“You cur!” said Frank. “That’s the kind of a man I fancied you were!”
Then he managed to reach the ax, with which he set about freeing his foot. He was forced to work carefully, in order not to injure himself, but he set the foot at liberty very soon.
All this time he had been thinking of Inza, and now he set out to find her. He called her name, crawling and forcing his way through the wrecked car toward the point where he fancied she must be.
A shrieking woman caught hold of him. He saw she, also, was held fast by broken timbers.
“Help me!” implored the woman.
Frank’s clear eyes discovered that there was a way to set her free. Out came his knife, and he quickly cut away a part of her skirt that had held her helpless. Three blows with the ax knocked aside a timber and enabled Merriwell to lift her to her feet. He told her how to find her way out.
Then he continued his search for Inza. His heart sank lower and lower with each moment. Before him seemed an impassable barrier of splintered and broken timbers. Was she beneath that mass?
The thought was enough to sicken him, but his heart did not fail. Selecting a weak point, he began his assault, and soon cleared a space through which he could force his body.
“Inza!”
Was that an answer? No, it was one of the many cries of distress coming from every side. Then the terrible conviction that she must be somewhere beneath that twisted and splintered mass fastened on him again. For once in his life, Frank seemed to lose his head. For once he was not his usual cool, calculating self.