"The dastardly scoun---- Beg pardon! Go on! go on!" "I tried to wrench myself free, but it was impossible; they had tied the knots well, and I began to believe I was doomed. The rail sang beneath my head, and I knew the express was approaching at terrible speed." "This is too much--too much!" groaned the little man, flopping down on a chair. "It actually overcomes me!" "I fully expected the express would come over me," the boy went on. "I gave up hope. Looking along the track, I saw the engine swoop into view round a curve in the road. Down upon me with the speed of the wind it swept." No sound but a groan came from the lips of Professor Scotch. "Staring with horrified eyes and benumbed senses at the engine, I heard it shriek a wild note of warning. I had been seen! But the train was on a down grade, and it could not stop in time. I was doomed just the same." The professor was ready to fall off his chair. "Then," cried Frank, dramatically, "out along the side of the engine crept a boy, who carried something in his hand. That boy was Walter Clyde, to whom I owe my very life. The something he carried in his hand was a lasso, and with that he saved me." "How--how could he do it?" palpitated the professor. "You were tied to the track!" "Yes, but Walter Clyde is an ingenious fellow, and he saw how to get around that difficulty." "But how--how?" "Well, close beside the railroad was the stump of a great tree that had been cut down. I saw him point at it, and above the roar of the train I heard him shriek for me to lift my head and look at it." "Yes, yes! Go on!" "I saw him whirling the lasso-noose about his head, making ready for the cast, having first hitched the other ends to the cow-catcher of the locomotive." "Well, well?" "I lifted my head as high as possible, and I saw the noose shoot through the air. Excuse me while I shudder a few seconds!" "Did he drag you from the track in time?" shouted the professor. "Did the noose fall over your head?" "No," answered Frank; "but it fell over that stump, and, when the express reached the end of the lariat, having come so near that the nose of the pilot brushed my hair, the lariat brought up. It was a good stout rope, and it yanked that engine off the track in a second, and piled the entire train in the ditch. I was saved--saved by a brave boy, and only forty of the passengers on the train were killed." Professor Scotch gasped for breath and sank from his chair to the floor. CHAPTER XIV. WALTER CLYDE'S STORY. Barney Mulloy had been holding on to keep from shouting with laughter, and now he exploded. "Ha! ha! ha!" he roared. "Pwhat do yez think av thot, profissor? Thot wur th' narrowest escape ivver hearrud av, ur Oi'm a loier!" "Send for the undertaker!" came in a hollow groan from the lips of the professor. "You do not seem to feel well?" said Frank, hastening to the man's assistance. "What is the trouble?"