nd the bar," cried Adrian as he saw that Billie was
raising the implement to throw it onto the platform. "Jump
aboard!"

Billie started to obey, but the advice came too late. As he
dropped the bar it struck one end of a tie, flopped over and hit
him on the shin.

"Wow!" he yelled, grabbing his ankle with both hands.

"Never mind your leg," shouted Adrian. "Jump on or you'll be
left."

Billie tried to obey, but the car was now under headway and
although he sprinted his best, he was soon left behind.

Adrian started to jump off the car, but seeing his intention
Billie called to him not to do it.

"I'll get there some time," he called. "Just tell them I'm
coming," and he stood in the middle of the track looking ruefully
after the rapidly disappearing car.

After some moments he picked up the claw-bar and threw it
spitefully into the ditch beside the track, as much as to say,
"Lay there! You're the cause of all the trouble." Then he started
slowly after the car.

In the meantime Adrian was flying as fast back toward Pachuca as
he had been flying away from it only a few minutes before. It
could not have been more than ten minutes altogether since the
wreck of the engine and Adrian figured that if the grade were
steep enough the car might gain momentum enough to carry it back
to the scene of the trouble; but he had little hope that it
would.

When he shot through Pitahaya on his return trip, however, he saw
that the car was going at a terrific rate of speed.

"What do you think?" he asked one of the Mexicans. "Do you think
we'll get all the way back?"

"Cierto," was the reply. "When they first built this road they
used to have mules haul the car to the top of this hill and then
turn it loose and it would run almost to Pachuca. That was before
it had any engines."

Adrian looked at the man and winked one eye very slowly.

"Senor, it is true," spoke up another. "I was a guard at the
time."

Adrian could scarcely believe the statement, but he afterward
learned that the men spoke the truth.

"Well, then," he said, "we had better look to our arms, for we
may need them. There is no knowing how this affair has turned
out."

The advice was well taken, for as they drew near the scene of the
wreck, they saw that they were badly needed. More than a dozen
horsemen were in sight at some distance from the wreck and with
their long-range rifles were doing their best to pick off any one
who showed his head.

"Our