Widow Braun rushes upon the trestle.  Her steps are not regulated by the ties, and almost instantly she falls between them.  Her hands grasp the rails on either side; but she has not sufficient strength to support herself.  With an agonizing cry she drops twenty feet upon the jagged rocks below.  Her head strikes a rock and she lies motionless.

Several minutes pass; then she regains consciousness.  On attempting to rise she finds that her ankle is sprained.  Despite the agony it causes her, the brave woman struggles to climb back to the track.  It is now quite dark and she realizes that the train must be along in a few minutes.  She cannot reach the station.  But she may yet stop the train at the culvert bridge.

A long shrill whistle sounds.  It is the familiar signal of the Keystone Express.

Regardless of the acute pain which every step causes her, the widow scrambles over the rocks.

As she reaches the roadbed the express rumbles over the trestle.  With a cry of despair she sinks to the ground.

Sister Martha is acting her role of heroine at a point a mile and a half further up the grade.  She has posted herself where she can observe the station and the summit of the grade.

At the side of the track she collects a dozen boulders, the heaviest she can move.  These she determines to put on the track to derail the car which the miners are to send down the grade to wreck the train.

“Will the widow Braun stop the express?” Martha asks herself again and again, as the terrible minutes of suspense pass.  “Perhaps I should have gone down the track instead of sending her.”

Through the darkness a glimmer of light shines from the summit of the mountain.

“The miners are in readiness.  What shall I do?”

For an answer, the whistle of the train falls upon her ears.

She hesitates, then with an energy born of desperation she begins to pile the rocks on the track.  The ragged edges cut her tender fingers.  She works on unmindful of cuts and bruises.

Higher and higher the pyramid rises.

Only once does she glance down the track to see the train.  Its great headlight looks like a beacon.  It is approaching nearer and nearer.

“Have they started the car?” Martha wonders.  She can hear the rumble of the train, but not a sound from the road above.

“The train will reach this spot first,” she cries aloud.  “The miners are waiting for it to get nearer to them.”

Acting upon a sudden impulse, she runs up the track a distance of a hundred yards.  There are rocks lying on the side of the track nearest the mountain.

One, two, three big rocks she places on the track.

A faint cheer reaches her.

“They have started the car,” she laughs hysterically.

“It will not harm the Keystone.  No, it will stop here.”

Another and another rock is placed on the rails.