topping the flood, that lashing, interned
lake-water, now blotting out window-*frames
on one side of the car--groping
with icy fingers for the painted ceiling of
the Pullman--then undulatingly sinking
below them on the other.

For it was a case just half-a-minute
before, while Pem was still sanguinely
loosing the Thunder Bird, of small pony-*wheels
on the big express engine striking
a frog in the rails, an icy groove, and
skidding,--then recklessly plunging down
four feet, those runaway ponies, from the
low bridge which they were crossing on
to the ice, dragging the engine, the cab
and the two front cars with them.

And now--now--to the inventor's
daughter, the girl-mechanic, who had
plugged so hard at her high school
physics that she might understand her
father's work, came a thought that was
worse, worse even than the hiss of the imprisoned
flood, tossing her like a cork: the
engine might explode--the sneezing, sob-*
[[27]]

p026 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p027w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p028

v?