ped into
the soft mud on my side: the 44 hung low, and it was easy lighting.

Bartholomew sprang from his seat a second later; but his blouse caught
in the teeth of the quadrant. He stooped quick as thought, and peeled
the thing over his head. Then he was caught fast by the wristbands, and
the ponies of the 44 tipped over the broken abutment. Pull as he would
he couldn't get free. The pilot dipped into the torrent slowly. But
losing her balance, the 44 kicked her heels into the air like
lightning, and shot with a frightened wheeze plump into the creek,
dragging her engineer with her.

The head car stopped on the brink. Running across the track, I looked
for Bartholomew. He wasn't there; I knew he must have gone down with his
engine. Throwing off my gloves, I dived, just as I stood, close to the
tender, which hung half submerged. I am a good bit of a fish under
water, but no self-respecting fish would be caught in that yellow mud. I
realized, too, the instant I struck the water, that I should have dived
on the upstream side. The current took me away whirling; when I came up
for air, I was fifty feet below the pier. I scrambled out, feeling it
was all up with Bartholomew; but to my amazement, as I shook my eyes
open the train crew were running forward, and there stood Bartholomew on
the track above me, looking at the refrigerator. When I got to him, he
explained how he was dragged under and had to tear the sleeve out of his
blouse under water to get free.

The surprise is how little fuss men make about such things when they are
busy. It took only five minutes for the conductor to hunt up a coil of
wire and a sounder for me, and by the time he got forward with it,
Bartholomew was half-way up a telegraph pole to help me cut in on a live
wire. Fast as I could, I rigged a pony, and began calling the McCloud
despatcher. It was rocky sending, but after no end of pounding, I got
him and gave orders for the wrecking gang, and for one more of
Neighbor's rapidly decreasing supply of locomotives.

Bartholomew, sitting on a strip of fence which still rose above water,
looked forlorn. To lose in the Beaver the first engine he ever handled
was tough, and he was evidently speculating on his chances of ever
getting another. If there weren't tears in his eyes, there was
storm-water certainly. But after the relief engine had pulled what was
left of us back six miles to a siding, I made it my first business to
explain to Neighbor, who w