In four minutes he would be revenged for the invading of his little plot of ground, which his mother had left to him, by men who had cursed him and by steel rails and yelping engines. In four minutes he would have been paid for the dazed wretchedness which had been his when men with law at their backs had come and gabbled things which he could neither hear nor comprehend, but which, it appeared, gave to the B. & A. the little earth he had tended, gave them the right to shower his roof with hot cinders, to slay his quince bushes with sulphurous smoke, to rattle his puttyless window panes loose with the thunder of locomotives. Four minutes! He held his elbows in a grip that hurt. He twisted his old legs about each other till they ached. His face, with its three-day growth of sandy beard, writhed and twitched. But he sat still. [Illustration] Coming! Coming! He felt the first premonitory shudder of his floor sills that told him the train had crossed the bridge below the yards. Every pulse in him spun as though a gigantic current galvanized him. His head roared. His chest hurt. Nearer! Almost here! His grip held. His body grew numb. Then something snapped. Some grim gripping gave way. He went limp. He retched. He was old Henry Hornbone again, simple, kindly old Henry who mothered cats. He went through the window kicking the sash to flinders. Shoeless he leaped like a wild old warlock through his garden, over the fence, up to the right of way. The headlight of the Oriole Limited flared upon him--a dancing ghost with waving arms--as the train came to a grinding stop thirty feet from the spiked switch and the plow beams. Charlie Sanders, who ran the Limited, sprang out of the cab. Newt Murphy, the conductor, sprinted down the cinders. To them old Henry waved wild hands and cackled unintelligible things. The flag-man, an officious person, thudded ahead and discovered the open switch. "By George, old Henry sure saved all our lives," Charlie Sanders explained to the passengers who came swarming up. "Looka that--the way we was running old Fifteen-eighty would have turned plumb end over end when she hit that spur." Henry Hornbone found himself the center of a crowd, and a hero. Men shook his hand, women's cold, shaking fingers clapped his own. They shouted questions at him till Newt Murphy came to his relief. "He's deef--can't hear a thing, Henry can't. Harmless old guy, but stone deef." Someone was moving through the crowd gathering up money, a girl with red hair and a little gray hat tipped over one eye. She brought the donation to Henry in her cupped hands--little hands--bills and silver dollars and a few quarters and halves. "Take it," she urged, "it's for you." Henry backed away. All his life he had been terrified in the presence of women. "He can't hear you, lady," explained Charlie Sanders.