Larry went home, all excited over the prospects of his trip. It was the biggest thing he had yet been assigned to do in newspaper work, and he felt that it might be the stepping stone to a larger field.  
“You’ll be careful now, won’t you, Larry?” his mother pleaded as she packed a valise of clothes for him, since Mr. Emberg had said the trip would probably last several days.
 
“I will, mother,” promised the boy.
 
“Write every day,” Mrs. Dexter continued, “and let us know how you are getting on.”
 
“Do you think Lucy will be all right?” asked Larry.
 
“I think so,” said the nurse, who had come into the room. “Her general health is much better, though of course we cannot tell about the main thing; that is, whether she will walk again.”
 
Larry went into the room to bid his sister good-bye. Lucy was stretched out in bed, her limbs and back held rigid by the heavy plaster cast. She smiled at her brother.
 
250 “So you’re going to run away and leave me?” she said in a joking tone.
 
“I’ll come back whenever you send for me,” spoke Larry.
 
“When you come back perhaps I’ll be walking around,” said the girl with a smile.
 
Larry bade his mother, sisters, and brother, as well as the nurse, good-bye, and then went to the railroad station where he was to meet Mr. Newton. It was raining hard, as it had been for a week past.
 
“If this keeps up I’m afraid there’ll be trouble at the dam,” thought Larry, as he splashed through a big puddle.
 
He found the reporter waiting for him. Mr. Newton was attired in a long rain coat, and he had a big dress-suit case with him, that seemed well filled.
 
“Got any rubber boots?” he asked Larry, as soon as the latter greeted him.
 
“No. Why?”
 
“Because you’ll need ’em if this sort of weather keeps up. You wait here and I’ll go and buy you a pair. What size do you wear?”
 
“About six, I guess,” replied Larry.
 
Mr. Newton hurried out and returned, bearing a bundle.
 
“There you are,” said the reporter. “They’ll keep your feet dry, anyhow.”
 
A few minutes later their train was called and251 the two went out on the long platform along which the cars stood.
 
“It’s hardly worth while taking a sleeper,” said Mr. Newton. “We’ll get there about midnight, and I’ve wired for rooms at the only hotel in the village. Can’t tell whether we’ll get ’em, or not, the way things are.”
 
It was a good deal like being a soldier, Larry thought, to be a reporter on a big paper. You never knew where you were going, nor when. At one minute you might be engaged in writing up a peaceful bit of news, and the next be sent far away to report raging floods or big fires. But Larry liked the excitement, and he felt that there was no finer or more responsible calling.
 
To be a reporter on a big paper meant to be able to command much power, which, if rightly used, proved of great value. A reporter is, in a way, his own master, serving only his paper.
 
Through the storm splashed the train. The wind howled around it and the rain beat upon it, but those inside were comfortable and warm.
 
Larry and Mr. Newton found seats together and they settled down into them, to listen to the roar of the storm, and the puffing of the engine until they came to their destination. Progress was slow, because the railroad line was not as safe as usual. Once they were delayed an hour by a lot of sand washing down on the track. The train crew had to get out and shovel it off.
 
252 Again they came to so sudden a stop that several of the passengers were thrown from their seats.
 
“We hit something that time,” exclaimed Mr. Newton.
 
“Felt so,” replied Larry.
 
Nearly everyone in the cars piled out in spite of the rain. Larry and Mr. Newton followed their example. They found that the locomotive had struck a big rock that had been loosened from a bluff by the rain, and had fallen down on the track. But for the fact that the engineer saw it in time, and put on brakes, there might have been a serious accident. As it was, the pilot of the locomotive was smashed.
 
There was a delay of two hours this time before the rock could be removed, and when the train at last got under way, and pulled into Stoneville, they were more than three hours behind time.
 
“It’s after four o’clock,” said Mr. Newton as he got off the coach and looked at his watch. “Hardly worth while to go to bed.”
 
They found a number of people gathered at the station.
 
“What’s going on?” asked Mr. Newton, of a man who was walking up and down the platform. “Everybody get up early to catch a train?”
 
“We haven’t been to bed,” was the answer. “The dam’s liable to give way any minute, and253 we’re ............