The train was a through one, not scheduled to stop at Cresville, and there had been comparatively few passengers aboard.
The rescuers were already at work. Several bodies had been carried from the wreck, and placed on beds made from the car seats. One or two silent forms, under shawls and blankets, told, better than words, that death had come swiftly to the unfortunates.
There were several badly injured, and it was to them that the physicians gave prompt attention. The majority of the hurt were women and children, though there were some men. Only the fact that travel was light, just preceding the annual vacation rush, prevented a terrible loss of life.
At first the boys did not know what to do to assist, though they felt they should help, as far as possible. They stood in the front of the crowd, which the railroad men were endeavoring to keep back, and looked on, their hearts palpitating with the terrible sights they witnessed. As they stood there Dr. Bounce, who had just finished bandaging up a man’s leg, came past. He knew the three boys, and, as he saw them, he called:
“Here, Jerry, you and your friends come in here and help me, will you? I’ve got my hands full. One of you carry my medicine case, and the others rummage around and get all the cloth you can for bandages. Tear up the sheets in the sleeper. That is the last car and didn’t smash up as badly as the others.”
Anxious to take part in the work, and glad to be called on by Dr. Bounce, the boys slipped through the cordon of railroad men, who, at a nod from the physician, let them pass, and followed the doctor.
Jerry took the medical man’s valise, containing its grim instruments and also the healing remedies, and the merciful chloroform to relieve pain. Ned and Bob found their way to the wrecked sleeper. No one was in it, and they got an axe and broke open some of the berths, which were jammed shut. They took out pillows, sheets and blankets, which willing hands soon distributed among the wounded.
The two boys tore the sheets into long strips that Dr. Bounce and the other physicians used to bind up the cuts and bruises of the wounded. As fast as the passengers were taken from the wreck they were put on improvised stretchers and carried out of the dark and gloomy gorge to the level land beyond, where the doctors could work over them.
Jerry was kept busy attending on Dr. Bounce, handing him this instrument or that, and pouring out the medicines under the physician’s directions.