But while Master George might not be an adept in handling a wire he had learned a few things about falling from trees. As he came tumbling down he gracefully turned a somersault and landed, quite unhurt, upon his feet. "I'll do it yet," he maintained pluckily, running back to the telegraph pole. "Wait, George," shouted Andrews. He leaped from the cab, and taking a new piece of the cord, tied it around the lad's waist. "If I had the sense I was born with I might have done that first," he muttered. George began his second ascent of the pole, and this time reached the top without hindrance or mishap. Andrews now fastened the axe to the cord, of which George had one end; in a few seconds the axe had been drawn up by the boy. Then, with his left hand holding on to the cross-bar, and his legs firmly wound around the pole, he took the axe in his right hand and hit the wire. Three times did he thus strike; at the third blow the wire snapped asunder, and the longer of the two pieces fell to the ground. He let the tool fall, and slid down the pole as the men cheered him lustily. Andrews now took the axe, cut the dangling wire in another place, and threw the piece thus secured into the tender. "They can't connect that line in a hurry," he said, as he turned to George with the remark: "Well, my son, you're earning your salt!" George, blushing like a peony, felt a thrill of pride. "And now, fellows," added Andrews, addressing the men in the baggage car, "it will be best to take up a rail, so that if we are pursued, by any chance, the enemy will have some trouble in getting on any further." The occupants of the car, headed by Watson, sprang to the ground. Andrews handed him a smooth iron bar, about four feet in length. "We have no track-raising instruments," explained the leader, "but I guess this will answer." Watson managed to loosen some of the spikes on the track, in the rear of the train, by means of this bar; later several of his companions succeeded in placing a log under the rail and prying it up so that at last the piece of iron had been entirely separated from the track. The perspiration was dripping from Watson's brow. "Great guns!" he growled, "we are acting as if we had a whole eternity of time before us." "Don't worry about that," said Andrews, reassuringly, as he leaped into the cab; "we have been running ahead of schedule time. But hurry up; there's lots of work before us!" In the next minute the Northerners were once more on their way. After the train had run a distance of five miles, Andrews signaled to the engineer, and it was brought slowly to a stop. The chief jumped from the engine, walked along the track to the end car, and gazed intently to the southward.