"I believe this is the man that wrecked the train," said the engineer.
"It's a base lie!" exclaimed the train-wrecker, growing pale, as he saw his crime brought home to him. "You are all in a conspiracy against me."
As two other passengers came up, the engineer asked:
"Is there any one here that remembers seeing this man?"
"I do," said a plain, farmer-looking man, who had just come up.
"You were not on the train yourself," said the conductor, suspiciously, thinking it was one of the wrecker's confederates.
"Of course I wasn't," was the prompt reply. "I was forty rods away, in yonder field. I saw this man placing the rails on the track, just before the train came along; and surmising mischief, I hurried to the road to see if I could signal the train and save it. But I came too late. The scoundrel had done his work."
The brawny engineer, at this confirmation of his suspicions, shook the hapless wrecker as if he would shake him to pieces, and was about to order him bound, when a shot from some unknown quarter penetrated the forehead of the villain, and with a half-uttered cry he fell to the earth.
Who fired the fatal shot was never discovered, but only two rods away stood a tall man, rough in aspect, who looked like a Western hunter. He stood motionless and impassive, but it was generally supposed that it was he who dealt swift retribution to the fiend whose success only brought him death. It was felt that his fate was deserved, and no troublesome inquiries were made. No one could pity the wretch who died amid the ruin he had wrought.