The athletic young man continued to stare moodily out of the window. The black expanse of country became more thickly studded with lights. They flashed in the foreground in regular constellations as the train whizzed with undiminished speed past tall block towers and tiny suburban stations. Long parallel rows, narrowing to a point under a distant hazy nimbus, marked the course of the outreaching arteries of a great city. Warning bells clanged peremptorily at the lowered gates of grade crossings. The car wheels crashed noisily over an ever-increasing number of frogs and switch points, an occasional brilliantly illuminated trolley car crept slowly over its rails, and the hundreds of green and red and yellow lights of the widening railroad yards lent a variety of color to the scene. That infallible harbinger of an approaching terminal, the colored porter, had appeared in the doorway, whisk-broom in hand, when--suddenly--there was a grinding jar; the heavy coach trembled through its length, and from forward came a muffled roar followed by the tearing crash of riven metal. The car reared upward--higher and higher it climbed to the accompaniment of the terrible crunching grind that proclaims undirected power and benumbs the brain with the horrid possibilities of energy uncontrolled. When almost perpendicular the sleeper toppled and crashed sidewise across other tracks at right angles to its course. New sounds supplanted the mighty noise of tearing and rending--little sounds--the sharp jangle of smashing glass, and the thin wail of an infant. These were borne to the young man's ears as from a distance. It was very dark and he was conscious of a great weight which seemed to be crushing the breath from his body. He raised his arms and tore at the thing on his chest. It yielded slightly to the pressure of his hands but remained immovable. He reached above it and encountered metal--a large iron cylinder with projecting pipes twisted and bent. Frantically he tore at the weight, exerting to the utmost the mighty strength of his shoulders. Inch by inch he worked it sidewise, using the pipes as levers until at length it rolled free and settled with a crash among the wreckage at his side. The other--the thing that yielded--he lifted easily and sat up, filling his exhausted lungs with great drafts of cool air. His head ached terribly. He passed his hand across his forehead and withdrew it wet and dripping. He struck a match and as the tiny flame flickered and went out he struck another and another. At his side lay the torso of the young reporter, his head mashed by the heavy water-cooler. He shuddered as he realized that this was the thing he had lifted from his chest. In the opposite corner the elderly man struggled to release his arm from the grip of a wedging timber. The body of the porter, doubled grotesquely, partially protruded from under a seat.