The train had pulled out of Sinclair, and was making her usual time through the eastern section of the Pass, when passengers were suddenly thrown from their seats by a terrific jolt. Lamp glasses crashed to the aisle, and baggage was dislodged from the racks. Charlie pulled himself to his feet almost instantaneously, despite the knocks he had received. The lamps were flickering and smoking, but fortunately there appeared no danger of fire. The brakeman, hatless and with a bleeding face, came rushing through the cars seeking to allay the fears. "Stay in the cars, please—there's no danger of fire. You're better here than outside. Doctors will be here soon."
Bill had not escaped serious injury. He found it impossible to rise, and as tenderly as he knew how, Charlie pillowed his head and stooped beside him as he lay in the aisle. "I'm feared I'm pretty badly hurted, pardner," groaned Bill. "There was something kind o' crushed inside. Guess I'll just lie here for a bit."
The engine had plunged through an undermined piece of track, and engineer and fireman were terribly cut and scalded, while the baggage-man had been pinned beneath some heavy trunks that had shot forward and downward when the engine crashed into the washout.
"It's the hospital for you, my man," said the doctor kindly, after a hurried examination of Bill's injuries. "We'll make you as comfortable as we can before the 'special' pulls out, but you need a little attention that you can't get in the camp even if you were able to stand the journey."
Charlie got permission to accompany his pal, and for Bill's sake he kept a brave heart, although the events of the past twenty-four hours robbed him of the lightheartedness that had been his in anticipation of the home-going.
Two days later Charlie decided to continue his journey eastward. The doctors were still anxious about Bill, but there was nothing Charlie could do, and he knew the old mother was waiting for her boy.
It was a touching farewell as the sick man's hand was clasped. A score of times Charlie had expressed his sorrow that he had ever let Bill accompany him, and yet each time in his own way he thanked Bill for standing by him when he was "near bowled out."
Bill tried to say that he was glad Charlie was going home, but his tone and look revealed his sense of loss and loneliness at the prospect of his pal's departure, and Charlie's eyes needed a good deal of attention, which they received surreptitiously.
Motioning for Charlie to come nearer, the sick man whispered: "You're a brick, old pard, to stay by me this long. I guess she's getting anxious for yer. Say, Charlie, when yer away down there I'll be kind er lonely; how would it be if yer made a bit of a prayer once in a while for me?" Then with a last pressure on the still clasped hand, he added, "Good-bye, old pal, God bless yer; maybe we'll hit the trail together again some day, but say, Charlie!" (the voice was throbbing with emotion, and the eyes reflected well-nigh a mother's tenderness)—"say, Charlie! we'll stay by it, won't we? If the whole world goes back on Jesus Christ we two'll stick to him, 'cause we know what He can do; don't we, Charlie?"
Thus they parted. Inside of three days the one was clasped in a mother's arms and there was great joy in the little village home; and almost at the same hour the other reached his Father's Home, and there, too, was great joy.