Clive Cussler by The Adventures of Vin Fiz Page B

track, the bandits had forced them back into the railroad cars. Alongside the locomotive, not far from the track, the engineer and fireman had been tied to a tree.
    All this Lacey and Casey took in at the blink of an eye . . . well, maybe ten blinks. They had hardly passed through the smoke rising from the locomotive's tall smokestack when they heard loud bangs and strange whizzing noises. Floopy started barking and wiggling around in his box as if trying to tell the twins something. Vin Fiz instantly knew what was happening because holes suddenly appeared in her wings.
    "Oh my gosh!" Lacey cried. "The bandits are shooting at us."
    No sooner said than Vin Fiz turned sharply and flew behind a grove of tall oak trees, becoming lost to the bandits' sight. The airplane's engine roared and then sputtered before roaring again as if she was expressing her anger.
    "We've got to do something!" Casey said urgently.
    "We must fly to the nearest town and tell the police chief," Lacey replied.
    "Little country towns have sheriffs, not police chiefs."
    "What difference does it make as long as they are the law?"
    There was no more talk. It was time for action. Casey saw a farmhouse by a lake and said, "There, Vin Fiz, land near the house."
    Before you could say "dingle, fingle, gingle," the airplane's wheels touched down and rolled to a stop at the front door of the farmhouse. In a flash, Lacey was pounding on the door. It was thrown open by a big, round woman wearing a green apron and holding a bowl with an egg beater.
    "My good gracious, children, what's all the commotion?" Then she saw the airplane with a basset hound wearing a leather helmet and goggles staring at her, his huge tongue folded down from between his teeth. "What in the world . . ." She stared at them, confused. "Where on earth did you come from?"
    Before Casey could stop her, Lacey said, "Castroville, California."
    "Land sakes, I know Castroville. That's where artichokes come from."
    Casey was dumbfounded. He couldn't believe they had finally found someone who knew Castroville.
    "Please," Lacey implored, "you must call the sheriff and tell him a train is being robbed no more than a mile from your farm."
    The big pear-shaped farm lady was not sure she believed Lacey. She looked down at her with a surprised expression and asked, "The train is being robbed?"
    Lacey nodded. "It has been stopped by bandits who are robbing the passengers. Call your local sheriff quickly. There might still be time to catch them before they get away."
    The woman, disbelief in her eyes, studied Lacey and saw that the little girl was close to tears. "All right. I'll call Sheriff Mugwump and tell him the train has been held up by robbers." Like an elephant leading a stampede, the enormous farm lady turned and hurried inside to the telephone.
    "Hurry," Casey yelled to Lacey. "We've got to return so we can follow the robbers and see where they go."
    What they saw when Vin Fiz flew around the train again, while keeping out of range of the bandits' guns, sent cold shivers up their necks. The bandits were piling their loot in the back of a green bus in preparation for their getaway. Casey counted five of them, all with masks and stocking caps pulled low to conceal the color of their hair. Two of them shot their pistols at Vin Fiz as she came in closer to the scene. That was scary enough, but what was even scarier was that the bandits had engaged the throttle of the train, which had begun moving down the track. This might have been a good thing if the engineer and fireman had been in the locomotive's cab. But they were still tied to the tree. With no one operating the valves and levers in the cab, the entire train quickly increased speed and became a runaway with more than a hundred men, women and children trapped helplessly inside the passenger cars.
    "We must do something to save all those poor people," Lacey said loudly over the rush of the wind.
    "No way we can stop the train," said Casey, looking out