you get
half-way to the train. Stick to your key as long as you can. If they
start to cross the creek, leg it for the ranch. Do you get me?"

Bucks, considerably flurried, answered that he did, and the despatcher
with renewed emphasis reiterated his sharp inquiry. "Do you
understand, young fellow? If they start to cross the creek, leg it for
the ranch or you'll lose your hair."

Bucks strained his eyes looking for a sign of movement across the
bridge. The cotton-woods swayed gently in the light breeze, but
revealed nothing of what they hid.

The freight train continued to crawl lazily along, its crews quite
unconscious of any impending fate. Bucks, smothering with excitement
and apprehension, saw the engine round the curve that led to the
trestle approach of the bridge. Then the trees hid the train from his
sight.

"What are they doing?" demanded the despatcher, growing apprehensive
himself. An appalling crash from the woods electrified Bucks, and the
key rattled fast.

"They have wrecked the train," he wired without an instant's
hesitation. "I can hear the crash of cars falling from the trestle."

Before he could finish his message he heard also the screech of an
engine whistle. The next instant the locomotive dashed out of the
woods upon the bridge at full speed and with cries of disappointment
and rage the savages rode out to the very bank of the creek and into
the water after it. Bucks saw the sudden engine and thought at first
that the train had escaped. The next moment he knew it had not. The
engine was light: evidently it had passed in safety the trap laid for
its destruction, but the cars following had left the rails.

If confirmation of this conclusion had been needed, it came when he
ran out upon the platform as the engine approached. Bucks waved
vigorous signals at it, but the ponderous machine came faster instead
of slower as it neared the station, and, with Bucks vainly trying to
attract the attention of the engineman or fireman, the locomotive
thundered past at forty miles an hour.

He caught one glimpse through the tender gangway as the engine dashed
by and saw both men in the cab crouching in front of the furnace door
to escape the fancied bullets of the savages. Bucks shouted, but knew
he had been neither seen nor heard, and, as the engine raced into the
west, his best chance of escape from an unpleasant situation had
disappeared almost before he realized it.

Each detail was faithfully repo