"It's a' richt, Duncan," said Muckle Alick, slowly but very distinctly. "I gripped the points and held them till ye won by!" "Can ye bide a minute, Alick?" said Duncan tenderly. "Ow, aye," said the wounded man, "dinna fash yoursel'. There's nae hurry—Mirren wasna' expectin' me!" Faster far than his own train had passed the points, Duncan Urquhart sped back to the station. "Alick's lying killed doon on the cattle bank!" he cried. "Help us wi' that board!" And, rushing into the empty waiting-room, he laid hold of a newly-erected partition which had recently been set up to keep the draughts from the passengers. It resisted his strength, but with the station master to help him, and a "One, Two, Three," it yielded, and the men tore down the platform with it. With the help of poor, dazed James Cannon and another, they laid the giant tenderly upon it. But they had to wait for other two, hastily summoned from the nearest railway houses, before they dared try to lift Muckle Alick. "Does it hurt, Alick?" asked Duncan of Inverness, gently, like a Highland man. "It's no that sair," said Alick, as quietly, "but juist try no to be ower lang wi' me!" They carried him to the left-luggage office, into which, a few weeks before, he had taken the children whom, at the peril of his life, he had saved from death. They were going to lay down the partition with its load upon the table on which he had been arranging the parcels half an hour before. "Pit me on the bench," said Alick, calmly, "dinna meddle the parcels. They are a' ready to gang oot wi' the first delivery the morn." So, even as he bade them, on the bench they laid Alick down. What like he was I know, but I am not going to tell. His wife, Mirren, might chance to read it. There were tears running down Duncan Urquhart's face. The station master had already run for a doctor. "Dinna greet, Duncan," said Alick. "The boat train won by a' richt, and I manned to haud the points for ye." But Duncan Urquhart could answer him no word. In the corner sat James Cannon with his head on his hands, rocking himself to and fro in speechless agony of soul. "Oh, I wuss it had been me," he wailed. "I wuss it had been me!" "Hoot na, James," said Alick. "It's better as it is—ye hae a young family." Then, as if he had been thinking it over— "Duncan," he said, "Duncan, promise me this—ye'll no let Mirren see me. Mind ye, Mirren is no to see me. I dinna want her to think o' me like this. "She was aye sae taen up aboot me, ye see," he added apologetically, after a little pause. The doctor came. He bent over Alick. He moved him tenderly, this way and that. Then he ordered all out of the left-luggage office, except Duncan Urquhart and the station master's wife, a quiet motherly woman. Then, while the doctor did his duty, Alick sank into a kind of stupor. Presently he woke from it with a little start.