down at the south end paced the fur-clad sentry.  There it was an easy step from the track to the boards, and there, with much laughter but no difficulty, the young officers had lifted their fair charges to the walk.  All were chatting gayly as they turned away to take the wooden causeway from the station to the stairs, and Miss Renwick was among the foremost at the point where it left the platform.  Here, however, she glanced back and then about her, and then, bending down, began fumbling at the buttons of her boot.

“Oh, permit me, Miss Renwick,” said her eager escort.  “I will button it.”

“Thanks, no.  Please don’t wait, good people.  I’ll be with you in an instant.”

And so the other girls, absorbed in talk with their respective gallants, passed her by, and then Alice Renwick again stood erect and looked anxiously but quickly back.

“Captain Armitage is not in sight, and we ought not to leave him.  He may not find it easy to climb to that platform,” she said.

“Armitage?  Oh, he’ll come on all right,” answered the batteryman, with easy assurance.  “Maybe he has gone round by the road.  Even if he hasn’t, I’ve seen him make that in one jump many a time.  He’s an active old buffer for his years.”

“But his wound may prove too much for that jump now.  Ah there he comes,” she answered, with evident relief; and just at the moment, too, the forage-cap of the tall soldier rose slowly into view some distance up the track, and he came walking slowly down on the sharp curve towards the platform, the same sharp curve continuing on out of sight behind him,—­behind the high and rocky bluff.

“He’s taken the long way up,” said the gunner.  “Well, shall we go on?”

“Not yet,” she said, with eyes that were glowing strangely and a voice that trembled.  Her cheeks, too, were paling.  “Mr. Stuart, I’m sure I heard the roar of a train echoed back from the other side.”

“Nonsense, Miss Renwick!  There’s no train either way for two hours yet.”

But she had begun to edge her way back toward the platform, and he could not but follow.  Looking across the intervening space,—­a rocky hollow twenty feet in depth,—­he could see that the captain had reached the platform and was seeking for a good place to step up; then that he lifted his right foot and placed it on the planking and with his cane and the stiff and wounded left leg strove to push himself on.  Had there been a hand to help him, all would have been easy enough; but there was none, and the plan would not work.  Absorbed in his efforts, he could not see Stuart; he did not see that Miss Renwick had left her companions and was retracing her steps to get back to the platform.  He heard a sudden dull roar from the rocks across the stream; then a sharp, shrill whistle just around the bluff.  My God! a train, and that man there, alone, helpless, deserted!  Stuart gave a shout of agony:  “Back!  Roll back over the