ravine, and it was a source of unfailing delight to go down there and,
from a secure position, see the trains go thundering by.

In fifteen minutes the train would be along and then she would go back.
Idly gazing down from her secure height, her eye was suddenly caught by
something creeping along the ground. Letty's keen sight at once
decided this to be a man--a man with a log in his hand. This log he
carefully adjusted across the track.

"What a very curious--" began Letty. But her exclamation was cut short
by the awful intuition that the man meant to wreck the on-coming train.

All thought of private sorrow fled in an instant. What could she do?
What must she do, for save the train she must, of course. Who else was
there to do it? And oh, such a little time to do it in. To go around
by the path would take a half-hour. To climb down the side of the
ravine would be madness. Suddenly her mind was illuminated. Yes, she
could do that, and like the wind she was up at the house and back
again, only this time she steered for a spot a hundred rods up, just
the other side of the curve.

In a trice she had whipped off her scarlet balmoral, the balmoral she
hated so, and had attached to it one end of the hundred feet of rope
she had brought from the house.

Could she do it? Could she crawl out on that branch there and hold
that danger signal down in front of the train?

She shuddered and covered her face with her hands. O, no, no, she
never could do it. Suppose she should fall off or the limb break. But