f
wheels he could hear the splash, and once in a while he could feel the
spray, of new-made cataracts as the water rushed down the mountain side,
choking the culverts.

At Crag View there was, at that time, a high wooden trestle stilted up
on spliced spruce piles with the bark on.

It used to creak and crack under the engine when it was new. McNally was
nearing it now. It lay, however, just below a deep rock cut that had
been made in a mountain crag and beyond a sharp curve.

McNally leaned from his cab window, and when the lightning flashed, saw
that the cut was clear of rock and released the brakes slightly to allow
the long train to slip through the reverse curve at the bridge. Curves
cramp a train, and a smooth runner likes to feel them glide smoothly.

As the black locomotive poked her nose through the cut, the engineer
leaned out again; but the after-effect of the flash of lightning left
the world in inky blackness.

Back in a darkened corner of the drawing-room of the rearmost sleeper
the sleuth snored with both eyes and ears open.

Suddenly he saw a man, fully dressed, leap from a lower berth in the
last section and make a grab for the bell-rope. The man missed the rope;
and before he could leap again the detective landed on the back of his
neck, bearing him down. At that moment the conductor came through; and
when he saw the detective pull a pair of bracelets from his hip-pocket,
he guessed that the man underneath must be wanted, and joined in the
scuffle. In a moment the man was handcuffed, for he really offered no
resistance. As they released him he rose, and they squashed him into a
seat opposite the section from which he had leaped a moment before. The
man looked not at his captors, who still held him, but pressed his face
against the window. He saw the posts of the snow-shed passing, sprang
up, flung the two men from him as a Newfoundland would free himself from
a couple of kittens, lifted his manacled hands, leaped toward the
ceiling, and bore down on the signal-rope.

The conductor, in the excitement, yelled at the man, bringing the rear
brakeman from the smoking-room, followed by the black boy bearing a
shoe-brush.

Once more they bore the bad man down, and then the conductor grabbed the
rope and signalled the engineer ahead.

Men leaped from their berths, and women showed white faces between the
closely drawn curtains.

Once more the conductor pulled the bell, but the train stood still.