George.
'Well, we've got some food somewhere,
haven't we?' said Julian. 'I remember one of the men slinging my bag in after
me. We've not had what we brought for tea yet. What about having a meal now? We
can't seem to escape at the moment.'
'Let's have it here,' said George. 'I
simply can't go a step further!'
They sat down against a big crate. Dick
undid his kit-bag. There were sandwiches, cake and chocolate. The four of them
ate thankfully, and wished they had something to wash down the food with.
Julian kept wondering about Anne.
'I wonder what she did,' he said. 'She'd
wait and wait, I suppose. Then she might go back to the camp. But she doesn't
know the way very well, and she might get lost. Oh dear -1 don't know which
would be worse for Anne, being lost on the moor or a prisoner down here with
us!'
'Perhaps she's neither,' said Jock, giving
Timmy his last bit 01" sandwich. 'I must say I'm jolly glad to have Timmy.
Honest, George, I couldn't believe it when I heard Tim whine, and then heard
your voice, too. I thought I must be dreaming.'
They sat where they were for a little
longer and then decided to go back to the tunnel where the train was. 'It's
just possible we might find the switch that works the Open-Sesame bit,' said
Julian. 'We ought to have looked before, really, but I didn't think of it.'
They went back to where the train stood silently
on its pair of lines. It seemed such an ordinary old train now that the
children couldn't imagine why they had ever thought it was strange and spooky.
They switched on the light again, then they
looked about for any lever or handle that might perhaps open the hole in the
wall. There didn't seem to be anything at all. They tried a few switches, but
nothing happened.
Then George suddenly came across a big
lever low down in the brick wall itself. She tried to move it and couldn't. She
called Julian.
'Ju! Come here. I wonder if this has got
anything to do with opening that hole.'
The three boys came over to George. Julian
tried to swing the lever down. Nothing happened. He pulled it but it wouldn't
move.
And hey presto, there came a bang from
somewhere, as something heavy shifted, and then a clanking as if machinery was
at work. Then came the sliding, grating noise and a great piece of the brick
wall moved slowly back, and then swung round sideways and stopped. The way of
escape was open!
'Open Sesame!' said Dick, grandly, as the
hole appeared.
'Better switch off the light here,' said
Julian. 'If there's anyone still in the tunnel they might see the reflection of
it on the tunnel-wall beyond, and wonder what it was.'
He stepped back and switched it off, and
the place was in darkness again. George put on her torch, and its feeble beam
lighted up the way of escape.
'Come on,' said Dick, impatiently, and they
all crowded out of the hole. 'We'll make for Olly's Yard.' They began to make
their way down the dark tunnel.
'Listen,' said Julian, in a low voice.
'We'd better not talk at all, and we'd better go as quietly as we can. We don't
know who may be in or out of this tunnel this evening. We don't want to walk
bang into somebody.'
So they said nothing at all, but kept close
to one another in single file, walking at the side of the track.
They had not gone more than a quarter of a
mile before Julian stopped suddenly. The others bumped into one another, and
Timmy gave a little whine as somebody trod on his paw. George's hand went down
to his collar at once.
The four of them and Timmy listened, hardly
daring to breathe. Somebody was coming up the tunnel towards them! They could
see the pin-point of a torch, and hear the distant crunch of footsteps.
'Other way, quick!' whispered Julian, and
they all turned. With Jock leading them now, they made their way as quickly and
quietly as they could back to the place where the two tunnels met. They passed
it and went on towards Kilty's Yard, hoping to get out that way.

There might be nobody with the lantern-on
the other hand there might. What were they to do?
'They'll see that hole in the wall is
open!' suddenly said Dick. 'We left it open. They'll know we've escaped then.
We're caught again! They'll come down to find us, and here we'll be!'
They stood still, pressed close together,
Timmy growling a little in his throat. Then George remembered something!
'Julian! Dick! We could climb up that vent
that I came down,' she whispered. 'The one poor old Timmy fell down. Have we
time?'
'Where is the vent?' said Julian, urgently.
'Quick find it.'
George tried to remember. Yes, it was on
the other side of the tunnel - near the place where the two tunnels met. She
must look for the pile of soot. How she hoped the little light from her torch
would not be seen. Whoever was coming up from Olly's Yard must be almost there
by now!
She found the pile of soot that Timmy had
fallen into. 'Here it is,' she whispered. 'But, oh Julian! How can we take
Timmy?'
'We can't,' said Julian, 'We must hope
he'll manage to hide and then slink out of the tunnel by himself. He's quite
clever enough.'
He pushed George up the vent first and her
feet found the first rungs. Then Jock went up, his nose almost on George's
heels.  But before he managed to climb the
first steps, something happened.
A bright glare filled the tunnel, as
someone switched on the light that hung there. Timmy slunk into the shadows and
growled in his throat. Then there came a shout.
'Who's opened the hole in the wall? It's
open! Who's there?'
It was Mr Andrews's voice. Then came
another voice, angry and loud: 'Who's here? Who's opened this place?'
'Those kids can't have moved the lever,'
said Mr Andrews. 'We bound them up tightly.'
The men, three of them, went quickly
through the hole in the wall. Julian climbed up the first few rungs thankfully.
Poor Timmy was left in the shadows at the bottom.
Out came the men at a run. 'They've gone!
Their ropes are cut! How could they have escaped? We put Kit down one end of
the tunnel and we've been walking up this end. Those kids must be about here
somewhere.'
'Or hiding in the caves,' said another
voice. 'Peters, go and look, while we hunt here.'
The men hunted everywhere. They had no idea
that the vent was nearby in the wall. They did not see the dog that slunk by
them like a shadow, keeping out of their way, and lying down whenever the light
from a torch came near hitn.
George climbed steadily, feeling with her
feet for the iron nails whenever she came to broken rungs. Then she came to a
stop. Something was pressing on her head. What was it? She put up her hand to
feel. It was the collection of broken iron bars that Timmy had fallen on that
morning. He had dislodged some of them, and they had then fallen in such a way
that they had lodged across the vent, all twined into each other. George could
climb no higher. She tried to move the bars, but they were heavy and strong -
besides, she was afraid she might bring the whole lot on top of her and the
others. They might be badly injured then.
'What's up, George? Why don't you go on?'
asked Jock, who was next.
'There's some iron bars across the vent -
ones that must have fallen when Timmy fell,' said George. 'I can't go any
higher! I daren't pull too hard at the bars.'
Jock passed the message to Dick, and he
passed it down to Julian. The four of them came to a full-stop!
'Blow!' said Julian. 'I wish I'd gone up
first. What are we to do now?'
What indeed? The four of them hung there in
the darkness, hating the smell of the sooty old vent, miserably uncomfortable
on the broken rungs and nails.
'How do you like adventures now, Jock?'
asked Dick. 'I bet you wish you were in your own bed at home!'
'I don't!' said Jock. 'I wouldn't miss this
for worlds! I always wanted an adventure - and I'm not grumbling at this one!'
19
What an adventure!
And now, what had happened to Anne? She had
stumbled on and on for a long time, shouting to Mr Luffy. And outside his tent
Mr Luffy sat, reading peacefully. But, as the evening came, and then darkness,
he became very worried indeed about the five children.
He wondered what to do. It was hopeless for
one man to search the moors. Haifa dozen or more were needed for that! He
decided to get his car and go over to Olly's Farm to get the men from there. So
off he went.
But when he got there he found no one at
home except Mrs Andrews and the little maid. Mrs Andrews looked bewildered and
worried.
'What is the matter?' said Mr Luffy gently,
as she came running out to the car, looking troubled.
'Oh, it's you, Mr Luffy,' she said, when he
told her who he was. 'I didn't know who you were. Mr Luffy, something strange
is happening. All the men have gone - and all the lorries, too. My husband has
taken the car and nobody will tell me anything. I'm so worried.'
Mr Luffy decided not to add to her worries
by telling her the children were missing. He just pretended he had come to
collect some milk. 'Don't worry,' he said comfortingly to Mrs Andrews. 'You'll
find things are all right in the morning, I expect. I'll
come and see you then. Now I must be off on
an urgent matter.'
He went bumping along the road in his car,
puzzled. He had known there was something funny about Olly's Farm, and he had
puzzled his brains a good deal over Olly's Yard and the spook-trains. He hoped
the children hadn't got mixed up in anything dangerous.
'I'd better go down and report to the
police that they're missing,' he thought. 'After all, I'm more or less
responsible for them. It's very worrying indeed.'
He told what he knew at the police station,
and the sergeant, an intelligent man, at once mustered six men and a police
car.
'Have
to find those kids,' he said. 'And we'll have to look into this Olly's Farm
business, sir, and these here spook-trains, whatever they may be. We've known
there was something funny going on, but we couldn't put our finger on it. But
we'll find the children first.'
They went quickly up to the moors and the
six men began to fan out to search, with Mr Luffy at the head. And the first
thing they found was Anne!
She was still stumbling along, crying for
Mr Luffy, but in a very small, weak voice now. When she heard his voice calling
her in the darkness she wept for joy.
'Oh, Mr Luffy! You must save the boys,' she
begged him. 'They're in that tunnel - and they've been caught by Mr Andrews and
his men, I'm sure. They didn't come out and I waited and waited! Do come!'
'I've got some friends here who will
certainly come and help,' said Mr Luffy gently. He called the men, and in a few
words told them what Anne had said.
'In the tunnel?' said one of them. 'Where
the spook-trains run?  But
she
wouldn't. So he carried her as he followed
the men who were making their way through the heather, down to Olly's Yard.
They did not bother with Wooden-Leg Sam. They went straight to the tunnel and
walked up it quietly. Mr Luffy was a good way behind with Anne. She refused to
stay with him in the yard.
'No,' she said, Tm not a coward. Really I'm
not. I want to help to rescue the boys. I wish George was here. Where's
George?'
Mr Luffy had no idea. Anne clung to his
hand, scared but eager to prove that she was not a coward. Mr Luffy thought she
was grand!
Meanwhile, Julian and the others had been
in the vent for a good while, tired and uncomfortable. The men had searched in
vain for them and were now looking closely into every niche at the sides of the
tunnel.
And, of course, they found the vent! One of
the men shone his light up it. It shone on to poor Julian's feet!
'Here they are! Up this vent. Who'd have
thought it? Come on down or it'll be the worse for you!'
Julian didn't move. George pushed
desperately at the iron bars above her head, but she could not move them. One
of the men climbed up the vent and caught hold of Julian's foot.
He dragged so hard at it that the boy's
foot was forced off the rung. Then the man dragged off the other foot, and
Julian found himself hanging by his arms with the man tugging hard at his feet.
He could hang on no longer. His tired arms gave way and he fell heavily down,
landing half on the man and half on the pile of soot. Another man pounced on
Julian at once, while the first climbed up the vent to find the next boy.
Soon Dick felt his feet being tugged at,
too.
'All right, all right. I'll come down!' he
yelled, and climbed down. Then Jock climbed down, too. The men looked at them
angrily.
'Giving us a chase like this! Who undid
your ropes?' said Mr Andrews, roughly. One of the men put a hand on his arm and
nodded up towards the vent. 'Someone else is coming down,' he said. 'We only
tied up three boys, didn't we? Who's this, then?'
It was George, of course. She wasn't going
to desert the three boys. Down she came, as black as night with soot.
'Another boy!' said the men. 'Where did he
come from?'
'Any more up there?' asked Mr Andrews.
'Look and see,' said Julian, and got a box
on the ears for his answer.
'Treat them rough now,' ordered Peters.
'Teach them a lesson, the little pests. Take them away.'
The children's hearts sank. The men caught
hold of them roughly. Blow! Now they would be made prisoners again.
Suddenly a cry came from down the tunnel:
'Police! Run for it!'
The men dropped the children's arms at once
and stood undecided.  'I tell you the police
are coming!' he gasped. 'Are you stone deaf? There's a whole crowd of them. Run
for it! Somebody's split on us.'
'Get along to Kilty's Yard!' shouted
Peters. 'We can get cars there. Run for it!'
To the children's dismay, the men tore down
the tunnel to Kilty's Yard. They would escape! They heard the sound of the
men's feet as they ran along the line.
George found her voice. 'Timmy! Where are
you? After them, Timmy! Stop them!'
A black shadow came streaking by out of the
hole in the wall, where Timmy had been hiding and watching for a chance to come
to George. He had heard her voice and obeyed. He raced after the men like a
greyhound, his tongue hanging out, panting as he went.
These were the men who had ill-treated
George and the others, were they? Aha, Timmy knew how to deal with people like
that!
The policemen came running up, and Mr Luffy
and Anne came up behind them.
'They've gone down there, with Timmy after
them,' shouted George. The men looked at her and gasped.  The others were filthy dirty too, with sooty-black faces in the light of
the lamp that still shone down from the wall of the tunnel.
'George!' shrieked Anne in delight.
'Julian! Oh, are you all safe? I went bach to tell Mr Luffy about you and I got
lost. I'm so ashamed!'
'You've nothing to be ashamed of, Anne,'
said Mr Luffy. 'You're a grand girl! Brave as a lion!'
From down the tunnel came shouts and yells
and loud barks. Timmy was at work! He had caught up with the men and launched
himself on them one after anu'.her, bringing each one heavily to the ground.
They were terrified to find a big animal growling and snapping all around them.
Timmy held them at bay in the tunnel, riot allowing them to go one step
further, snapping at any man who dared to go near.
The police ran up. Timmy growled extra
fiercely just to let the men know that it was quite impossible to get by him.
In a trice each of the men was imprisoned by a pair of strong arms and they
were being told to come quietly.
They didn't go quietly. For one thing Mr
Andrews lost his nerve and howled dismally. Jock felt very ashamed of him.
'Shut up,' said a burly policeman. 'We know
you're only the miserable little cat's-paw - taking money from the big men to
hold your tongue and obey orders.'
 That would be too good a name for him!'
'Well, I don't think I ever in my life saw
dirtier children,' said Mr Luffy. 'I vote we all go back to my car and I drive
the lot of you over to Olly's Farm for a meal and a bath!'
So back they all went, tired, dirty, and
also feeling very thrilled.
What a night! They told Anne all that had
happened, and she told them her story, too. She almost fell asleep in the car
as she talked, she was so tired.
Mrs Andrews was sensible and kind, though
upset to hear that her husband had been taken off by the police. She got hot
water for baths, and laid a meal for the hungry children.
'I wouldn't worry overmuch, Mrs Andrews,'
said kindly Mr Luffy. 'That husband of yours needs a lesson, you know. This
will probably keep him going straight in future. The farm is yours, and you can
now hire proper farm-workers who will do what you want them to do. And I think
Jock will be happier without a stepfather for the present.'
'You're right, Mr Luffy,' said Mrs Andrews,
wiping her eyes quickly. 'Quite right. I'll let Jock help me with the farm, and
get it going beautifully. To think that Mr Andrews was in with all those black
marketeers! It's that friend of his, you know, who makes
him do all this. He's so weak. He knew Jock
was snooping about in that tunnel, and that's why he wanted him to go away -
and kept making him have a boy here or go out with him. I knew there was
something funny going on.'
'No wonder he was worried when Jock took it
into his head to go and camp with our little lot,' said Mr Luffy.
'To think of that old yard and tunnel being
used again!' said Mrs Andrews. 'And all those tales about spook-trains - and
tha way they hid that train, and hid all the stuff, too. Why, it's like a fairy
tale isn't it!'
She ran to see if the water was hot for the
baths. It was, and she went to call the children, who were in the big bedroom
next door. She opened it and looked in. Then she called Mr Luffy upstairs.
He looked in at the door, too. The five,
and Timmy, were lying on the floor in a heap, waiting for the bathwater. They
hadn't liked to sit on chairs or beds, they were so dirty. And they had fallen
asleep where they sat, their faces as black as a sweep's.
'Talk about black marketeers!' whispered Mrs
Andrews. 'Anyone would think we'd got the whole lot of them here in the
bedroom!'
They all woke up and went to have a bath
one by one, and a good meal after that. Then back to camp with Mr Luffy, Jock
with them, too.
It was glorious to snuggle down into the
sleeping-bags. George called out to the three boys.

'How did you like it, Jock?'
'Like it?' said Jock, with a happy sigh.
'It was simply - smashing!'


Your Weather forecast for the week!
Seems as if this is going to be a very interesting week with all sorts of interesting events.
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 75 and Sunny | 105 Windy and Sunny | 200 With Volcanic Activity | A Super Hurricane | A Zombie Apocalypse Starts | 90% of Humanity dies | Godzilla appears and saves that last 10% |


[1]
she just left the room and that was it.
[2]
she just left the room and that was ok the massage was it.


INC4864500
Priority 2
Customer 293-26Q orderslips generated while we would expect MD slips
INC3387079
Priority 3
QMF: discrepancy for QSAFSTKLVL in tables MSLEUT and MRD10T
INC3567286
Priority 3
IN1523777-MIXK: customer orders for Part 76204-T2F-Y12 show "No P/O simulation with TBP" while we expect ETA based on settings MIYI / MJDA
INC3866862
Priority 3
incorrect message No-MIXG on MJDH


Swan Ping Pong Club was established by Haiping Zhao and Amy Zhong on Sept 2012. From the beginning, Swan aims to provide the best equipment, the best environment and the best location to Ping Pong players. It soon attracted a large group of fan base. However, high rent at the center of Silicon Valley is always a formidable obstacle to overcome .
On Sept 2015, Haiping and Amy permanently moved back to China, and the club temporarily closed for a month. Then, Mrs Jing Wang bravely took the task to be the professional manager of the club. While in the back, Haiping still provides a large subsidy for the rent, Mrs Wang has been working extremely hard for no pay to continue operating the club and get the rest of rent paid.
Due to family issues, Mrs Wang is unable to manage the club after the end of April 2016. The club faces the risk of closing again.
We, a group of Ping Pong fans, are stepping up to prevent this from happening. We are establishing a 501(c)(3) public charity organization: Ping Pong Community, to continue managing and operating the Swan club.
Ping Pong Community (PPC) has been approved by IRS as an 501(c)(3) Public Charity on Dec 5 2016. Starting from Dec 6 2016, PPC will open Swan Club free to public. Having one of the best Ping Pong facility free to public is like a dream come true. This is not an easy task. We need volunteers and donations. Your help will be greatly appreciated. Please click here for how to help.


ASSOCIATION OF ICT MAJORS
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ICT WEEK
EVENTS AND
ACTIVITES 2021
Here are the upcoming events
and activities during ICT Week!
==
Contact Us
https://www.facebook.com/lvccictweek
https://www.facebook.com/AssociationofICTMajors
aim@laverdad.edu.ph


For all web development solutions call me or write me on the following address. FOR more information FAQs


Computer Assembling
问题描述 :
XiaoA is becoming more and more unsatisfied with his computer since he is learning hacker technologies these days but his computer always fails whenever he changes the configurations of the NIC. He buys a new NIC but the motherboard doesn’t recognize it. He then pays for a motherboard from the same company as the NIC. This time the display card is in collision with the motherboard so he cannot even start his computer.
After days of affliction, XiaoA decides to assemble a computer himself. He has to buy n components. Two companies are finally chosen after he searches the web. They both offer all the n components but the prices may vary. There are some pairs of components such that if XiaoA buys them from different companies he has to spend an additional fee to buy adapters to avoid the collision problem.
 Please tell him the minimum dollars he has to pay.
After days of affliction, XiaoA decides to assemble a computer himself. He has to buy n components. Two companies are finally chosen after he searches the web. They both offer all the n components but the prices may vary. There are some pairs of components such that if XiaoA buys them from different companies he has to spend an additional fee to buy adapters to avoid the collision problem.
 Please tell him the minimum dollars he has to pay.
输入:
There are multiple test cases.
For each test case, the first line contains two integers n and m(1<=n<=500, 0<=m<=n*(n-1)/2), indicating the number of components and the number of pairs. The components are conveniently numbered from 1 to n and all pairs are distinct. The next two lines both have n integers(in the range [1, 200]), describing the price in dollar for each component they offer in order. The next m lines contain three integers i, j and c(1<=i, j<=n, i!=j, 1<=c<=200) each, indicating that if he buys component i and j from different companies, he has to spend another c dollars for an adapter.
Proceed to the end of file.
For each test case, the first line contains two integers n and m(1<=n<=500, 0<=m<=n*(n-1)/2), indicating the number of components and the number of pairs. The components are conveniently numbered from 1 to n and all pairs are distinct. The next two lines both have n integers(in the range [1, 200]), describing the price in dollar for each component they offer in order. The next m lines contain three integers i, j and c(1<=i, j<=n, i!=j, 1<=c<=200) each, indicating that if he buys component i and j from different companies, he has to spend another c dollars for an adapter.
Proceed to the end of file.
输出:
There are multiple test cases.
For each test case, the first line contains two integers n and m(1<=n<=500, 0<=m<=n*(n-1)/2), indicating the number of components and the number of pairs. The components are conveniently numbered from 1 to n and all pairs are distinct. The next two lines both have n integers(in the range [1, 200]), describing the price in dollar for each component they offer in order. The next m lines contain three integers i, j and c(1<=i, j<=n, i!=j, 1<=c<=200) each, indicating that if he buys component i and j from different companies, he has to spend another c dollars for an adapter.
Proceed to the end of file.
For each test case, the first line contains two integers n and m(1<=n<=500, 0<=m<=n*(n-1)/2), indicating the number of components and the number of pairs. The components are conveniently numbered from 1 to n and all pairs are distinct. The next two lines both have n integers(in the range [1, 200]), describing the price in dollar for each component they offer in order. The next m lines contain three integers i, j and c(1<=i, j<=n, i!=j, 1<=c<=200) each, indicating that if he buys component i and j from different companies, he has to spend another c dollars for an adapter.
Proceed to the end of file.
样例输入:
5 3 2 3 4 5 2 1 5 3 6 4 1 2 3 2 3 5 3 4 2
样例输出:
16
#include <iostream> #include <string.h> #include <stdio.h> #define min(a, b) ((a) < (b) ? (a) : (b)) using namespace std; const int maxn = 505; const int maxm = maxn * maxn * 2; const int inf = 0x3f3f3f3f; int pt[maxm], next[maxm], head[maxn], flow[maxm]; int level[maxn], queue[maxn], pos; int n, m; void AddEdge(int a, int b, int c) { pt[++pos] = b; next[pos] = head[a]; head[a] = pos; flow[pos] = c; } void Connect(int a, int b, int c) { AddEdge(a, b, c); AddEdge(b, a, 0); } bool bfs(int s, int t) { int qs, qe, v, e; memset (level, 0, sizeof level); qs = qe = 0; queue[qe++] = s; level[s] = 1; while (qs < qe) { v = queue[qs++]; for (e = head[v]; e != -1; e = next[e]) if (flow[e] > 0 && level[pt[e]] == 0) { queue[qe++] = pt[e]; level[pt[e]] = level[v] + 1; } } return level[t] > 0; } int Update(int v, int t, int tmpflow) { int e, tmp, res = 0; if (v == t) return tmpflow; for (e = head[v]; e != -1; e = next[e]) if (flow[e] > 0 && level[pt[e]] == level[v] + 1) { tmp = Update(pt[e], t, min(flow[e], tmpflow)); flow[e] -= tmp; flow[e^1] += tmp; res += tmp; tmpflow -= tmp; if (tmpflow == 0) break; } level[v] = -1; return res; } int dinic(int s, int t) { int res = 0; while (bfs(s, t)) res += Update(s, t, inf); return res; } void init() { int i, a, b, c; pos = -1; memset (head, -1, sizeof head); for (i = 1; i <= n; i++) { scanf("%d", &a); Connect(0, i, a); } for (i = 1; i <= n; i++) { scanf("%d", &a); Connect(i, n + 1, a); } for (i = 0; i < m; i++) { scanf ("%d%d%d", &a, &b, &c); AddEdge(a, b, c); AddEdge(b, a, c); } } void Solve() { int res = dinic(0, n + 1); printf("%d\n", res); } int main() { while (scanf ("%d%d", &n, &m) != EOF) { init(); Solve(); } return 0; }
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go AGAiN!
go AGAiN!
go AGAiN!
go AGAiN!
赞一个
27行 minStack.push(minValue); 去掉就对了
“再把所有不和该节点相邻的节点着相同的颜色”，程序中没有进行不和该节点相邻的其他节点是否相邻进行判断。再说求出来的也不一样是颜色数最少的
This write-up presents the gentle in which we can notice the fact. this is extremely wonderful one and gives in depth info.
没有对题目进行一番分析，真是美中不足啊
感谢~速度真快，我很喜欢这个网站，从基础看起。
此题的样例描述不正确
int L[m+1][n+1];这样定义出错，这个在gcc上可以编译通过 在VS上不行 应该改为new 或者vector
刚开始学习，为啥会报错了，你试过了吗
哇，算法有这么多呢！
第二个是python代码啊。。
确实有点难度，搞了好久。int溢出要注意
这个后缀数组不是常用的那个.
第二个方法挺不错。NewHead代表新的头节点，通过递归找到最后一个节点之后，就把这个节点赋给NewHead，然后一直返回返回，中途这个值是没有变化的，一边返回一边把相应的指针方向颠倒，最后结束时返回新的头节点到主函数。