The steady tones and Talboys's business-like air had an instantaneous effect. The crowd were willing enough to be led; they fell back, and Talboys dropped through the window. To those outside the whole car seemed in a blaze, and over them the smoke hung like a pall; but through the crackling and roaring and the crash of falling timber came the clear ring of axe blows, and Talboys's voice shouting, "I say, my man, don't lose heart! We're bound to get you out!" "Lordy, he don't know who 'tis," said Demming. "Nobody could see through that thar smoke!" All at once the uninjured side of the car gave way beneath the flames, falling in with an immense crash. The flame leaped into the air. "They're gone!" cried the conductor. "No, they're not!" yelled Demming. "He's got him, safe an' soun'!" And as he spoke, scorched and covered with dust, bleeding from a cut on his cheek, but holding the Bishop in his arms, Talboys appeared at the window. Jim snatched the Bishop, the conductor helped out Talboys, and half a dozen hands laid hold of Demming. He heard the wild cheer that greeted them; he heard another cheer for the men with the water, just in sight; but he heard no more, for as they pulled him down a dozen fiery pincers seemed tearing at his leg, and he fainted away. * * * * * The Bishop's daughter sat in her room, making a very pretty picture, with her white hands clasped on her knee and her soft eyes uplifted. She looked sad enough to please a pre-Raphaelite of sentiment. Yet her father, whom this morning she would have declared she loved better than any one in the world, had just been saved from a frightful death. She knew the story of his deliverance. At last she felt that most unexpected thrill of admiration for Talboys; but Talboys had vanished. He was gone, it was all ended, and she owned to herself that she was wretched. Her father was with Demming and the doctors. The poor vagabond must hobble through life on one leg, henceforward. "If he lived," the doctor had said, making even his existence as a cripple problematic. Poor Demming, who had flung away his life to save her father from suffering,--a needless, useless sacrifice, as it proved, but touching Louise the more because of its very failure! At this stage in her thoughts, she heard Sam, the waiter, knocking softly, outside. Her first question was about Demming. "The operation's ovah, miss, an' Mr. Demming he's sinkin'," answered Sam, giving the sick man a title he had never accorded him before, "an' he axes if you'd be so kin' 's to step in an' speak to him; he's powerful anxious to see you."