Secret Signs Read Online Free PDF

We’ve got to make a run for it! The dog thinks I’m a lunch wagon, and he’ll bring his two buddies with him.”
    Clickety Clack was out of the water and down the ladder in a twinkling. “Come on, boy. We’ve got a train to catch!”
    Squelching with every step, Clickety Clack headed toward an engine that was making its way out of the big train yard, a long parade of boxcars in tow. “Do exactly what I do and keep your feet away from the rails!” he yelled as he ran alongside the slowly moving train.
    Henry’s heart pounded as the powerful steam engine shook the ground.
    An open boxcar drew up alongside Clickety Clack. He tossed his bedroll in through the opening, then grabbed hold of the door edge and leapt aboard. “Jump!”
    Henry looked behind him. The two policemen and the huge guard dog were closing in. The dog bared its teeth and snapped its powerful jaws as it tore after them.
    Reaching up as he ran, Henry’s fingers were only inches from Clickety Clack’s outstretched arm as the train pulled away. In a last desperate effort, Henry lunged forward and clasped the hobo’s hand, and with a mighty heave, Clickety Clack yanked him through the open door.
    They were safe!
    Henry lay sprawled on the dusty wooden floor, gasping.
    Clickety Clack pulled himself to his feet and spat out the open door as he waved goodbye to the posse that had been chasing them. “So long, suckers!”
    Henry sighed with relief. He felt the train vibrating beneath him in a steady rhythm as it carried them west.
    This was not how he’d imagined today would go, but soon he would be with his father in Alberta, and vicious dogs, angry policemen and leaping aboard moving boxcars would all be behind him.

C HAPTER 7

    Lulled by the constant swaying of the train as it carried them west into Saskatchewan, Henry imagined he was on a riverboat. The steel rails were his river, and the boxcar his paddle wheeler. He was steaming down the Mississippi, just like his hero, Tom Sawyer. Life was grand!
    Henry thought about writing Anne her very first letter, then decided she could wait and pulled his novel out instead. He sat at the edge of the door, rereading a favorite chapter of Tom’s adventures, but his attention was drawn to the miles of parched fields he was traveling through.
    He remembered his teacher talking about John Palliser’s Triangle, which stretched across much of southern Alberta, Saskatchewan and into parts of Manitoba. The Triangle had dry sandy soil, no trees, and grassland that spread out to the horizon. In his mind’s eye he could see a vast ocean of gently waving prairie grass, but now, in the searing heat of a drought, all that was left was burnt scrub and swirling dust devils.
    Clickety Clack snored loudly as he slept on the boxcar floor. Henry looked around his temporary transport. The dusty wooden freight car was old and smelled of oil. It was not a place he wanted to spend much time in, that was certain.
    He went back to watching the world pass by, mesmerized by the landscape.
    Groaning loudly, Clickety Clack roused himself from his afternoon nap. “Well now, I’d say we need a little snack. I’m feeling a might peckish. Where’s my old turkey?” He groped around for his bedroll, which had served as a pillow while he slept. “Let’shave a look.” Out of the rolled-up blanket came an assortment of food including a couple of squashed buns, a piece of beef jerky and two hard-boiled eggs.
    Henry’s stomach rumbled.
    Clickety Clack laid out the feast on an old handkerchief that had materialized from one of his pockets. It was then that Henry realized why the hobo had so many pockets. He was wearing two coats, one over top of the other!
    The tramp looked at him. “Where’s your grub, boy? We’ll eat now and go to the bread line in Regina when we get there tonight.”
    Henry sighed. “I had to feed it to the