ger who
was inquiring about him in Euston. After a few days of life in the cab of
locomotive number 10, he became so accustomed to dashing through tunnels
amid a blackness so intense that he could not see a foot beyond the cab
windows, to whirling around sharp curves, to rattling over slender
trestles a hundred feet or more up in the air, and to rushing with
undiminished speed through the darkness of storm-swept nights, when the
head-lights seemed of little more value than a tallow candle, that he
ceased to think of the innumerable dangers connected with his position as
completely as though they had not existed.

There came a day, however, when they were recalled to his mind in a
startling manner. It was late in the fall, and for a week there had been
a steady down-pour of rain that filled the streams to overflowing, and
soaked the earth until it seemed like a vast sponge. It made busy work for
the section gangs, who had their hands more than full with landslides,
undermined culverts, and overflowing ditches, and it caused enginemen
to strain their eyes along the lines of wet track, with an unusual
carefulness. At length the week of rain ended with a storm of terrific
violence, accompanied by crashing thunder and vivid lightnings. While this
storm was at its height, locomotive number 10, drawing a heavy freight,
pulled in on the siding of a station to wait for the passing of a
passenger special, and a regular express.

Truman Stump sat on his side of the cab, calmly smoking a short, black
pipe; and his fireman stood at the other side, looking out at the storm as
the special, consisting of a locomotive and two cars, rushed by without
stopping. As it was passing, a ball of fire, accompanied by a rending
crash of thunder, illumined the whole scene with an awful, blinding glare.
For an instant Rod saw a white face pressed against one of the rear
windows of the flying train. He was almost certain that it was the face of
Eltje Vanderveer.

A moment later the telegraph operator of that station came running toward
them, bareheaded, and coatless, through the pitiless rain. The head-light
showed his face to be bloodless and horror-stricken.

"Cut loose from the train, Rod!" he cried in a voice husky and choked
with a terrible dread. "True, word was just coming over the wire that the
centre pier of Minkskill bridge had gone out from under the track, and for
me to stop all trains, when that last bolt struck the line, and cut me