, viz: that it was the Hastings' carriage, that the coachman was
beyond a doubt too much intoxicated to know what he was about, and that
the Buffalo Express was due at the distant depot in just two minutes,
and must pass over the very track on which that carriage was trundling
along. The perspiration came and stood in beads on the young man's pale
face; but there was time for no other show of emotion--he must think and
work rapidly if at all. "Could he possibly get those horses across to
the other track in time?" No, for there was a perfect network of tracks
just here, no place for a carriage at all, and a puffing engine directly
ahead, liable to start at any instant, and ready to frighten the horses,
who would probably rear, plunge, back, do _anything_ but what he wished
of them. There was a wretched gully on this side and a fence, but the
fence was low, and the gully wide enough to receive the carriage if it
could be forced down the embankment. During this planning Mallery was
running with all speed toward the carriage, and then the depot bell
began to ring, and the roar and puff of the coming train could be
distinctly heard. The horses began to plunge, and make ready to break
into a fierce run right into the jaws of the coming monster, when a firm
hand grasped their bridles. Jonas had just sense enough left to try to
resist this proceeding, and Mallery saw, with a throb of thankfulness,
the whip drop from his unsteady hand, thus preventing the horses from
being lashed into greater fury; then he applied all the strength of his
arms and his knowledge of horses to the dangerous experiment of backing
them down into the gully. They snorted and plunged, and were bent on
going forward, and were steadily, and as it seemed with super-human
strength, forced backward; and as the carriage crashed down the hill the
very rearing of the horses drew Theodore's feet from the outer rail, and
the train came thundering by. And now the affrighted horses seemed more
than ever bent on rushing forward to destruction, while the long train
shot onward. Mallery, while he battled with them, became conscious that
from the raised window of the carriage a young face, deathly in pallor,
was bent forward watching the conflict, and he renewed the determination
to save that life thus resting, so far as human help was concerned, in
his hands. Jonas had dropped the reins, and sat aghast, and sobered with
terror. Now the long train had vanished, the puffing