Hervey would perform any stunt conceivable, requiring only the incentive of a dare, and not always that. He was not afraid of peril. But now he was struck dumb with terror. With trembling hands he tried hurriedly to unlace his imprisoned shoe, but he only succeeded in getting the shoe-string in a hopeless knot. He tore at it and broke it by main strength and tried to pull his foot free of the shoe. He looked, listened. Was that an oncoming train? No, just the faint distant clanking of the train that had passed. There was reassurance in the far-off whistle. It was a receding whistle, not an approaching one. He wished that he had a time-table and a flashlight or a few matches. What was the new sound? He listened. Nothing. He tugged and wrenched and wriggled his squeezed foot. The pain was intense, but it was nothing to his frantic fear. If he only had time; if he could only be sure that he would have a little time. _And could know how much time he would have to_--what? Act? Plow? But the knowledge that he would have half an hour, twenty minutes, would give him time to think. Now every distant sound was conjured into the sound of a distant train; the rustle of branches startled him. The wild thought occurred to him that a fox caught in a snap-trap will sometimes gnaw its own leg off to get free. But he had not the courage nor the ability of a fox. If he only had a few matches he might reach about and collect enough dry grass to start a blaze. There was an old dried tie lying near; he might get that afire and thus warn an approaching train. But he had no matches. He had told Corby Lindman up at Temple Camp that he didn’t bother with matches, that all the farmers knew him and he could always get food and didn’t want to cook. As for signal fires, he never got lost. Well, here he was without matches. And he could not think of any other means of escape from horrible death; death which might be rushing toward him then and would overtake him any minute. He listened, his face twinging with agony. What--what was that? Why, it was only a hawk crying as when startled into flight. What had startled the hawk into flight? He would go insane and scream in a minute.... But no one would hear; the signal station was about a mile distant. It took care of the Wainboro Branch and the lumber camp siding. What a cruel thing it would have been to _dare_ Hervey to get free! Would that, perhaps, have given him an inspiration? The only inspiration he had was to scream so that it pained his chest and made his head swim. The only answer was the soft, mocking echo of his own voice in the dark woodland. CHAPTER XI THE JAWS OF DEATH