On came the goods train, laden with heavy merchandise and coals, beating up slowly against the westerly wind. At that moment the rending screech of the express pierced to his heart. Another moment and it must dash into the train driven by Duncan Urquhart. Muckle Alick found the points open. Throwing his great crowbar forward he inserted it beneath the length of rail, and with the strength of Samson, he moved the whole section over to the other side. He could not lock the points, of course, as the signal-man could have done. But Alick held them tight with his lever, while the heavy goods train bumped along, passing over the improperly joined points with a terrible jolting which almost dislocated his arms. But still Muckle Alick held on. For he knew that the lives of a hundred men and women depended upon the sureness of his hand. The goods train was a long one and it jolted slowly past. It was not till he saw the hind light of the guard's van passing him with a swing, that Muckle Alick's heart gave a joyful leap. But just as the last van went past, with a roar and a rush of fire-lighted smoke the express leaped by. A moment before the released points had flown back to their place. The way was clear. But something, it is thought the iron framework of the catcher on the postal car, caught Muckle Alick and jerked him thirty yards from where he had been standing. Without so much as a quiver, the express flew out again into the dark, her whistle screaming a death-knell and the back tempest hurtling behind her. No one had seen Muckle Alick. None knew of his deed of heroism, save only Duncan Urquhart, who, unconscious of danger, had cried cheerfully as he passed, "What are ye hanging on to a post there for, Alick?" It was fully a quarter of an hour later that Urquhart went to look for Muckle Alick. He thought he would walk the first part of his way home with him. It was always wholesome and always cheery to walk with Muckle Alick, even when he was going home from a long spell of overtime. At that moment the station master woke up with a start. _It was twenty minutes past ten. The Express——!_ He rushed out. The signal box was quite dark. Duncan Urquhart was coming up the platform alone with his coat over his arm. He called out to the station master: "Is your signal-man deid, or only sleepin'?" A few moments after James Cannon awoke from a pleasant dream of the Ross Lighthouse. "Get up, man!" cried the station master, standing over him with a lantern, "God kens how many lives ye hae lost through your ill deeds!" Dazed and bewildered, James Cannon arose to the damning fact that the boat train was past, and he knew well that he had never altered the signals or set the points. Five minutes later Duncan Urquhart found Muckle Alick. He was lying half on and half over the embankment of the cattle shipping bank, where the express had tossed him like a feather. "Oh, what's wrang, what's wrang, Alick?" cried Duncan Urquhart in terror.