hile I'm getting
to the engine and climbing in on the other side, and, by glory, if I
back her out quick enough them thieving hellions in the express car can
either jump for it or ride back to the arms of authority at the next
station--but the safe 'll be there, and 'twill be Sammy Durgan that
kept it there!"

But Sammy Durgan still lay on the ground and stared--while the safe was
being pushed to the express car door, and one edge of it already
protruded out from the car.

"Go on, Sammy Durgan!" urged Sammy Durgan anxiously to himself. "Don't
you be skeered, Sammy, you got a revolver. 'Tis yourself, and not
Maria, that'll do the locking of the doors hereafter, and 'tis Regan
you can pass with fine contempt. Think of that, Sammy Durgan! And all
for a bit of a run that'll not take the time of a batting of an
eyelash, and with no one to notice you doing it. 'Tis a clever plan
you've devised, Sammy Durgan--it is that. Go on, Sammy; go on!"

Sammy Durgan wriggled a little on the ground, cocked his revolver--and
wriggled a little more.

"I will!" said Sammy Durgan with a sudden pinnacling of
determination--and he sprang to his feet.

Some loosened shale rattled down behind him. Sammy Durgan dashed
through the mouth of the cut--and then for a moment all was a sort of
chaos to Sammy Durgan. From the narrow edge of the embankment, just
clear of the cut, a man stepped suddenly out. Sammy Durgan collided
with him, his cocked revolver went off, and, jerked from his grasp by
the shock, sailed riverwards through the air, while, echoing its report
from the express car door, a man screamed wildly and grabbed at a
bullet-shattered wrist; and the man with whom Sammy Durgan had
collided, having but precarious footing at best, reeled back from the
impact, smashed into another man behind him, and with a crash both
rolled down the almost perpendicular embankment. Followed a splash and
a spout of water as they struck the river--and from every side a
tornado of yells and curses.

"'Tis my finish!" moaned Sammy Durgan--but his feet were flying.
"I--I've done it now! If I ran back up the cut they'd chase me and
finish me--'tis my finish, anyway, but the engine 'll be the only
chance I got."

Sammy Durgan streaked across the track, hurdled, tumbled, fell, and
sprawled over the pile of ties, recovered himself, regained his feet,
and made a frantic spring through the gangway and into the cab.

With a sweep Sammy Durgan shot th