“We’ll do everything we can, Miss Richardson,” Doctor Matthies assured her gravely. “Try not to worry about your father.” He went with her back into the car.
“What about the others?” Nick asked the conductor. “Are they badly hurt?”
“Burns, mostly. The hoghead has a broken arm, but Doc set it for him and he’s resting pretty easy now, I guess. Tallowpot—that’s the fireman—was on the high side when the engine went over. He got burned some, but not bad. We were running slow—water up to the axles of the drivers; I don’t see yet why all of ’em weren’t drowned.... Damn this rain!”
Doctor Matthies emerged from the caboose. “Richardson is likely to die at any time,” he told them in a whisper. “I’m sure he can’t last two more hours unless we get him to a hospital. He’s losing blood, and I can’t help him much—and she’s willing to risk it. He wont die any quicker, I suppose, on that hand-car than he will lying in there. Let’s try to take him along—we might save him.”
“All right,” said Nick. “I’d like to speak to Miss Richardson a moment.” He called softly to her, and she came out to the platform. “My ship is stuck in the mud at McLearson,” he told her, “and I’ll need all the men you can get for me. I want you to hurry back to town and get all the men in town out to my ship. It’s in a field on the north side. Now hurry.” The girl nodded. “You hurry, too,” she said, and stepping down into the water, she started out along the track.
One at a time the three injured men were carried out and placed on top of the ties upon the hand-car. The enginemen were able to sit up, although in terrible pain, and one of them was placed at each end of the car. Richardson, the brakeman, was laid between them, and covered with what blankets and coats were available. The ends of the ties were lashed together with some small rope that was found in the caboose, making a raft that could not break up when higher water was reached.
Slowly, for the water was rising and was higher than when the outbound trip had been made, Nick and the conductor and the station agent started pushing the hand-car along the track. Doctor Matthies rode upon the car, watching the ebb and flow of Richardson’s pulse with tense concentration.
The rain, which had fallen most of the morning in a slow drizzle, had ceased about midafternoon; but now it commenced again, dribbling down from lowered clouds. Nick watched the weather apprehensively, fearing that fog might set in as dusk approached.
As they pushed the car the three men walked in water that came almost to their hips. Their coat sleeves, being in water almost continually, soaked up moisture and let it drain down against their bodies, bringing even more discomfort. They stumbled for a footing on the submerged ties below their feet, and more than once one of them would have fallen if he had been unable to grasp the ropes that bound the ties, and thus support himself more firmly. Progress through the water was won only by torture; it was an ordeal in which stamina and time alone could win.
