s hands and stood a moment piteously crying, "Papae! Papae!" the
most bewildered little fellow in all that frightened town.

[Illustration: "THEY RAN."]

To crawl up the track, to meet the train, to board her, to shriek at
her, to get to his father, to cling to the cow-catcher, perhaps, till
the engineer stopped for sheer mercy,--this was the nearest approach to
a purpose that the child had, as he beat along the track, stumbling,
falling, up again, down again, shaken by the rolling earth, and blinded
by darkness more awful than he had ever seen or thought of.

[Illustration: "THE PAUPER DOG."]

A strange, thin dog, without a collar, whined at his feet as he pushed
on, and licked his hand and followed him like his own. Huge, dim forms
rushed alongside the embankment, making unearthly sounds. Dragons
could not have seemed more dreadful; but they were only cows. Huge
pine-trees bent to the earth with rapid, vibratory motion as if a
giant's hand clutched and shook them by the roots.

[Illustration: "THEY WERE ONLY COWS."]

All the time the awful rumbling of the earth went on; it sounded as if
the world were turning herself over, and thrashing to and fro in a fit
of anger; before every convulsion she uttered a roar which seemed as if
it came from a metal ball bowled along a giant alley beneath. It reached
its climax by trilling the letter _=R-r-r-r-r!=_ in a mighty voice. Then
came the shock.

Suddenly, as the child was making his way through the horror and
desolation of this scene, he felt himself clasped in the outstretched
arms of a figure hurrying from the opposite direction. The two came
together in the dark with a jolt, and recoiled.

"Goramercy!" said a quavering voice. It was the speech of the old Negro
track-walker, taking two days to get to his dying daughter because he
could not afford the railroad ticket that would have brought him to her
in two hours. Donny recognized the high, cracked, pathetic tones which
had addressed him at the station.

"De track's busted!" panted the Negro. "De rails is done gone twist wid
de shakes. Dey lays like er heap ob corn-shuck in de win' up yander. Dat
ar train don' know hit, an' she'll go to Day ob Jedgment, an' ebery soul
aboard ob her! I'se run like de nation fer to warn de town!"

[Illustration: "RUN FOR 'T! RUN!"]

"Oh, there isn't any town to warn!" cried Donny. "It's all run off!
There isn't anything left but the earthquake and me--and this pup--and
nobody to d