like a white warning gallows. There, a few rods down the
track, was the switch that turned through the sharp cut to the quarries.

Rollins gave a cry. "The key!" The switch was locked. Would he have to
stand there and see the ore-cars rush by him? He twisted with both
hands at the guard chain to the lock. It wouldn't move. But what was
that standing close on the siding?

A hand-car is a good lift for two men at any time, but it seemed as if
made of pine wood instead of heavy iron wheels and bars. He rolled it to
the track, and up-ended it as easily as a laborer would throw over a
wheel-barrow.

Then he heard a roaring sound above him along the grade. The sharp
staccato tooting of the drilling engine he heard also. Then far below
him, four miles away, the long confident whistle of No. 44 at a grade
crossing. The rails were slippery, and he knew that the train was coming
slowly up the grade. As the hand-car toppled across the track he threw
upon the heap two heavy ties, and scrambled up the opposite bank. Now
the roaring was upon him! Crash! A snap and a whirl, and the wheels of
the foremost ore-car caught the obstruction. The load piled forward, and
the flats behind reared up and threw their heavy freight in all
directions. He had wrecked her just in time.

He hurried back to the crossing. A tangle of wire and frame-work, the
bicycle lay at the road-side. He must have missed striking that huge
rock by nothing short of a miracle. The lamp, twisted and broken, was
attached to the front fork. He could smell the oil, and he sopped it
with his handkerchief. His hands were sticky, and the match refused to
light. At last he struck a handful of them; they flashed feebly, then
sputtered and went out. In the brief space Rollins had seen that his
hands were dripping red.

A great white eye and the tinkling of the rails told that the little
switch engine would strike the obstruction first.

It was alongside now! The young man saw that the wheels were reversing
furiously. Then he heard a second crash and a screeching, long
continued, that went through and through his dizzy brain.

"Safe! safe!" he said, and fell limp in the sand.

* * * * *

"Are you hurted, Bill, lad?" said the engineer of the switch engine,
rubbing his bruised sides and letting up for a minute his pull on the
whistle rope. "Them ore-cars jumped the track."

"No; all O K," came the answer from the opposite side of the cab