Then came a thudding sound on the car’s roof.
“Oh,” he groaned, “the trolley’s off!”
Near that bridge, a few feet from the side of the track, there was a long haystack.
“Farmers to the front!” said Tommie. “Every man to the step, and jump!”
In a twinkling twelve young men rolled along a haystack. They rolled and rolled. They gathered much hay, but, still dominant above the mischance, the souls of ten foot-ball players and two trolley men rose triumphant. They wanted to see the last of 809.
She took the rest of the grade like a bucking bronco. She hit the bridge like an avalanche. Something gave way, or held too strongly, for 809 sprang into the air, turned completely over and went down in thirty feet of dirty water, trucks up, with a tremendous splash.
Silence stared with stony faces.
“She’s gone,” said Tommie solemnly.
“Beyond recall,” assented the mechanical engineer.
“And I am going, too,” said Tommie.