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183 peered through the gloaming and discerned two heads protruding from the windows of the special's engine, one on either side.

At a venture she snatched off her coat and waved it in the air. An arm answered the signal from one window of the pursuing locomotive.

Marrophat, of course!

She turned and peered ahead. The freight was approaching a trestle that spanned a wide and shallow gully. So much the better!

Dropping down again between the cars, she set herself to uncoupling the caboose. In this she was successful just as the last car rolled out on the trestle.

Its own impetus carried the caboose to the middle of the trestle before it stopped. As this happened, Alan and Barcus, already warned by the slowing down of the car, and alive to the fact that the special was in pursuit, leaped out upon the ties and helped Rose to alight.

Already the last of the freight was whisking off the trestle. And behind them the special was plunging forward at unabated speed. There was no time to reach either end of the trestle.

With common impulse the two men glanced down to the bottom of the gully, then looked at each other with eyes informed by common inspiration.

Barcus announced in a breath: "Thirty-feet, not more."