ked_--padlocked.

Came a rumble now--a distant roar, growing louder and louder,
reverberating down the canyon walls--louder and louder--nearer and
nearer. "Hold second Number Two. Hold second Number Two"--the
"seventeen," the life and death, pleading with him to hold Number Two.
And she was coming now, coming--and--and--the switch was locked. The
deadly nausea racked Toddles again; there was nothing to do
now--nothing. He couldn't stop her--couldn't stop her. He'd--he'd
tried--very hard--and--and he couldn't stop her now. He took his hands
from his face, and stole a glance up the track, afraid almost, with the
horror that was upon him, to look. She hadn't swung the curve yet, but
she would in a minute--and come pounding down the stretch at fifty
miles an hour, shoot by him like a rocket to where, somewhere ahead, in
some form, he did not know what, only knew that it was there, death and
ruin and----

"_Use your head!_" snapped Donkin's voice to his consciousness.

Toddles' eyes were on the light above his head. It blinked _red_ at
him as he stood on the track facing it; the green rays were shooting up
and down the line. He couldn't swing the switch--but the _lamp_ was
there--and there was the red side to show just by turning it. He
remembered then that the lamp fitted into a socket at the top of the
switch stand, and could be lifted off--if he could reach it!

It wasn't very high--for an ordinary-sized man--for an ordinary-sized
man had to get at it to trim and fill it daily--only Toddles wasn't an
ordinary-sized man. It was just nine or ten feet above the rails--just
a standard siding switch.

Toddles gritted his teeth, and climbed upon the base of the switch--and
nearly fainted as his ankle swung against the rod. A foot above the
base was a footrest for a man to stand on and reach up for the lamp,
and Toddles drew himself up and got his foot on it--and then at his
full height the tips of his fingers only just touched the bottom of the
lamp. Toddles cried aloud, and the tears streamed down his face now.
Oh, if he weren't hurt--if he could only shin up another foot--but--but
it was all he could do to hang there where he was.

_What was that_! He turned his head. Up the track, sweeping in a
great circle as it swung the curve, a headlight's glare cut through the
night--and Toddles "shinned" the foot. He tugged and tore at the lamp,
tugged and tore at it, loosened it, lifted it from its socket, sprawl