as
reflected by the dampness all around. Suddenly as he glanced up he saw a
man on the top of a freight car across the yards swing his lantern about
his head and make a jump clear to the ground into a pile of cinders.

"That was a foolish thing to do," said Mr. Mingle to himself. "He might
have broken his legs; then he'd have sued the company."

The man was not injured, however, for he skipped across the tracks and
approached the tower-house on a run. He stopped and shouted to the
fireman of the engine that was raising such a row beneath the window.
The glow from the rosy coals made everything quite plain.

Never in his life had Mr. Mingle seen a face wear such a look as that.

The fireman closed the furnace door with a slam, and the engineer, who
had been out on the foot-board, hurried back at a gesture. Two words,
and he dropped the bundle of waste in his hand and pulled wide the
throttle. At the same time the engine shrieked for open switches. What
could it mean? As the despatcher turned to the door of the staircase, he
ran into the man whose face he had seen in the glare from the fire-box.
It was the assistant yard-master.

"Lord, Mr. Mingle!" he exclaimed, "is No. 44 on time? Hurry and find
out! Has she passed the junction yet?"

The despatcher in one stride stepped to the instrument on the desk. With
his fingers on the key-board, he paused. "Tell me, quickly," he said,
"what has happened. Talk, man!"

"The ore train!" exclaimed the yard-master, sinking back into the worn
arm-chair and dropping his hands helplessly to either side of him. "Some
one left the switch open, and the brakes slipped or something. She
pulled out by herself down the grade on the main track. I saw her going
from the top of the freight. How she started, Lord knows. She slipped
out like a ghost, sir."

Mr. Mingle had caught only the first few words. His nervous hand was
jumping as he sounded the call for the operator at Selina Junction,
twenty-five miles down the road. At last he stopped, and suddenly
switched off for the return.

"Tick! Tick! Tick-a-tick!" the answer came; the yard-master watched the
despatcher's face as a condemned man might look at the face of a
judge--and Mr. Mingle had grown paler.

"Forty-four has just passed the junction," he said, in a high strained
voice. Then his teeth chattered as if he had felt a blast of icy wind.
There was nothing to do.

Fifteen of that twenty-five miles was all down grade on a singl