, beat it down, and presently
extinguished it.

Then the work of extricating the imprisoned ones began, light for it
being obtained by the backing of Williams's engine to the main line
above the switch so that the headlight played upon the scene.

Lidgerwood was fairly in the thick of the rescue work when Miss
Brewster, walking down the track from the service-car and bringing the
two young women who were afraid to be left behind, launched herself and
her companions into the midst of the nerve-racking horror.

"Give us something to do," she commanded, when he would have sent them
back; and he changed his mind and set them at work binding up wounds and
caring for the injured quite as if they had been trained nurses sent
from heaven at the opportune moment.

In a very little time the length and breadth of the disaster were fully
known, and its consequences alleviated, so far as they might be with the
means at hand. There were three killed outright in the smoker, two in
the half-filled day-coach, and none in the sleeper; six in all,
including the fireman pinned beneath the wreck of the tender. Cranford,
the engineer, was dug out of his coal-covered grave by Van Lew and
Jefferis, badly burned and bruised, but still living; and there were a
score of other woundings, more or less dreadful.

Red Butte was the nearest point from which a relief-train could be sent,
and Lidgerwood promptly cut the telegraph wire, connected his pocket set
of instruments, and sent in the call for help. That done he transferred
the pocket relay to the other end of the cut wire, and called up the
night despatcher at Angels. Fortunately, McCloskey and Dawson were just
in with the two wrecking-trains from the Crosswater Hills, and the
superintendent ordered Dawson to come out immediately with his train
and a fresh crew, if it could be obtained.

Dawson took the wire and replied in person. His crew was good for
another tussle, he said, and his train was still in readiness. He would
start west at once, or the moment the despatcher could clear for him,
and would be at Silver Switch as soon as the intervening miles would
permit.

Eleanor Brewster and her guests were grouped beside Lidgerwood when he
disconnected the pocket set from the cut wire, and temporarily repaired
the break. The service-car had been turned into a make-shift hospital
for the wounded, and the car-party was homeless.

"We are all waiting to say how sorry we are that we insisted