The Scarlet Plague (Illustrated)

THE way led along upon what had once been the embankment of arailroad. But no train had run upon it for many years. The forest oneither side swelled up the slopes of the embankment and crestedacross it in a green wave of trees and bushes. The trail was as narrowas a man’s body, and was no more than a wild-animal runway.Occasionally, a piece of rusty iron, showing through the forestmould,advertised that the rail and the ties still remained. In oneplace, a ten-inch tree, bursting through at a connection, had lifted theend of a rail clearly into view. The tie had evidently followed the rail,held to it by the spike long enough for its bed to be filled with graveland rotten leaves, so that now the crumbling, rotten timber thrustitself up at a curious slant. Old as the road was, it was manifest thatit had been of the mono-rail type.