THE OUTCOME OF THE WRECK.
Confusion and chaos followed. Dick Merriwell was hurled against the roof
of the car as it plunged over into the ditch, and, although he was
partly stunned, and lay still, when the crashing was followed by some
moments of appalling silence, his wits were not benumbed, and his mind
was actively at work. Wondering how badly he was hurt, he sought to drag
himself from beneath some of the broken timbers. This was not a very
difficult job, and, to his intense relief, he discovered that he seemed
to have no broken limbs and apparently had escaped serious injury.
Then all around him suddenly rose screams and shouts of pain and fear.
The horror of it was intense, for it seemed certain that many of that
gay party had been maimed and killed in the wreck. Dick’s second thought
was of the girls. They had been seated a short distance ahead of him on
the opposite side of the car, and now he endeavored to find them. He saw
before him a muscular youth, who had found the tools always kept for use
in such cases, and was already wielding an axe in an endeavor to cut and
smash a hole through the side of the car.
It was Buckhart. For once Brad uttered no whoop, spoke no word, but bent
every nerve to the task before him.
“Brad!” cried Dick.
“Hey, pard!” was the retort. “Thank the Lord you’re alive!”
“Doris?” was Dick’s next word. And the sturdy Texan answered:
“She must be right here somewhere, partner. Look for her while I am
making a hole to freedom.”
All around them were excited and bruised lads. Some had been cut by
broken glass or timbers, and two or three were so frantic that they
interfered with Buckhart as he swung the axe.
“Keep them back a moment, Black!” cried Dick. “Brad will open her up and
you can all get out.”
Then he continued to search for Doris.
Buckhart was not long in making an opening large enough for the boys to
crawl forth. One by one they crawled out at that point, while the Texan
turned to look for Dick amid the wreck of the smashed car.
Merriwell found the girl he sought. She had been pinned down by a seat.
In the dim light her face showed deathly pale and her eyes were closed.
His first thought was that she was dead. But even as he stooped over her
with a cry, her eyes unclosed and looked into his.
“Doris!” he exclaimed.
“Dick—oh, Dick!” was her only answer.
In a moment he was doing everything in his power to drag her free. Her
skirt was caught somewhere and seemed to hold her fast. He seized hold
of it with his hands and gave a mighty pull that ripped her free. Then
swiftly, yet with strange gentleness, under such circumstances, he drew
her from beneath the seat and lifted her in his arms.
“Doris, are you badly hurt?”
“I don’t know, Dick. I think I fainted.”
He asked no further questions, for at that moment he found Brad Buckhart
with Zona Desmond near at hand. The Texan aided Zona over the débris and
enabled her to creep out by the opening he had made. He followed and
assisted Doris, Dick coming last.
When they were outside a scene of terrible confusion met their gaze. All
around them were excited boys and appalled men and women. A few
cool-headed ones were working steadily to rescue from the wreck those
who still remained in it. At a little distance lay several who had been
injured.
From the overturned engine a cloud of steam and smoke arose. The express
and baggage car were piled on top of the locomotive.
As he gazed on the spectacle, Dick found himself wondering that so many
had escaped. He thought of his friends, and near at hand he saw Chip
Jolliby with a bloody cheek, yet apparently otherwise unharmed.
Dave Flint had a blood-stained handkerchief tied about his wrist, while
Obediah Tubbs sat on the ground and tenderly clung to his fat stomach,
complaining that some “dern fool” had kicked all the wind out of him.
Doris clung to Dick.
“Isn’t it awful?” she shuddered.
“Who is missing?” was Merriwell’s question.
“Hi believe almost everybody got out, don’t y’ ’now,” answered the
familiar voice of Billy Bradley.
“Hal!” exclaimed Doris—"where is Hal?"
“Has anybody seen Hal?” Dick demanded.
No one had seen him.
“Great tarantulas!” burst from Buckhart. “I opine he must be in there
now, pard!”
Even as the Texan uttered these words, Dick thrust Doris Templeton upon
him and plunged back into the wreck, though the express car was afire
and the flames were spreading rapidly.
“I’m with yer, partner!” shouted the Texan; but Dick paused long enough
to order him to remain and look after the girls.
To those waiting Merriwell’s reappearance every minute seemed an hour.
When he could stand it no longer, Brad surrendered the girls into other
hands and started to crawl back into the car. He had not entirely
disappeared from the view of those outside before he found Dick, who was
assisting Hal to get out. Darrell had been shocked senseless, and there
was a bad scalp wound on his head, from which blood trickled down one
side of his face.
“There you are, pard!” exultantly cried Buckhart. “Let me give you a
lift.”
“Clear the way!” answered Dick. “You can help us move. We’re all right,
aren’t we, Darrell?”
“Yes, yes,” muttered Hal thickly. “Where is Doris?”
“She’s all right. I took good care to look after her. She’s outside.”
“Hurt?”
“I don’t think she is hurt a bit.”
“Thank God!” said Hal.
When Doris saw him, as he crept forth with his face blood-stained, she
uttered a scream and hastened to him.
“Hal! Hal!”
He looked at her and smiled.
“Well, you are all right!” he exclaimed thankfully. “Dick told me the
truth.”
“But you—you?”
“Oh, it’s nothing but a scratch. Don’t worry about me.”
“I am so glad, Hal—so glad!” she sobbed joyfully. “Isn’t it just
marvelous we escaped?”
“It’s a wonder every one on the train wasn’t killed.”
It was, indeed, a wonder. Still, among them all, the fireman was the
only one who lost his life. The engineer escaped with scarcely a
scratch. The expressman had a broken leg, and others were injured, yet
none very seriously. The marvelous escape of so many from such a
terrible disaster caused no end of newspaper comment and wonderment.
There was plenty of excitement at Fardale when news of the catastrophe
reached that place. A special train had been made up and sent to the
relief of the victims, and this train took the Fardale passengers back
to town some three hours behind time.
As it drew up at the station, those on board looked out on a vast crowd
packed on the platform and banked back beyond it, until swallowed by the
darkness. It seemed that, besides the academy boys, every man, woman,
and child in the village was there.
When the train stopped Dick Merriwell was almost the first person to
appear on the platform of the car. At sight of him a wild roar of joy
went up from the cadets. The lights fell on their upturned faces, and he
saw them fling their hands into the air as they hoarsely shouted his
name. It gave him an indescribable thrill.
“There he is, boys!” howled one of the cadets, with a powerful voice.
“There’s Dick Merriwell! He’s all right!”
“Merriwell! Merriwell! Merriwell!” they shrieked.
Dick lifted his hand, and in a few moments their shouting died away.
“Fellows,” he cried, in that clear, musical voice of his, “it gives me
unspeakable happiness to inform you that we are all all right. Not one
of our party was seriously injured.”
This set them wild again, and they cheered each person who emerged from
the car. As the fortunate ones descended the steps to the platform they
were seized and hugged, one after another. Some of those excited boys
actually shed tears. It seemed that their emotions must quite exhaust
them when Hal Darrell made his appearance, a blood-stained handkerchief
about his head and Doris clinging to his arm. The yell that went up then
was even louder than anything yet.
Somehow, in a slight lull, Ted Smart made his shrill voice heard.
“There’s our mascot!” he shrieked. “She gave us luck! ’Rah for Doris
Templeton, the mascot of Fardale! All ready!” he cried, dragging himself
up the car steps and lifting his arms. “All together now!”
For the first time the cadets cheered in unison, guided by Ted’s jerking
arms.
“’Rah! ’rah! ’rah! ’Rah! ’rah! ’rah! ’Rah! ’rah! ’rah! Doris Templeton!
Doris Templeton! Doris Templeton!”
Then Zona was seen, and they cheered for her.
Mrs. Arlington and June had been sitting in a carriage close to the
platform, with a great crowd packed around them. The face of the woman
was pale and anxious, but it brightened as she saw her son, apparently
unscathed, descend from the train.
Without pausing to say anything to her mother, June left the carriage,
and the boys made a passage for her so that she reached her brother.
“Chester, you’re not hurt?”
“Not a bit, sis,” he answered.
“Then go quickly to mother. She is in the carriage there, and she is
almost distracted.”
Leaving him, June turned and flung her arms about Doris.
“Oh, I’m so glad!” she panted. “Even after the message came that no one
from Fardale had been seriously injured we were in doubt, and almost
died from anxiety. Weren’t you hurt a bit, Doris?”
“I think my side was bruised a little, that’s all.”
“And Zona?”
“She says she was not hurt.”
“Come, both of you—come to the carriage.”
Mrs. Arlington was urging Chester to get into the carriage.
“My poor boy!” she said, her hands trembling. “It was a terrible shock
to me when I heard about that wreck. But it didn’t seem right that my
boy could be killed if any one else escaped. Get in, Chester.”
“Oh, say, mom, don’t drag me off in this old turnout! I want to stay
with the gang. They will march back to the academy, and I want to march
with them.”
“You have changed so! You are so different, Chester! Why, you even seem
to enjoy the company of these common boys!”
“That’s all right, mom. After a narrow squeak like this there is bound
to be things doing, and I propose to keep with the push.”
By this time June, with Doris and Zona, returned to the carriage.
“What are you doing, child?” asked Mrs. Arlington grimly. “Have you
completely forgotten your brother?”
“Not by any means, mother. I found he was unhurt, and then I thought of
some one else. I wish to take my friends home with me.”
“That’s the talk!” exclaimed Chet. “Get right in, girls! Take them right
along, mom!”
Mrs. Arlington said nothing more, and Chester almost lifted each one of
the girls into the carriage. They lingered a few moments to witness the
joyous demonstration on the platform and listen to the cheering of the
cadets.
“If we’d known you were all in such good shape,” said Anson Day, “we
would have brought the band.”
At length, when the confusion had subsided somewhat, the cadets formed
near the station, with the ball players at the head of the procession,
and away they marched, followed by the immense crowd. One of the leaders
struck up “Fair Fardale,” and every boy in the ranks took up the song.
Singing thus, and followed by the laughing villagers, scores of whom
found their eyes dimmed with blurring mists, the boys paraded the main
street of the village and finally turned toward the academy.