ACROSS THE GULLY
Gordon raised himself on one aching elbow and looked dazedly about him.
Up the bank a dozen feet away lay the blue runabout on its side, one
forward wheel--or the remains of it--thrust through a broken panel of
the white fence that guarded that side of the road. A cloud of dust
still hovered above the car, proving to Gordon that the accident had
happened but the moment before. If it was not for that he could well
have imagined that he had lain huddled up in a clump of bushes halfway
down the steep bank for some time. His head was spinning wildly and he
felt horribly jarred and bruised. But a tentative effort to get to his
feet, while it was not successful because of dizziness, showed that at
least he had no limbs broken. A second effort, made when the clouds had
stopped revolving overhead like a gigantic blue-and-white pin-wheel,
brought him staggering to his feet.
Strangely enough, it was not until he stood swaying unsteadily on the
bank that he remembered Morris, or, rather, that he felt any concern for
him. Anxiously then he looked about on every side. But no Morris was to
be seen. Gordon called in a weak and shaky voice. There was no reply.
Summoning his strength, Gordon crawled slowly up the side of the
declivity, pulling himself by bushes and grass-tufts until at last he
was clinging limply to the fence rail. There he leaned for an instant
and closed his eyes. He felt very much as if he was going to faint, and
perhaps he would have had he not at that moment, just as he seemed about
to go off into a deliciously fearsome black void, heard the sound of a
low groan.
Gordon pulled himself erect, opened his eyes and tried to look about,
but the sunlight was frantically hot and glaring and the dusty road and
the helpless hulk of the overturned auto danced fantastically before
him. It was a full minute before he dared attempt to again lift his head
and look. Even then sight was uncertain. But he realized that the
groans--he heard them quite plainly now, low and monotonous--came from
the further side of the car. He squirmed through the stout rails and
stepped dizzily out into the road. Then he saw Morris.
He lay half in and half out of the car, one arm stretched from him in
the dust and the other caught between the spokes of the steering wheel.
Evidently the wheel had saved him from being thrown out as Gordon had
been, but the latter, gazing with horror at the white face that seemed
crushed against the dirt of the highway, surmised that it would have
been better for Morris had he too been hurled over the fence. The
dreadful thought that Morris was killed assailed Gordon, only to be
banished by the comforting knowledge that dead folks don't groan.
Gordon cast despairing looks up and down the road. Not a team or person
was in sight. Then he knelt by Morris and spoke to him. But only low,
unconscious moans answered him. Panic-stricken for an instant, Gordon
gazed helplessly, his wits quite deserting him. Then common-sense
whispered and he drew a deep breath of relief and seized Morris under
the shoulders. Tug as he might, though, he could not budge the limp
body. Then he saw why. Morris had evidently started to leap from the car
and had got his left leg over the side when the car struck. Now that leg
was imprisoned with the whole weight of the runabout upon it. Again
Gordon looked along the highway for assistance, but, as before, the road
stretched in either direction empty and deserted. Off toward town a
cloud of dust hovered, but whether it indicated an approaching vehicle
or a farmer's wagon moving slowly toward Clearfield there was no
knowing. Gordon set his lips firmly, striving to close his ears to
Morris' groans, and tried to think what to do. Perhaps if he could find
water he could bring Morris back to consciousness, but what use to do
that so long as the boy was pinned there under the car? No, the first
thing to do was to set him free, and Gordon strove to think of a way to
do it. He didn't believe for an instant that he was capable of lifting
that car and at the same time pulling Morris' leg from beneath it. In
fact, he doubted if he was strong enough to raise the weight of it. To
make certain, however, he tried. It did move a little, he thought, but
there was no question of raising it. Then he recalled seeing
automobilists lifting their cars with jacks to put on new tires. If
Morris had a jack----!
In a moment he was struggling with the cover over the box at the rear of
the seat. It was jammed at one corner and it took him a full minute to
wrench it open. When he finally did, however, the lifting jack was the
first thing he saw. It was a small contrivance, scarcely a foot high,
and Gordon viewed it doubtfully as he hurried with it around to the
side. Morris' leg was held down at the ankle by the edge of the
turning-board and there was barely space between the ground and the side
panel of the car in which to slip the jack. But it went in finally and
Gordon began to work the handle. There was a heartening click as the
cogs slipped into place and a cracking of frame and varnish as the car
slowly rose. Bit by bit it went and at last Gordon pulled the imprisoned
leg out. And not an instant too soon, for there was a lurch, the jack
toppled sideways and the car settled back again in the dust, a forward
wheel spinning slowly around.
Gordon turned Morris over on his back, placed a seat cushion, which had
toppled out, under his head and again viewed the road anxiously. In the
distance the dust cloud had disappeared and the road was still empty. He
groaned with disappointment and exasperation. Usually a half-dozen
vehicles would have passed in the ten minutes that had elapsed. To-day,
because Morris' life perhaps depended on getting him to a doctor, not
one appeared! Gordon again thought of water and looked around him. Only
dry hillside met his gaze on one side and only the equally dry gully
separating road from trolley track on the other. But sight of the track
gave Gordon an idea. The cars ran every quarter of an hour or so and if
he could somehow get Morris down the bank, across the wide gully and up
the slope on the other side it would be only a matter of a few minutes
to town. But the distance was a good two hundred and fifty yards, he
calculated, and Morris was no light burden. And, to increase his
difficulties, he himself was in poor shape to make the effort. There was
nothing else for it, however, and Gordon hurried to the fence and viewed
the descent. A little further along was a place where the bank had at
some time loosened and fallen in a miniature landslide and toward that
spot Gordon was presently making his way.
He tried carrying Morris in his arms, but after the first few yards he
had to give up. Instead, he took him by the wrists and dragged him as he
might have dragged a sack of potatoes. It was hard work getting him
through the fence, but easier when that obstacle was negotiated, for the
descent helped. At the bottom of the bank it was necessary to worm in
and out between bushes, while briars caught at him and tripped him as he
toiled backward toward the further side of the gully. Twice he stopped
to regain his breath and mop his streaming face. And it was while he was
taking his second rest that a buzzing, humming sound came to him from
the direction of town, a sound that grew louder even while he turned to
look. Far down the track, visible here for a half-mile, came one of the
big trolleys, swaying from side to side and eating up the rails in its
rapid flight. There was but one thing to do, and Gordon did it.
Dropping Morris' wrists, he set off at a run for the track. Once he
tripped and measured his length in the briars, but he was up again in
the instant, while, almost at hand as it seemed, the buzzing and
throbbing of the rails sounded. When he finally reached the foot of the
bank it seemed that he had not enough strength left to climb it. But
climb it he did, somehow, with toes digging into the loose gravel and
hands clutching at the infrequent tufts of grass or weeds. And when he
reached the top and the side of the track the plunging car was almost up
to him.
He knelt there on the edge of the embankment and waved his arms,
shouting at the top of his exhausted lungs. A screech from the whistle
sent its warning and then the big car was hurtling past him, the
motorman casting a puzzled, indifferent glance as he shot by and the few
passengers turning inquiring faces toward the boy crouched beside the
track. Dust enveloped him and a great despair crushed him, and he did
what was perhaps the one thing that could have stopped the car. He
crumpled up in a heap at the ends of the ties and then rolled, slowly at
first and then gaining momentum as he went, down the gravel slope into a
clump of bushes at the bottom.
The conductor, who had leaned outboard at the warning shriek of the
whistle, had seen the boy and had kept his eyes on him as the car had
gone past. "Some kid wants to get on," he explained to a passenger
beside him on the rear platform, "but there's no stop here." Then his
hand flew to the bell-cord. Boys didn't crumple up like that and go
rolling down embankments for the fun of it! With a loud grinding of
brakes the big car came shivering to a stop a hundred yards along the
track. The conductor tugged again at the cord and slowly the car crept
backward. By that time the passengers were on their feet and the
conductor was hanging over the steps. Then he had dropped and was
plunging down the embankment in a cloud of dust and a cascade of loose
gravel, the passenger on the platform following more carefully.
Gordon was already struggling to his feet when they reached him, and
somehow he made them understand that some thirty yards away lay the
unconscious form of Jonathan Brent's son. After that events were very
hazy and confused to Gordon. Kindly hands pulled and lifted him up the
embankment and into the car, where he subsided weakly on a seat. Voices
asked questions and he tried to answer them. Someone caught sight of the
overturned automobile and there was much pointing and much exclaiming.
And then three men came toiling across the ground below with Morris and
others slid and stumbled down to help them, and almost at once the big
car was pounding back the way it had come, its strident whistle
shrieking above the hum of the rails in an incessant warning and alarm!