awling off the track, with me after
her. You see, I had to jump hard or I'd have stayed on the track myself
and gone under the engine."

"Did it end in a romance?" I asked.

"Romance nothing!" exclaimed Big Arthur. "That woman got up so mad--why,
she called me names and clawed the skin off my face until--well, I
couldn't get shaved for three weeks afterward. In about a minute,
though, she cooled off, and somebody told her I'd saved her life--which
I had--and then, sir, blamed if she didn't go down on her knees and try
to kiss my feet, and pray I'd forgive her. Say, that's the only time I
ever got prayed to."

Here Big Arthur's fireman whispered something to him, and the engineer
nodded. "That's so, that's a good story," and then he told how an old
lady of seventy-five saved a New York Central express some years ago at
Underhill Cut, about a mile south of Garrisons.

"She's a relative of my fireman, so I know the thing's true; besides
that, the company gave her three hundred dollars. You see, it all
happened one winter night, and this Mrs. Groves--that's her name--was
the only person near enough to do anything. She lived in a little house
beside Underhill Cut, and about four o'clock in the morning she heard a
frightful crash, and there was a freight train wrecked right in the cut,
and cars piled up three or four deep over the tracks! She knew the
express might come along any minute, and of course it was a case of
everybody killed if they ever struck that smash-up. So what does she do,
this little old lady, but grab up a red petticoat and a kerosene lamp,
and run out as fast as she could in her bare feet,--yes, sir, and
nothing on but her night-gown,--right through the snow. That's the kind
of a woman _she_ was.

"Well, she went down the track until she heard the express coming, and
then she took her red petticoat and held it up in front of the lamp so
as to make a red light. And, what's more, it worked! The engineer saw
the danger signal, slammed on his brakes, and stopped the train a few
car-lengths from the wreck. Yes, sir, only a few car-lengths!"

Big Arthur nodded thoughtfully, and climbed into the cab. It was time to
go.

* * * * *

In ending this chapter now, and with it the present series, I venture
the opinion that the men who follow these Careers of Danger and
Daring--the divers, steeple-climbers, and the rest--are very little
different from their fellow-men, except as t