nst, and his heart
went into his mouth and his mouth went dry. Far down below him in a
sheer drop to the base of the canyon wall wound the Glacier like a
silver thread; in front, a gray, sullen mass of rock loomed up dead
ahead, the right of way swerving sharply to the right as it skirted it
in a breath-taking curve; and with every second the 1016 and her
trailing string of coaches was plunging faster and faster down the
grade. The wind was already singing in his ears. There was a sudden
lurch, a shock, as she struck the curve. Beezer flung his arms around
the handrail and hung on grimly. She righted, found her wheel base
again, and darted like an arrow along the opening tangent.

Beezer's face was whiter now than death itself. There were curves
without number ahead, curves to which that first was but child's play,
that even at their present speed would hurl them from the track and
send them crashing in splinters through the hideous depths into the
valley below. It was stop her, or death; death, sure, certain,
absolute and quick, for himself and every man, woman and child, from
colonist coach to the solid-mahogany, brass-railed Pullmans and
observation cars that rocked behind him.

There was no getting into the cab through the gangway; his one glance
had told him that. There was only one other way, little better than a
chance, and he had taken it. Blue-lipped with fear--that glance into
the nothingness almost below his feet had shaken his nerve and turned
him sick and dizzy--Beezer, like a man clinging to a crag, edged along
the running board, gained the rear end, and, holding on tightly with
both hands, lifted his foot, and with a kick shattered the front
cab-glass; another kick and the window frame gave way, and, backing in
feet first, Beezer began to lower himself into the cab.

Meanwhile, white-faced men stood at Spence's elbow in the despatchers'
office at Big Cloud. Some section hands had followed Number One out of
the Bend in a handcar, and had found MacAllister and his fireman about
two hundred yards apart on opposite sides of the right of way. Both
were unconscious. The section hands had picked them up, pumped madly
back to the Bend, and made their report.

Carleton, leaning over Spence, never moved, only the muscles of his jaw
twitched; Regan, as he always did in times of stress, swore to himself
in a grumbling undertone. There was no other sound in the room save
the incessant click of the sen