The ditch on the opposite side of the track, which she must
also cross to reach the line of poles, she found already full-flooded.
She decided to run up the track, between the walls of water. This would
put a ten-foot stream between her and her pursuers, and change her
course enough, she hoped, to throw them off the scent. In this design
she was partly successful, for the bay of the wolves showed that they
were going to the track as she had gone, instead of cutting straight
across toward her. Thus she gained considerable time. She reached the
little arroyo spanned by the dry bridge; it was like a mill-pond, and
the track was afloat. She ran across the bridge; she scarcely slackened
speed, although the ties rocked and moved on the spike-heads holding
them to the rails.
She hoped for a moment that the wolves would not venture to follow her
over such a way; but their hideous voices were still in her ear and came
nearer and nearer. Then there came to her, faintly, another, a strange,
metallic sound. What was it? Where was it? She ran on tiptoe a few paces
in order to hear it better; it was in the rails--the vibration of a
train in motion.
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