As carefully as they could, Frank and the super lifted Lenning between them and bore him away to the long, low building where the miners and mill men had their sleeping quarters.
They had hardly laid Lenning down on his cot, before Colonel Hawtrey, his face ashen, pushed into the bunk house and up to the side of the unconscious boy. The colonel’s clothing was torn and his hat was gone, but he was giving no thought to himself.
For a moment he stared into the haggard, bleeding face of his nephew; then he turned to Frank and the superintendent.
“Tell me about this,” he said, in a queer, dry voice. “I missed some of the details. The ore car broke loose, I remember that; then I tried to get out of the way, and one of the front wheels of my carriage became locked in the track; I struck Blixen with the whip, and the singletree broke, and I was jerked over the dashboard. When I came to myself, the ore car, with Jode aboard, was pitching off the end of the spur tracks. Fill in the gaps for me, please.”
“Jode yelled to me,” said Frank, “to run and throw the switch. At the same time Jode jumped aboard the car as it rushed past him. If he hadn’t put on the brakes, the car would have got by the switch before I could have thrown it. That’s all, colonel. Jode tipped off the end of the spur with the car and the ore.”
The colonel moistened his dry lips with his tongue.
“Is—is he dead?” he asked, in a low voice.
“No,” replied Burke.
“Send for a doctor and do everything possible to save him.”
“We have sent for a doctor, colonel, and I don’t think there’ll be any trouble about saving him. He was in splendid physical condition to stand such a shock. But if the car had fallen on him, or the ore—well, there’d have been another story to tell.”