AN instrument began clicking. There had hardly been a message for days that had not told stories of danger and even death in the fires that had been ravaging the forests to the west. Bertha, the day operator at Bald Mountain, leaned forward and read aloud to her brother the words that came over the wire:

Bertha leaned forward and read aloud to her brother the words that came over the wire

      "Fire—all—around. Our—engine—disabled—at—Eagle—Pass. Send—grade—engine—quick—quick."

      The geometry that Gerald had been studying fell to the floor.

      "Oh, Beth! Hogan and Simmons have gone with the road gang to that blaze to the east."

      "I took the order, Gerald."

      "And it would be four hours before an engine could get here from the junction."

      "Yes."

      "And then it may be too late."

      "Yes."

      For twenty seconds the only sound was the call of crows, that had been winging. their way east for three days, and the slight hissing of No. 11 that had been left on her switch with her steam up.

      "I'll do it myself!" broke out the boy. "Hogan says I know the levers of old 11 almost as well as he does."

      "You mustn't!" exclaimed Bertha.

      "I'm sick of having people talk about me as if I were glass," continued the boy excitedly. "And don't you see, Beth? If somebody doesn't get to them on the jump, the bridge over the river may go."

      Bertha felt her hands grasp tightly together under the table. Of course it was just like Gerald. She had always known that the time would come when her boy would show himself the splendid fellow that only she knew him to be. But she couldn't let him go into such danger. What would life hold without Gerald?

      "Please, Beth, get me my crutches," implored Gerald, twisting his crooked body to an upright position.

      "See here, Gerald, if you must go, I'm going with you."

      "That's as ridiculous as it can be! It isn't the work for a girl. And there's the most awful smoke beyond the river. No. 10 came through last night — Dudley told me it was nip and tuck if they could make it. Then the wooden trestles. No — I shall manage it alone."

      Gerald hobbled to the door.

      "If you don't let me go, Gerald, I'll —" She felt desperate. What threat could she find? And although she was five years the elder, his word was law. That had come because there were only the two; since the death of their mother they had been alone in the world. She had been mother and sister both, supporting him with her wages, studying with him, and worshipping him as only a sister can worship an only brother.

      "Beth!" The boy's voice was filled with distress. "There's always been somebody to watch the water and all. And well, when a fellow is built as I am, he just must ask help. After all, I've got to take you; there isn't a soul but you for miles and miles."

      Gerald turned to the closet near the door.

      "Here, Beth, you must pull these on," he exclaimed, holding toward his sister a suit of overalls.

      Bertha knew enough about railroading to understand the necessity for protecting her thin gown with something stout. In three minutes she followed her brother to the platform, a very timid girl at heart, and in appearance an undersized railroad man of incongruously pink cheeks, brown eyes and nice hair.

      There was some difficulty in assisting Gerald to the running board of the locomotive. When a trip had been planned, Hogan, the engineer, had always taken the boy in his arms and lifted him to Simmons, the fireman. Bertha found it necessary to get a box and the baggage truck. Mounting these in turn, Gerald dragged himself to the cab, Bertha following with the crutches.

      The girl had always supposed a fireman had nothing to do but to throw coal on a fire, as if he were feeding a large kitchen range. Now she was shown many levers and valves.

      "There's no use telling a girl their names," said Gerald. "When I want you to do things, I'll point to them or show you how. And I can't bend my back today, so I'll guess you'll have to rake the fire down a bit; it's lucky that she's got plenty of water and coal."

      Grasping a handle, Gerald threw open the door of the firebox, the heat almost burning the skin from Bertha's face. With desperate haste she pulled back and forth the rod that had been thrust into her hands. Everything around simmered and hissed, as if this were the center of any number of particularly active teakettles. And, although it was a pleasantly cool day, the perspiration trickled over her face.

      Before she put aside the giant poker, there followed other quick instructions. She was ordered to pull open and to shut various valves, the use of which she had not the slightest idea. Then, at the word, and with a further mighty effort, she managed to "give her a half-dozen spoonfuls of feed," to quote her instructions.

      Presently Bertha felt the great machine quiver under her — and they were off.

      Twice before they came to the river the boy above gave the word, and Bertha, swaying and pitching because of the rockings of the locomotive, carried from the tender shovels of coal and managed to push them into the mouth of the hungry hot monster. At other times, kneeling on the floor of the cab, her heart pounding into her throat, she watched the wall of blue haze beyond the long narrow V of the track come racing toward her. It seemed to her that the engine was motionless; it was the entire world that, pitching and reeling, was pulled in as if on an endless cable.

      Above the deafening roar came Gerald's voice.

      "Hold on tight! She will make the curve beyond the bridge at a sixty clip!"

      No. 11 heaved and plunged her one hundred and forty thousand pounds of iron and steel, surging against the flanges of her eight drivers first on one side and then on the other. She had been built to pull freight trains up heavy grades and had never been intended for this sort of work. Her new engineer let her spin down the grade of the side of the mountain to the bridge, she taking the five spans at the speed of a crack passenger locomotive and with the clumsiness and shock of one of her weight and might. She thundered across, her voice drowning the swish of the rapids below and the roar of the falls to the south.

The girl would remember that face to the end of her life

      During the passage of the bridge Bertha felt her hands clutch the brass rail at her side and her fingers tighten as if they were of steel. Then her seething excitement passed away, and for the moment she forgot the leaping thing that heaved and plunged under her. Across the circular curve of the boiler, in the window opposite, sat a boy. His eager face was as if carved in marble. The girl would remember that face to the end of her life. And as she watched the slight twisted body, tense with endeavor and courage, the tears almost choked her. She wondered if there ever had been or ever would be again such a splendid fellow.

      Beyond the bridge came the dense smoke; it had been getting thicker and thicker for fifteen minutes. Bertha choked and gasped. Then she reached under the loose overalls, and, tearing her skirt into strips, hastily soaked the cloth under the valve that Gerald reached down and opened. Brother and sister tied wet cloths over the mouth and nostrils. With this protection Bertha had less difficulty in breathing than she had in seeing. Indeed, after they had actually entered the fire zone, except for the tongues of red flame flashing along the ground at the side of the rails, the girl was conscious of seeing absolutely nothing.

      To the east as yet the fire had not reached the stage known as a "top fire," when the flames seize the whole of a tree, making it a huge torch, which, in turn, makes torches of the trees beyond. In such a fire no one can live. Carried swiftly by the engine, Gerald and Bertha passed through a region of an under fire, where only dead leaves and dry bushes were burning. But even in such an under fire death frequently comes to birds, animals and human beings because of suffocation.

      Beyond the bridge the heavy engine reached the limit of her speed — her engineer had pushed her more than her master, Hogan, would have dared. For ten minutes the smoke became thicker and thicker. Then and suddenly, Bertha could see once more the glittering converging rails — and as swiftly as if he had fallen from nowhere, a man swinging a red flag suddenly appeared in the haze and dropped behind.

      The next moment, with the shock of her reversing gear and with grinding brakes, No. 11 came to rest, men shouting around her, and beyond Bertha saw a locomotive, and still beyond, receding into the blue haze, a line of coaches, platforms crowded and heads hanging from the windows.

      Strange, perhaps, but Bertha's thoughts, girl-like, flashed to her appearance. She wished that the smoke were even thicker. It seemed to her that No. 11 had carried them almost into the heart of a town.

      A stout man in cap and overalls lifted himself heavily to the running board and grasped the boy's shoulder.

      "It's a sure big thing you've done, old fellow!"

      Gerald had already torn the cloth from his head, leaving lines of white across his blackened face. The man added:

      "It's the lame boy of Bald Mountain. But who's the little fellow — your fireman?"

      Bertha did not hear the answer, and, as she helped the man take Gerald to the ground, she forgot about the overalls, her blackened face and flying hair. Afterwards she was only conscious of her pride in the figure on crutches who was surrounded by railroad men, all attempting to take him by the hand — a picture that to her was more beautiful than any picture she had ever seen.

Afterward she was only conscious of her pride in the figure on crutches who was surrounded by railroad men

      The pressing crowd of passengers could see that there was something altogether out of the common in the boy of the crutches surrounded by the group of trainmen and the figure near of blackened face and flying hair that Bertha attempted in vain to push back into place.

      "We must take her to your mother," said a gentleman, pushing forward and followed by a younger man.

      Five minutes later Bertha was being lifted up the steps of a private car at the rear of the train, her brother, assisted by the young man, close behind.

      A little later she knew that she was seated in a deep chair that seemed most welcome after the slippery iron plates of the heaving grade engine. And she never thought that water could taste as good as the glass that was brought to her and which she eagerly swallowed.

      Soon the train began to move, and once more came the smoke. It was stifling, but very different from the smoke of the downward journey in the cab of No. 11. From where she sat she could see in the hazy glow of the electric lights of the car her brother and the young man gazing from a window. Near her sat a lady with a handkerchief pressed against her face and the elderly man leaning over her.

      Again came the hollow reverberations of the long bridge and Bertha could hear the pulsing roar of the falls down the river. After that, the air cleared rapidly and very soon somebody was leaning over her chair and speaking in her ear.

      "My dear, I'm an old railroad man. People say I've been very successful. Money is a little thing at such a time, but if there is anything that is near your heart — anything, my dear, really anything — it is your own for the asking."

      Bertha pointed toward her brother. She hardly knew what she asked. What she had in mind was Gerald — his wishes to go to college, his dreams of gaining an education, his desire to some time be a lawyer.

      "It shall all be done," said her companion. "And when he graduates there will be influence to set him on his feet. You see, my dear, it's like rubbing Aladdin's lamp. But is there nothing for you, yourself?"

      "It's all for me," cried Bertha. "And you have made me so very, very happy!"

      "The railroad must find you a position in its main office where there will be a town and not the loneliness of Bald Mountain. And well, my dear — if I were fifty years younger and not almost down the grade of life, and my Sara were not waiting to take you and gush over you — there's a different proposal that I should make. But when the time comes and the right young man — he will have to be very right to deserve you — you must let me have the privilege of giving you away. You must promise."