“My own dear love!”
They climbed up the river bank and walked around in the pouring rain, barefoot and treading on broken glass at every step.
Neither the conductor of the train or Pullman cars were anywhere to be seen. Only one porter appeared to have survived, and he sat moaning on a piece of debris.
The great engine, like a huge living monster that had seen with its single eye the abyss of the broken bridge in time, had leaped the chasm and gone plunging and faring over the ties and rails a half mile beyond the wreck, with the engineer and fireman clinging to it.
The lighter portion of the train had struck the embankment of the narrow river. The day cars were piled across the track beyond; the threes Pullmans, smashed and heaped on top of one another, hung on the edge of the broken bridge.
Gordon, with the two women and children, finally found a man who had some sense—a fat drummer seated on his sample-cases calmly putting on his shoes by the light of the burning cars.
He was talking to a younger drummer sitting near, who fidgeted and kept looking about nervously.
“Take it easy, sonny. Put on your shoes,” he said, soothingly.
“This is awful!” the young one sighed.
“Well, we’re all right, top side up, marked ‘with care.’ Don’t worry. Put on your shoes. You can’t walk in this glass barefoot.”