He was close to the track, a little below the ore platform, when the runaway car came charging down the grade. Merriwell was perhaps three hundred feet below him. Far below Merriwell, lying unconscious across the rails, was Colonel Hawtrey. Lenning, his ears accustomed to the roar of the stamps, heard and distinguished the stricken, hopeless cry of the super from the platform above. And then, in a flash, the outcast nephew planned a move which might save his uncle.
“The switch!” he yelled, motioning with his hands. “The switch, Merriwell! Throw it!”
Merriwell, although frantically alive to the colonel’s danger, yet managed to keep his wits about him. Ten feet below him was a switch by which cars were sometimes placed upon a short spur track. If Merry could throw the switch before the car reached it, the car would be hurled to the siding and the colonel would be saved.
But, as Merry quickly realized, the car was coming so rapidly that the switch could not be thrown before the leaping ore carrier was past the spur. Then Merry realized something else.
Utterly oblivious of danger to himself, Jode Lenning had crouched beside the rails and then leaped recklessly at the flying car. Fortune favored him. Although cruelly buffeted by his landing on the loaded ore, Lenning gained the car and laid hands on the brake. Then, to Merriwell, Jode’s purpose became clear. Jode would put on the brakes, thus slackening the car’s speed and giving Merriwell time to throw the switch.
The next moment Merry had flung himself at the target and twisted the hand lever.
CHAPTER XLVII.
THE YELLOW STREAK GONE.
All this had happened in a very brief space of time. The many details which, combined, made the accident possible, stretched over a period of some duration, but the accident itself passed from beginning to conclusion in a few ticks of a watch.
Sick and unnerved, Merriwell leaned against the target. The screech of the ore car’s wheels rasped wildly in his ears. He had a glimpse of the runaway ore carrier sliding from the loop track to the switch, with Jode kneeling on the ore and clinging to the brake wheel.