"What did you burn?" queries Mr. Chauncey, anxiously.
"Oh, nothin' to speak of—brushwood and such truck," returns the uncommunicative Lot. "But here's the dining-table, Sonny!"
Then the party being seated, notwithstanding Mr. Kruger's efforts at conversation and the delights of gastronomy, Miss Travenion's eyes will wander about, seeking an athletic figure that she sees not; for somehow she misses the man of yesterday, and despises herself for it.
Towards the close of their meal there is a slight commotion outside, and the man taking the money at the door as the wayfarers pass out, deserts his post. Ferdie, who is so seated that he can look through the open windows, suddenly says, "It's some accident;" next cries, "It's Buck Powers!" and rushes from the room.
A moment after Erma finds herself outside among an excited crowd, gazing at Captain Lawrence striding along the platform, bearing in his arms the form of Buck, the news-agent.
"The boy was coupling the cars, and forgot till too late they had Miller platforms that come together," says the captain, mentioning a kind of accident very common on the first introduction of this life-saving invention, which until railroad men got accustomed to it, was a source of danger instead of safety, as it now is. Then he goes on quite tenderly, "But I got there in time, didn't I, Buck?"
And the news-boy opens his red eyes and gasps, "You bet you did, pard," and there is a little cheer from the crowd, over which Lawrence's voice is heard: "Get a doctor, quick!"
Then a looker-on says, "Take him to the hotel."
But Buck groans, "Keep me on the train, or they will steal all my stock of goods and I'll be busted," and some one suggests the baggage car.
To this Lawrence quietly says, "No, I'll put him in my section," but on arriving there with the boy in his arms, he finds Erma standing beside him, and whispering, "My stateroom, please. It's quieter in there."