“I’m glad enough to get out of the nasty scrape without any skull-cracking. You must remember that we are looked upon as hoboes, and hoboes have no rights. I do wish the men would hurry with that car.”
As though in answer to my thought, a box car rolled gently down the track and came to a stop not ten feet from where we waited.
“Good shot,” said Dan as we slid back the side door, which was ajar.
A long look around and I scrambled in, while Dan hoisted up the wheel and quickly followed. The bottom of the car was packed solid with radiators, which were piled almost to the top in the rear end, each tier held in place by heavy braces. We stacked the tandem in a convenient corner and crouched in silence on the crates.
Soon there came a clinking rumble, there was a slight jar, and our car moved up the line to take its place in the outgoing train.
An hour or more passed while the train roared on. Dan sat by the door, while I, lulled by the clank of wheels and the panting breath of the engine that was whirling us homeward, leaned against the radiator braces in the centre of the car and lost myself in dreams.
Came a shriek of the whistle, a grinding crash, and the floor of the car seemed to buckle under me while something dealt me a terrific blow between the shoulders, lifting me clear into the air and flinging me headlong against the front timbers.
Consciousness struggled back from the void of nothingness and I heard Dan’s agonised voice in my ear.
“My God, Ethel, speak to me. Are you hurt? Oh, she doesn’t answer! She can’t be dead! Ethel! Ethel!”
As he dragged my limp body toward the door a flaming torture seared my lungs, my mouth filled with a hot, brackish fluid. “Wait,” I gasped, half strangled. “Let me rest a moment. I’ll be all right in a minute.” He must not know my plight. I turned my head away as his groping fingers caressed my hair, thankful for the thick darkness as I freed my mouth of blood.