“We’re going mighty slow,” he said. “Most roads would go faster. But this road don’t take any chances. We won’t get you through on time, but we’ll get you through safe and sound, without the slightest chance of accident. I guess if we put it to a vote, most of you would vote for safety rather than speed,” and he looked around at the passengers with a smile. “You bet we would,” assented one of the men, and there was less grumbling after that. And yet there are few things more trying to the nerves than to ride in a train which may proceed no faster than a man can walk. An hour was consumed in covering five miles, and not a trace of the missing freight had been discovered. Another mile—and then Allan, staring forward through the night, saw the brakeman’s lantern waving violently. “He’s found something,” he said, and the engineer nodded. The next moment, a fusee flared redly through the darkness, lighting up the brakeman—and something on the track back of him—a dim shape— “Why, it’s the train!” cried Allan. “And with its headlight out! And with no brakeman out to protect it! I don’t understand it!” And he sat with his brows knitted in thought as the train rolled slowly forward. It stopped within thirty feet of the other train, and Allan swung himself to the ground and ran forward. “What’s happened?” he asked the brakeman, who came to meet him. “Where’s the crew?” “Blamed if I know,” answered the brakeman, in an awed voice. “There’s the train, but nary a trace of her crew could I find. She’s deserted!” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XVIII THE DERELICT DRIFTING along the ocean currents of the world are scores of abandoned, water-logged ships, washed by the waves and buffeted by the winds, yet still, by some miracle, keeping afloat. Every one of them tells of some tragedy of the sea—of some supreme moment of peril, when, thinking the end at hand, the crew has taken to the boats and left their ship to its fate. And there is no peril of the deep more dreaded by mariners, for it is one that can not be foreseen nor guarded against. Lying low in the waves, heavy and water-logged, these hulks drift down upon a ship unseen in the watches of the night; there is a crash, a rush of water—and another tragedy has been enacted.