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 passed unharmed before the engine, just grazing
it. It also appeared that she was gaining the mastery, for her horse
was rearing; then cars of ordinary make intervened and hid her from
view a moment, and the train clattered noisily on.
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