f water coming rapidly toward her--it was the front of
the flood. The ditch on the opposite side of the track, which she must
also cross to reach the line of poles, she found already full-flooded.
She decided to run up the track, between the walls of water. This would
put a ten-foot stream between her and her pursuers, and change her
course enough, she hoped, to throw them off the scent. In this design
she was partly successful, for the bay of the wolves showed that they
were going to the track as she had gone, instead of cutting straight
across toward her. Thus she gained considerable time. She reached the
little arroyo spanned by the dry bridge; it was like a mill-pond, and
the track was afloat. She ran across the bridge; she scarcely slackened
speed, although the ties rocked and moved on the spike-heads holding
them to the rails.

She hoped for a moment that the wolves would not venture to follow her
over such a way; but their hideous voices were still in her ear and came
nearer and nearer. Then there came to her, faintly, another, a strange,
metallic sound. What was it? Where was it? She ran on tiptoe a few paces
in order to hear it better; it was in the rails--the vibration of a
train in motion. Then there came into view a light--a headlight; but it
was so far away, so very far, and that awful baying so close! The "Mary
Ann," however, was fleeter of foot than the wolves; the light grew big
and bright and the sound of working machinery came to the girl on the
breeze.

Would they stop for her? Could she make them see her? Then she thought
of the bridge. It was death for them as well as for her--they _must_ see
her. She resolved to stay on the track until they whistled her off; but
now the light seemed to come so slow. A splash at her side caused her to
turn her head, and there, a dozen feet away, were her pursuers, their
tongues out, their eyes shining like balls of fire. They were just
entering the water to come across to her. They fascinated her by their
very fierceness. Forgetting where she was for the instant, she stared
dumbly at them until called to life and action by a scream from the
locomotive's whistle. Then she sprang from the track just in the nick of
time. She actually laughed as she saw two grayish-white wolf-tails bob
here and there among the sage brush, as the wolves took flight at sight
of the engine.

This was the story she told as she dried her garments before the furnace
door, and I confess to