It was one of the worst wrecks the road had known. No one placed the blame. Those on the ground were too busy to have theories; and those at a distance had to change their theories a dozen times during the day. At noon word came that the president of the road was on his way to the scene of the accident. The news reached John as he was getting into the wrecking-car to return to the office. He paused for a flying minute, one foot on the step of the car. Then he swung off, and the car moved on without him. He spent the next half hour going over the ground. He made careful notes of every detail, recalling points from memory, taking measurements, jotting down facts and figures with his swift, short fingers. When he had finished he took the next wrecking-car back, making up for lost time by lunching at his desk while he worked. All the afternoon he had been doing the work of three men.... Six o’clock. He got down from the high stool, stretching himself and rubbing his arms. In ten minutes the special would pass. He glanced out through the office window at the back of the building. High at the top of the sandy bank a bunch of clover bloomed against the sky, huge heads, with pink-and-white hearts--a kind of alfalfa--perhaps a seed from some passing freight. He had seen them, flaunting there, between hurried snatches of work, all the afternoon. He would pick them and carry them to her. But not now.... He looked again at his watch. He wanted to see the special when it passed. It would not stop, probably, but he might catch a glimpse of Simeon Tetlow. He had often wished he might see him, and he had often thought of his face the morning he said good-by. Beneath the anger in it had been something the boy could not fathom--a kind of entreaty.... He must find some way to give him the notes he had made of the wreck. He stepped out on the platform, looking up and down the shine on the tracks. The sun, coming low across the meadow beyond the tracks, made everything beautiful. A whistle sounded. The special--at the upper bridge. In five minutes it would pass. A smile curved his lips. The sound of quick bells and puffs and wheels came pleasantly to him from the engines at work in the yard down beyond the freight-house. A long train at the left was backing in slowly. John watched it and jingled some pennies in his pockets. He was thinking of Simeon Tetlow, the smile still on his lips.... Suddenly the smile stopped. The fingers gripped the pennies and held them fast.. .. His eye flashed along the top of the slow-moving train.--No one in sight--level tracks--the special two minutes off--the freight taking her track.... The switch, if he could make it--It was not a thought, but a swift turn of the short legs. Never had they seemed to him so fat and heavy beneath him. Yet they were flying over the ties as the wind sweeps a field. The short, strong body dropped itself upon the switch and hung there, gripping--a whirl of cinders and blast and roar. ...