CHAPTER XX
SCOUTS TO THE RESCUE
YOU may have heard of that wreck, for the papers printed a lot about it at the time.
After the first crash, there was not a sound. I don't know how long we stood there, paralyzed with horror, staring at the place where the train had been. Then we heard a shriek of fear, or pain, we couldn't tell which, and it was a girl's voice.
That shriek brought us to our senses.
"Scouts to the rescue!"
Skinny shouted at the top of his voice, hoping that Mr. Norton and the others would hear, and we started on a run.
Before we had gone halfway Skinny turned to Benny.
"Run back to the camp," said he. "Get the bandages and other first-aid things."
"And bring my rope and hatchet," he called, over his shoulder.
The awful stillness after that first shriek sent us on faster than ever, while something seemed to clutch at our throats so that we hardly could breathe.
Bill got there first, but we were not far behind. When we had come close we could see the train, lying on the stones in the river bed. The engine had turned bottom side up and lay there on its back with its wheels in air. The passenger car was on its side and was so badly smashed that it didn't look like a car at all.
"We've got to have help and have it quick," said Skinny, looking almost pale. "Who'll go to Hoosac Tunnel station for help? Hank, you go, and run like Sam Hill."
Hank was off like a deer before the words were out of his mouth, running toward the station, nearly two miles away.
"Mary!" called Skinny. "Mary! Where are you?"
"Here," we heard a faint voice say. And, climbing down, we found her, wedged in between some timbers so that she could not move.
"Are you hurt?" we asked, as we commenced to pry her loose.
"A little," she told us, beginning to cry. "I don't know how much, but I'm all right for now. Find mamma. I don't know where she is."
After a little search we found her, nearly covered with timbers and bleeding from a cut in her head.
"She's dead," I whispered, while an awful feeling came over me. Her eyes were closed and she didn't move, even after we had lifted the timbers away.
We dragged her out as gently as we could and laid her on a couple of car seats which we took from the train. I sprinkled some water in her face and pretty soon she opened her eyes.
She stared around for a second or two, trying to understand where she was. Then she saw Skinny and seemed to remember.
"Mary!" said she. "Have you seen Mary? Oh, save my little girl!"
"Mary's all right," Skinny told her. "We haven't got her out yet, but we know just where she is. She sent us to find you."
"Thank God!" she whispered, and then she fainted again.
We left her there, lying among the stones on the river bottom, with her dress floating in the water.
"I wish Mr. Norton was here," groaned Skinny. "I don't know what to do. Here comes Benny with the things."
There wasn't any time to talk. We hurried back to where we could see Mary's head sticking out of the wreck. She had her eyes closed, and I thought she had fainted, but she heard us come up and opened them.
"We've got your mother out," Skinny said. "Now we'll get you out."
Her eyes asked the question which her lips couldn't seem to do.
"Yes, she's alive," we told her. "She's got an ugly cut on her head, but she seems all right except that."
It was all we could do to get her out, the timbers were so heavy and so wedged in. They had fallen across each other and made sort of a roof over her. If it hadn't been for that she would have been killed. By all pulling on the rope and cutting some with the hatchet, we finally managed to get her loose.
When we started to lift her out she screamed with pain. We kept on lifting. There was no other way.
"It's my foot," she moaned. "It feels as if it was all broken to pieces."
Two of us made a chair with our hands and carried her carefully up on the river bank; then hurried back to the wreck.
"There is a man groaning somewhere," said Bill. "I think it must be the conductor."
We found him lying under some wreckage and in great pain.
"Where are you hurt?" we asked, when we had lifted the wreck off from him.
"My leg!" he groaned. "It's broken. I'm all in."
I took out my knife and ripped his trouser leg and underclothes to above the spot that hurt him, a little above the knee. Then, by putting one hand above the break and the other below it, just as Mr. Norton had made us practise doing a lot of times, and lifting very gently I could see the broken bone move. He ground his teeth together and great drops of sweat came out on his forehead, it hurt him so much, although I was trying to be careful.
"It's broken, all right," I told him. "We've sent for help. The only thing to do is to lie still and wait."
We straightened him out and piled some coats and things, which we found in the wreck, around his leg, to make him as comfortable as we could.
"How many are there?" I asked.
"I only had two passengers, a woman and a little girl. They got on at Readsboro. Then there was the engineer, fireman, and brakeman, besides myself. We run only a small crew on this train."
The brakeman came up while he was speaking. He had been stunned at first and when he came to had managed to crawl out.
"Have you seen Jim or George?" he asked.
"Do you boys know anything about the engineer and fireman?"
We hadn't thought of them before. We had been too busy.
"Then they are under the engine," said he.
He ran through the river to the head of the train, we after him, almost crazy with the thought of those men at the bottom of that awful heap of iron and steel. We pulled and lifted at the great pieces, but we might just as well have tried to move the mountain.
"We can't do it, boys," the brakeman said, at last. "We'll have to wait for help. There isn't one chance in a hundred that they are alive, but they may be. Somebody will have to run to the station and make sure that they bring some jacks. I am 'most done up and don't feel equal to it. Which one of you will go? Only one, now; the others will be needed here."
"I'll go," said Benny. "I'm the littlest one in the bunch and can be spared the easiest. What was that you said you wanted?"
"Jacks; to jack up the engine frame with. There are several in the baggage room. I saw them there."
Benny hated to leave, when there was so much going on, but before the brakeman had finished speaking he was climbing up on the river bank. In another second he had started down the track on a run.
"Now, fellers," Skinny told us, trying to keep his teeth from chattering, he was so excited, "our Scout book says for us to keep cool and we've got to do it. While we are waiting for help the thing for us to do is to be Scouts and to get busy with our bandages."
"And make some stretchers," added Bill. "We can't use our coats and hike sticks, like the book says, because we didn't bring 'em."
"That's easy. We can use car seats."
The "first-aid kits," which Benny had brought from camp, had everything that we needed. That was what they were put up for, only we didn't think we should need them. There were shears and tweezers, carbolized vaseline, sterilized dressings for wounds, to keep the germs out, all kinds of bandages and things like that. Say, we looked like a drug store when we had fairly started.
Skinny cut away the shoe from Mary's foot and Bill brought cold water from a nearby spring, to bathe it in. The foot was bruised and the ankle sprained, but no bones were broken. Soon they had her feeling better.
I went to help Mrs. Richmond, but all the time I was thinking of the men under the engine. She was sitting up on the car seat, trying to keep her feet out of the water.
"Are you hurt anywhere else, except your head?" I asked.
"No," she said. "I have had a bad shock and my head is cut, but I can move all my limbs; so I guess there are no broken bones."
Her head looked worse than it was, with a gash cut in it and her hair matted down with blood.
"I don't dare bathe the cut," I told her, "because the water may be full of germs, and besides I haven't anything to bathe it with. The book says to be careful about that."
"What does the book say about my washing my face?" said she, and she didn't wait for an answer.
It didn't take long to put on a sterilized dressing and bandage her up in good shape. Then, with Skinny on one side and I on the other, she managed to walk to a low place on the river bank, where Mary was waiting, and climb up.
Mrs. Richmond said so much about how we had saved her and her little girl, it made us feel foolish.
"That ain't anything," Skinny told her. "That's what Scouts are for."
"It may be a long time before a doctor gets here," I said, after a little. "He will have to come from North Adams or Readsboro. And that conductor is getting worse every minute. If you will help me, Skinny, I'll try to put splints on his leg."
You see, I had practised with the splints more than some of the boys had. They were all for saving folks from drowning.
We first found two pieces of board. There were plenty of them scattered around, on account of the wreck. We put one piece, which was long enough to reach from his armpit to below his foot, on the outside of the leg. The other we put on the inside. It didn't have to be so long, but reached well below the knee. Then, making sure the broken bones were in place, we tied the splints on with strips from Skinny's shirt, first putting a cushion of leaves between the boards and the leg. After that we tore up Bill's shirt and tied the broken leg to the good one with three or four strips of that.
"Do you suppose that we can get him up on the river bank?" asked Skinny, when we had him all fixed.
"We must," a quiet voice answered.
Turning, we saw Mr. Norton, who had come up so still that we had not heard him.
"Oh, Mr. Norton!" cried Skinny. "We are so glad you have come. It is an awful wreck and nobody to do anything at first but us, and we didn't know what to do. I think the engineer and fireman were killed. The brakeman is over there, trying to get them out."
"You seem to have done remarkably well for boys who didn't know what to do. I want two poles from the woods, Gabriel. Quick! William, you go with him. John will help me here."
Skinny grabbed his hatchet, and before we had time to miss them the boys were back again with two long poles. While they were away Mr. Norton and I pulled two car seats out of the wreck and were ready to make a stretcher. By laying the seats end to end on the poles and tying them fast with Skinny's rope, we had a good one and not bad to ride on, because of the springs.
Then Mr. Norton and the brakeman, with us boys helping all we could, lifted the conductor very carefully and laid him on the stretcher. To lift it by the ends of the poles and carry it up to the river bank was the easiest part of all.
By that time, Hank and Benny had come back with two or three men from Hoosac Tunnel station, and they went to work with jacks to get the engineer and fireman out.
"A special train is coming from Readsboro," Hank told us. "It's bringing some doctors and the wrecker."
"Do you feel able to continue your journey, Mrs. Richmond?" Mr. Norton asked. "We could manage to carry the little girl as far as the station and there is a train due from North Adams in about an hour. Or would you rather wait for the special and go back?"
"I think we'd better go back to Readsboro," she said. "We have friends there and I don't feel much like walking."
We didn't have long to wait, for the train soon came puffing down the valley. Two doctors jumped off before it had time to stop and hurried over to where we were standing. They were surprised some, when they saw the people all bandaged up.
"Who did this?" asked one of them, standing over the conductor. "I thought there were no surgeons here. Did you succeed in getting somebody from North Adams?"
"These boys," Mr. Norton told him. "They are Boy Scouts and have been in training some time for this very job."
The doctor gave a little whistle.
"Good thing for him," he said, "that they were around. I couldn't have done it much better, myself."
We felt proud when he said that, and I could tell by the way Mr. Norton smiled at us that he was feeling pretty good over it.
All the same, the doctor bandaged him over again, to make sure that everything was all right. When he had finished, the hurt ones were put on board the train and made as comfortable as possible. We heard some cheering over by the wreck and hurried back to find out what had happened.
"They are alive," a man explained. "We've jacked her up a little, and the engineer just spoke to us. He says that the fireman is alive, too."
It made us feel better to know that they were alive, and the men worked like sixty to get them out. By that time the wrecking crew had the big crane ready. After that it was easy. It didn't take long to swing the heavy frame clear of the ground and to one side.
The two men were found somewhere in the mass, badly hurt but alive, which was more than we could understand.
They were lifted out as carefully as possible and carried to the car.
"Good-by, boys!" called Mary out of the window.
"Good-by! God bless you, dear children!" said Mrs. Richmond.
"Good-by,—good-by," yelled the brakeman.
The doctors were too busy to say good-by to anybody. We watched the train steam up through the valley; then Mr. Norton took each one of us by the hand, and he squeezed hard.
We heard afterward that both men got well, although many weeks passed before they were able to work again.
We started for home, bright and early the next morning, taking all day for the climb over the mountain and camping that night among the foothills on the west side. It was only six or seven miles from there home, and we were so tough and hard that it didn't seem far.
"We can do it in two hours, easy," said Skinny.
We were beginning to be in a hurry to see our folks and the cave, after being away so long.
"Let's get home in time for breakfast," I said. "What do you say?"
"And go without eatin' until we get there? Not much!"
"We can have an early breakfast," Mr. Norton told us, "and start as soon as we can see; say, about four o'clock. We ought to be able to make it by seven, easily, and I feel sure that we shall be able to eat again, after our walk. I'd like to get home early, myself. It is time that I was going back to work after my vacation."
That is what we did, and we surprised everybody. They had not been expecting us before afternoon.
After that we didn't see anything of Mr. Norton for several days. Then he asked us to meet him at a campfire on Bob's Hill, Saturday evening.
"I have spoken to your parents," he told us, "and they have arranged for a picnic in Plunkett's woods, Saturday afternoon. We will eat supper together on the grass, at the edge of the woods, and afterward have a campfire at the old stone. I think that we owe it to your people to make a sort of official report of what we did on our trip; that will be a good time to do it."
That was some picnic, all right, and it was great fun, sitting there, talking and eating; then playing Indian in the woods, surrounding the palefaces, and all that. But, best of all, was the campfire, after the sun had gone down and the moon lighted up the hills and made old Greylock loom up big and shadowy. Of course, we had told our folks all about everything but they wanted to hear more, and we had to tell it all over again.
Finally Pa spoke up. "We have heard a great deal from the Scouts," he said, "and we have enjoyed it all. Now, we'd like to hear from the Scoutmaster, how the boys behaved. But first I want to tell him how grateful we all feel for what he is doing for these youngsters."
"I am enjoying it as much as they are," said Mr. Norton, looking fine as he stood there, with the moonlight on his face. "In fact, I think that I am getting more out of it than they are. I asked you fathers and mothers to meet me here to-night because I wanted to tell you how proud I am of these Bob's Hill boys, the Boy Scouts of Raven Patrol. I understand that in their cave at Peck's Falls they have a motto hanging, which says that 'The Boys of Bob's Hill are going to make good.' They have made good, Mr. Smith, every one of them."
He hesitated a moment; then went on:
"I have made official application for Honor Medals for the part they took in saving human life at that unfortunate train wreck, and I hope the National Court of Honor will award them. But I, myself, have wanted to do something personally to show the boys how much I have enjoyed their companionship and what I think of their conduct—all of them, not only those who happened to be on hand at the time of the wreck. So I have had this banner made to hang under the other one, in the cave, or wherever their place of meeting may be."
He pulled out a fine silk banner from his pocket, as he spoke, and shook it out until it hung full length in the moonlight, and, looking, we saw in one corner a black raven and "Patrol 1, Troop 3 Mass."; then, in large, gold letters, the Scout motto:
"BE PREPARED."
How we did cheer! And our folks cheered louder than anybody.
"Guess what!" said Benny, after all was still again. "When we grow up, we are going to try and be like Mr. Norton, our Scoutmaster."
"Bet your life we are!" shouted Skinny, springing to his feet and waving the banner.
Then he stopped and stood there, looking at us, with his arms folded.
"I have spoken," said he. "Let be what is."
THE END