Y'understand that perhaps his knees quake and buckle and a yelp of terror is driven out of his bony breast--beating so high with ambition but a moment before--but the spirit does not quail as he releases the brake, sets it again slowly, carefully; the wheels revolve and begin to feel the grip of the brake shoe. Still the car seems streaking to such a wreck as will mangle him with broken rods and torn sheet steel at the bottom of the gulch. Instead, by a miracle it takes the curve with only a roar and crash of glass. Tim Cannon has held the car to the rails and the Barlow Suburban to its charter. The storm deepens and darkens round the lonely little car and its driver, who stands erect and still with hands on the brake considering his treason to Regan's ambitions and his own. The cause does not have to be searched for. "Sure, I had promised Craney to manage this railroad till he got back," says Tim Cannon as a matter of course. He has it in mind to hasten and explain to Regan, but lingers a moment in musing, unusual for him when business is to be done. "'T was a wise old dame," he says; and recalls what Molly had stated as a matter of fact. "If you promise--then 't is a duty." She had said that; and: "Through storm and hardship and fear you would go--because you promised." "Sure!" agrees Tim, disgusted that he has not remembered this before making the deal with Regan. "I will explain to him," says Tim, "that I promised Craney." All of a sudden a vast respect fills him--not reverence, for he has none, but a respect for this wise woman who knew what was in a man so much better than he knew himself. Then stepping down he plunges into the depths of storm on his way back to Barlow. The great man laughs at his tale that the job is not done. "You are a boy of brains, and I am not surprised at the news you bring," he says. "How much is the price risen, you little robber? A hundred? Go," he says, "and finish quickly. I am not the man to haggle, be it five hundred and a job on my railroad to boot." And as Tim shakes his head: "What now, I ask you?" "After starting the car down to the wreck I won't let it get away from me, but catch it and set the brakes and ride it wild to the bottom." "Why be such a fool as that?" demands Regan. "'T is on account of promising Mr. Craney to manage the Suburban till he gets back," explains Tim. It strikes home to Regan that this is the crisis of his life, and Tim feels his wrath as the toss of tempest. 'T would be an easy matter to kidnap the boy here an' now, and send his own agent to wreck the car, but even then the scheme is blocked. Tim must be accounted for afterward. The boy must see his passengers and tell of the accident or there will be search made for him under the wreckage, and talk in the papers, reminding the town of the Suburban's existence, and Regan's enemies that a charter is about to be forfeited.