"This is serious," murmured Bart.
He rapidly covered the two hundred foot space between the express shed and the freight car.
"Colonel—Colonel Harrington!" he called in some alarm, kneeling by the prostrate body of his enemy.
Bart tried to pull him over on his back. As he partially succeeded, he noticed that the colonel's face was pitted, and in one or two places scratched and bleeding from contact with the cinder particles.
The bulky form was quivering and convulsed. The colonel had been dazed, it seemed, but not rendered entirely unconscious, for now with a groan he struggled to a sitting posture.
Bart drew out his handkerchief and tried to clean the dirt from the military man's face.
The colonel resisted, he swayed and mumbled. Then he groaned again as his eyes lit on the freight car.
"Get me away from here," he moaned—"get me away! What's happened to me?"
"That is what I was going to ask you," said Bart. "Don't you know?"
The colonel passed his hand over his face and mumbled, but made no coherent reply.