“Oh, thank God! Thank God!” he was whispering softly as he tried to lift me in his arms.
“Let me lie flat for a little while, dear. Then I’ll get up. Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m O.K. It wasn’t a regular wreck. We must have run into something. The shock threw the radiators about. The air seemed full of them, but I got off scot free. You and the tandem and the radiators were all in a scramble. I thought I should never get you out. You’re sure you are not hurt?”
“I feel rather shaken, but I believe there is nothing serious the matter. I had a rap that put me out for a few minutes, that’s all.”
“What happened?” called Dan to the conductor who approached with a lantern as I finished scrubbing the blood from my face.
“A drunken bum stalled his team on the crossing. The engine rounded the curve and was within a hundred feet before Sam saw the wagon. The good-for-nothing sot was off in front of the horses, else he would be in kingdom come. How did you come out? Did it shake you up much when Sam set the emergencies?”
“My wife had a pretty thorough pounding. The blamed radiators broke loose and piled up in the front of the car. Guess we’d better try another Pullman or clear out altogether. What do you want to do, Ethel?”
“Oh, let’s ride as far as we can. Even a freight train covers ground so quickly compared to our slow old wheel.”
“All right, but we’d better hunt another carriage.”
The conductor stood hesitating. “This radiator car is billed straight through to Frisco,” he informed us. “I picked her out for that reason. There ain’t many cars left open like she is. Don’t know how it comes she ain’t sealed shut. But if you have real good luck, you might be able to skate right through to Frisco in a week or ten days. It’ll be a pretty rough trip, but if you want to get to Cal in a hurry, it’ll beat pumping a bike.”