She leaped to her feet and was before him in a moment, with scarlet face, dilated eyes and disheveled hair. "You've won. I give it up." Ruth pressed both hands to her breast and caught her breath to keep from screaming. He pressed the button on his desk. The clerk appeared. "Write out a full pardon for Frank Gordon, and call the warden of Sing Sing!" Ruth dropped to her knees, crying: "O Lord God, unto thee I give praise!" In a moment the clerk hurried back to the Governor's side and in startling tones whispered: "The wires are down, sir. I can't get the warden." The Governor snatched his watch from his pocket. "There is no train for two hours. Order me a special!" The despatcher flashed his command for a clear track as far as the wires would work, and within fifteen minutes the great engine with its single coach dashed across the bridge and plunged down the grade toward Sing Sing, roaring, hissing, screaming its warnings above the splash and howl of the storm. The Governor sat silent with his head resting on his hand, shading his eyes. Ruth, still and pale, gazed out the car window, and, shivering, closed her eyes now and then over the vision of a cold dead face she feared to see at the journey's end. They had made fifty miles in fifty minutes, and not a word had been spoken. The Governor looked at his watch and leaned over: "Cheer up, Ruth. We are making a mile a minute through the storm, over slippery rails. We will make it in time." Suddenly the emergency brakes came down with a crash, every wheel was locked, and the train slid heavily on the track, hissing, grinding, swaying, the steel rails blazing with sparks. The Governor sprang from the car. "We're blocked by a wreck, sir," the conductor said, touching his cap. "The high water has undermined the track on the river bank." Within twenty minutes the engine in front of the wreck was secured, Ruth and Lucy were in the cab, and the engineer and fireman stood reading their orders. "Gentlemen, I am the Governor," said a voice by their side. They looked up. "This is a matter of life and death. The life of a man--and the life of the little pale woman I helped into your cab. Put this engine into Sing Sing by five minutes to two o'clock and I'll give you a thousand dollars. Five hundred for each of you." The engineer smiled. "We'll do it for you, sir, without money. We voted for you." The Governor pressed their hands. Down the storm-clouded track the engine flew with throbbing heart of steel and breath of fire like a panting demon. Back and forth over the spongy rails she swayed, her mighty ribs cracking as she lurched and jumped and plunged. But the fireman in his flannel shirt, dripping with perspiration, never paused, as with steady stroke he fed her roaring mouth; and the engineer, with his hand on her pulse, leaned far out of the cab with his eyes fixed on the flying track.