ready to shake hands on such a basis, but of course
would have complied. In the slight confusion her hand relaxed its
grasp on the curb-rein, and at the same moment a locomotive, coming
along the side of the opposite mountain, blew a shrill whistle.
Instantly her horse had the bit in his teeth, and was off at a furious
pace.

At first she did not care, but soon found, with anxiety, that he
paid no attention to her efforts to check him, and that his pace was
passing into a mad run. The gorge was growing narrower, and the lofty
mountains stood, with their rocky feet, nearer and nearer together.
She could see through the intervening trees that the road and
rail-track were becoming closely parallel, and at last realized that
her horse was unmanageable.

When the engineer of the train saw Madge's desperate riding he
surmised that her horse was not under control, and put on extra steam
in order to take the exciting cause of the animal's terror out of the
way. He thought he could easily reach the summit of the clove where
the carriage-drive crossed the track before Madge, and then pass
swiftly over the down-grade beyond; but he had not calculated on the
terrific speed of the horse; and when at last the track and roadway
were almost side by side the frantic beast, with his pale rider, was
abreast of the train. For a moment the engineer was irresolute, and
then, too late, as he feared, "slowed up."

The narrow road, with a precipitous mountain on the left, was so near
to the flying train that the passengers in an open car could almost
touch Madge, and she was to them like a strange and beautiful
apparition, with her white face and large dark eyes filled with an
unspeakable dread.

"Oh, stop the train!" she cried, and her voice, with the whole power
of her lungs, rang out far above the clatter of the wheels, wakening
despairing echoes from the mountains impending on either side.

The speed of the cars was perceptibly checked; the passengers saw
the foam-flecked brute, with head stubbornly bent downward and eye of
fire, pass beyond them. An instant later, to their horrified gaze and
that of Graydon's, who was following as fast as a less swift horse
could carry him, Madge and the locomotive appeared to come together.
The young man gave a hoarse, inarticulate cry between a curse and a
shout, and whipped his horse forward furiously.

The speed of the train was renewed, and he saw through the open car
that Madge must have pas