sswise on the track, the sight he saw was so appalling he
forgot his own wounds.

On the side opposite to where he had fallen, Burke and Shea lay side by
side, just as they had walked and worked and fought for years, and just
as they would have voted on the morrow had they been spared.
Immediately in front of the car, his feet over one rail and his neck
across the other, lay the mortal remains of Kelly the boss, the stub of
his black pipe still sticking between his teeth. As Lucien stooped to
lift the helpless head his own blood, spurting from the wound in his
neck, flooded the face and covered the clothes of the limp foreman.
Finding no signs of life in the section boss, the wounded, and by this
time thoroughly frightened, French-Canadian turned his attention to the
other two victims. Swiftly now the realization of the awful tragedy came
over the wounded man. His first thought was of the express now nearly
due. With a great effort he succeeded in placing the car on the rails,
and then began the work of loading the dead. Out of respect for the
office so lately filled by Kelly, he was lifted first and placed on the
front of the car, his head pillowed on Lucien's coat. Next he put Burke
aboard, bleeding profusely the while; and then began the greater task of
loading Shea. Shea was a heavy man, and by the time Lucien had him
aboard he was ready to faint from exhaustion and the loss of blood.

Now he must pump up over the little hill; for if the express should come
round the curve and fall down the grade, the hand-car would be in
greater danger than ever.

After much hard work he gained the top of the hill, the hot blood
spurting from his neck at each fall of the handle-bar, and went hurrying
down the long easy grade to Charlevoix.

To show how the trifles of life will intrude at the end, it is
interesting to hear Lucien declare that one of the first thoughts that
came to him on seeing the three prostrate figures was, that up to that
moment the wreck had worked a Republican gain of one vote, with his own
in doubt.

But now he had more serious work for his brain, already reeling from
exhaustion. At the end of fifteen minutes he found himself hanging onto
the handle, more to keep from falling than for any help he was giving
the car. The evening breeze blowing down the slope helped him, so that
the car was really losing nothing in speed. He dared not relax his hold;
for if his strength should give out and the car stop, th