and Ben knew it. The stock-train was running away.

There were plenty of things to do if there was only time; but there was
hardly time to think. The passenger crew were running about like men
distracted, trying to get the sleeping travellers out. Ben knew they
could not possibly reach a tenth of them. In the thought of what it
meant, an inspiration came like a flash.

He seized his brakeman by the shoulder. For two weeks the man carried
the marks of his hand.

"Daley!" he cried, in a voice like a pistol crack, "get those two
stockmen out of our caboose. Quick, man! I'm going to throw Cameron
into the cattle."

It was a chance--single, desperate, but yet a chance--the only chance
that offered to save the helpless passengers in his charge.

If he could reach the siding switch ahead of the runaway train, he could
throw the deadly catapult on the siding and into his own train, and so
save the unconscious travellers. Before the words were out of his mouth
he started up the track at topmost speed.

The angry wind staggered him. It blew out his lantern, but he flung it
away, for he could throw the switch in the dark. A sharp gust tore half
his rain-coat from his back; ripping off the rest, he ran on. When the
wind took his breath he turned his back and fought for another. Blinding
sheets of rain poured on him; water streaming down the track caught his
feet; a slivered tie tripped him, and, falling headlong, the sharp
ballast cut his wrists and knees like broken glass. In desperate haste
he dashed ahead again; the headlight loomed before him like a mountain
of flame. There was light enough now through the sheets of rain that
swept down on him, and there ahead, the train almost on it, was the
switch.

Could he make it?

A cry from the sleeping children rose in his heart. Another breath, an
instant floundering, a slipping leap, and he had it. He pushed the key
into the lock, threw the switch and snapped it, and, to make deadly
sure, braced himself against the target-rod. Then he looked.

No whistling now; it was past that. He knew the fireman would have
jumped. Cameron too? No, not Andy, not if the pit yawned in front of his
pilot.

He saw streams of fire flying from many wheels--he felt the glare of a
dazzling light--and with a rattling crash the ponies shot into the
switch. The bar in his hands rattled as if it would jump from the
socket, and, lurching frightfully, the monster took the siding. A flare
of lightnin