el,' entreated Dolly; 'he is going to save my
dog.'

Mark had gone already, and was half-way up the slope, slippery as it
was, with the grass clumped and matted together by the frost, and
scored in long brown tracks by the feet that had just descended it.

Mabel was left to console and encourage the weeping Dolly as best she
might, with a terrible suspense weighing on her own heart the while,
not altogether on Frisk's account. At the point where the train had
broken down, the line took a bold curve, and now they could hear,
apparently close upon them, the roar of a fast train sweeping round
through the fog; there were some faint explosions, hoarse shouting, a
long screeching whistle,--and after that the dull shock of a
collision; but nothing could be seen from where they stood, and for
some moments Mabel remained motionless, almost paralysed by the fear
of what might be hidden behind the fog curtain.

Mark clambered painfully up the glistening embankment, hoping to reach
the motionless carriages and escape with his object effected before
the train he could hear in the distance ground into them with a
hideous crash.

He knew his danger, but, to do him justice, he scarcely gave it a
thought--any possible suffering seemed as remote and inconsiderable
just then as the chance of a broken leg or collar-bone had been to him
when running for a touchdown in his football days; the one idea that
filled his brain was to return to Mabel triumphant with the rescued
dog in his arms, and he had room for no others.

He went as directly as he could to the part of the train in which was
the carriage he had occupied, and found it without much difficulty
when he was near enough to make out forms through the fog; the door of
Mabel's compartment was open, and, as he sprang up the footboard, he
heard the train behind rattling down on him with its whistle
screeching infernally, and for the first time felt an uneasy
recollection of the horribly fantastic injuries described in accounts
of so many railway collisions.

But there was no time to think of this; at the other end of the
carriage was the little round wicker-basket he had seen in Dolly's
hands at the Chigbourne waiting-room, and in it was the terrier,
sleeping soundly as she had anticipated. He caught up the little
drowsy beast, which growled ungratefully, and turned to leap down with
it to the ballast, when there was a sharp concussion, which sent a
jangling forward shock, increa