She hurriedly pencilled a few words upon a scrap of paper and, folding
it as she went, ran down the steps and up a side street parallel with
the railroad, and then climbed the low embankment upon which the boy
stood.

Wing was waiting in the middle of the track for the train and the
ecstasy of his daily performance. In the meantime he was holding out
at arm's length and considering with proud and satisfied eyes a big,
artificial spider and web which had that morning been given to him by
one of the ladies at the hotel.

"Wing," she called, "I want you to run back to the station and give
this note to Mr. Ellison. You 'll see him there on the platform, or,
perhaps, in the baggage room. You 'll have plenty of time, for the
train 's late today. Please go quickly, Wing, for I want him to have
the note at once."

The train was already rumbling in the deep cut just beyond the turn,
but the wind was blowing strongly toward it, and neither of them heard
the fateful sound. The high wind caught her dress and blew it against
the spider in the boy's hand. It tangled the toy in the folds and
wrenched it from his fingers and then caught the hem of her gown upon
the splitting edge of a worn rail. As she stooped to loose it the
terrible front of the engine appeared, rounding the curve.

Wing looked in blank amazement at his empty fingers and then, as he saw
his plaything hanging to the folds of her dress, he sprang after it
exclaiming, "My bug! My bug!" As he seized it again he saw the
approaching train, and, his mind bent on what he was intending to do,