the side of the shed not many rods distant, and, with with a triumphant yell, I urged my steed to put forth his utmost effort. Sixty seconds more and I would be saved, and the danger to the train avoided. The seconds seemed hours in the feverish excitement of the moment, but they were over at last, and I sprang off my horse on the instant that he reached the opening, and rushed, with the rein in my hand, through the aperture. Old Jerky snorted and sprang backward, throwing me down, and pulling the rein from my hand. I saw the trouble at a glance. The opening was not of sufficient height to admit of a horse going through it erect, and a heavy timber to which the planks were nailed, ran across the top. I sprang inside and took a survey of the situation in an instant. The beam would have borne ten times the strain that I could have brought to bear upon it, as it was a foot thick, sound, and firmly placed. I threw all my strength and weight against the planking a little beyond the beam, and fell back upon the icy ground; the planks were imbedded in the frozen ground at their lower ends, and I could not start them in the slightest degree. I sprang up and ran to the other side of the shed, to try if the planking on that side was less firmly secured. Through the crevices I saw a precipice running hundreds of feet, sheer down from the side of the shed. I could not escape that way, and if the train went off there, no person on it would survive to tell the tale.
I fell on my knees to pray, but, before I had uttered a word, the thought passed through my brain that I might throw the horse down, and pull him through
