The track at the head of the mill formed a loop. Thus the empty cars, when released, rolled down the hill and back to the main track before their momentum was lost.
This morning, in some mysterious manner, a loaded car broke away and started down the incline. The brakes on the car had not been set—which was an infringement of the rules—and the teamster who had left the car in position for unloading had been content merely to block the wheels.
Fate worked out many little details in bringing about the near tragedy that morning, and this matter of the runaway car was but one of them. The colonel, just as the car broke loose and began slipping slowly down the steep grade, was driving across the rails, far below, planning to come up the slope to the mill by the wagon road.
In some manner a forward wheel caught in one of the rails. Blixen, impatient of the sudden and unexpected pull on the traces, stopped and began to back. A shout from somewhere, booming clearly above the roar of the stamps, apprised the colonel of his danger from the ore car.
Snatching the whip from its socket, he struck Blixen sharply. The horse plunged ahead, breaking away from the carriage. The colonel, by the pull on the lines, was dragged over the dashboard and flung across the tracks. His limp hand released the reins, and Blixen raced on among the buildings and ore dumps of the camp.
But the colonel, stunned by his rough contact with the iron rail, lay unconscious across the track. He was in deadly peril. There was no one near enough to drag him out of his dangerous predicament, and the heavy ore car was plunging toward him at frightful speed.
Burke, coming suddenly out upon the ore platform at the head of the mill, gasped as he stared downward and took in the tragic scene. The next moment, he groaned and staggered back.
“Nothing can save him!” he cried huskily. “The runaway car will grind him to pieces!”
But the superintendent was wrong in his conclusions. At the very moment the car broke from its moorings, Merriwell was standing beside the track, halfway down the hill. He was waiting for Lenning to climb to his side from the laboratory building.
Lenning, having seen Burke come to the ore platform, changed his course. Instead of making straight toward Merriwell, who was part way down the hillside, he started for the crest of the hill at the place where Burke had appeared.