“Why, don’t you see, Sir William, he came back to Bridget.”
Again Billy was puzzled and confused. The fact that the boys were laughing simply added to his bewilderment.
“Hi’d like to see one hof your blooming Hamerican jokes that ever had a point to it!” he shouted. “Now, hif you want to get something really funny you hought to read Punch, don’t y’ ’now.”
“I always read a copy just before attending a funeral!” said Smart. “It makes me cry! It makes me sad for a whole day!”
Some one started a song, and the boys took it up. Earl Gardner was the only fellow on the train who did not seem to be enjoying himself. Earl was still ill, and he showed it plainly.
Suddenly, without the least warning, there came a jarring sensation and a succession of crashes. The cars bumped and rocked, and then the entire train left the track and plunged down a low embankment.
It had been derailed!
CHAPTER XIX.
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.