“Ten minutes to spare, anyway!” he reflected. “I’ll make a change in my clothes.”
Hurrying back to the polo-rink for this purpose, he thought over the message from Inza. There was a possibility that she might have been deceived as to the identity of the man who was with his father, but Frank knew that her eyes were keen. The chances were that she was not deceived. In that case, there could be no doubt that the elder Merriwell was in serious peril.
The thought that he might be too late made Frank wish for a special train for the scene of the wreck; but that could not be had in New London. Nor was anything to be gained by trying to hire a special engine. He decided that if he missed the wrecking-train he would try to get a special engine by wire.
When he returned to the station, having been stopped on the way by crowds of enthusiastic men who insisted on shaking hands with him over the great fight he and his men had made in the polo-game, he sent a telegram to Selton Dirk, the little New Haven detective whom he had more than once employed, asking Dirk to call on his father at the New Haven House and do what in his judgment he thought proper.
“Dirk is quick and he’ll catch on,” was Frank’s thought, as he gave this message to the operator and asked him to hurry it through. The message went through; but Frank did not know until later that Dirk was out of the city and that it could not reach him.
The whistle of the engine of the special wrecking-train was heard at this moment. Its character told him that the train was not to stop.
Frank remained close against the wall of the station until the engine whirled in sight, then walked toward it.
Five miles out from New Haven, at the scene of the wreck, Inza Burrage sat in Frank Merriwell’s automobile, with smiling confidence. She had received his message, which said he would reach that point on the first train through, and she believed he would do so, even though the men who were plowing round the wreck with spades and picks told her that the big wrecking-train, whose coming they anxiously awaited, would not stop at New London, and that her friend could not possibly come through on that.
When the train came and stopped at the wreck Inza found her faith in Merriwell justified. He was in the caboose of the wrecking-train; and, leaping down the clay embankment, he extended his hands to her, climbing at once into the automobile.