What had happened! Buster was curious to know what all this noise meant, and finding himself loose, with no roof over him, he climbed out of the wreck. It was dark outside, but there were many lights flashing around.
Buster walked down the track where a group of men were at work. They paid no attention to him, and he sat down to wait. Chiquita would come along soon to claim him. But he waited and waited, and nobody paid any attention to him. Finally, he got up and wandered off in the fields, and before he stopped he was lost and couldn’t find his way back again.
“I think I’ll sleep here until morning,” he said, seeking a good resting place under a tree. “Then I’ll find my way back to the train.”
But it wasn’t the train he found. It was the little girl who had given him candy that day he danced for pennies.
When Buster woke the next morning the sun was just peeping above the trees. He had slept so soundly that he couldn’t recall right away all that had happened the previous night. He opened his eyes, and was surprised when he found that nothing around him was familiar.
He grunted and rose to his feet, blinking at the sun. Then it all returned to him. He remembered the jolt and crash, and the splintering of the roof of his car. He rubbed his head to see if the bruise still hurt him, and winced when it pained him.
“I wonder what happened to the Old Lion,” he said, grinning. “He must have lost all his teeth last night.”
Then he thought of Chiquita. If she was in the wreck, too, she may have lost something more than her teeth. Suppose she had lost her life! This thought grieved Buster.
“I must go back and find out,” he said. “She’ll miss me.”
He waddled away through the bushes until he came to a road that was unfamiliar to him. Which way did he go to reach the railroad? He started up it, but hadn’t gone far before he saw a man approaching, carrying a basket on his arm. Buster was less alarmed than the man apparently, for with a shriek of terror the latter dropped his basket and ran up the road so fast that he was soon out of sight.
“What a foolish thing to do,” laughed Buster. “He must have had an evil conscience or he wouldn’t be frightened like that.”
He waddled up to the basket the man had dropped. One sniff at its contents made his heart jump with joy. It was filled with nice fresh bread, rolls, and two blackberry pies.