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He knew how his opposition was grieving his father, who thought him most unreasonable: but he persisted in refusing to see the lady until after the ceremony. Suddenly with a terrific lurch the train was derailed and plunged down an embankment, not steep but rocky. The heavy Pullman toppled over, then planted itself firmly in a bed of fresh earth, and was still.

On October 12th, the day after the declaration of war, an armoured train conveying two 7-pounders for the Mafeking defences was derailed and captured by a Boer raiding party at Kraaipan, a place forty miles south of their destination. The enemy shelled the shattered train until after five hours Captain Nesbitt, who was in command, and his men, some twenty in number, surrendered.

Hooper shook his head and went on: "There's a curious bit o' line there, you see. It runs through solid teak forest a sort o' mahogany really seventy-two miles without a curve. I've had a train derailed there twenty- three times in forty miles. I was up there a month ago relievin' a sick inspector, you see. He told me to look out for a couple of tramps in the teak." "Two?" Pyecroft said.

Next morning, they awoke, as from a prolonged and terrible dream, to find Lahore practically isolated; all wires down, but one; the hartal continuing in defiance of orders and exhortations; more stations demolished; more trains derailed and looted; all available British troops recalled from the Hills. But for five sets of wireless plant, urgently asked for, isolation would have been complete.

A glance assured the two young fellows from the East that it was a bad smash indeed. Several of the rear boxcars were slung athwart the passenger tracks. The passenger train that had been ahead of the Pullman train on which Tom and Ned rode, had been badly beaten in all along its side. Scarcely a whole window was left on the inner side of the five cars. But those cars were not derailed.

Luckily the derailed truck ploughed the ground and stopped within a foot or two of the awful gulf yawning below, though those following, which had kept on the track, gave it a shunt forward. It is not long before all is shipshape again, and we draw slowly past, waving to Wharton, who stands up in his caboose, or van, a handsome, healthy figure of a man.

At the hearty command, churlish reluctance vanished and everybody lent a willing hand. In two minutes the crew of the Limited knew it was working under a master. The frogs were adjusted under the derailed wheels, the jack-screws were braced to lift and push with the nicest accuracy, and all was ready for the attempt to back the engine in trial. But now the engineer shook his bead.

The first thing to be done was to detach the truck half off the rails from the one completely so. To do this the engine had to be moved to slacken the strain on the twisted couplings. When these had been released, the next step was to drag the partly derailed truck backwards along the line until it was clear of the other wreckage, and then to throw it bodily off the rails.

He ran the gantlet of the Indians through that cut.... He was on a gravel-car running wild down-hill. You know the grade, Neale.... Of course his intention was to hold up my train block us before we reached the ambushed cut. There must have been a broken brake, for he derailed the car not half a mile ahead of us.

"Out for a walk across the prairie," replied Ned. "Wait, and I'll go with you. I might get some new specimens. I must never waste an opportunity," and, placing in his pockets several small boxes to hold any possible captives he might get in his butterfly net, the scientist was ready. It was pleasant on the vast plain that stretched away in every direction from the derailed train.