“Your arm isn’t lame or sore?”
“Not a bit, I can——”
Joe was interrupted by a cry from two ladies who sat in front of them, the only other occupants of the vehicle save themselves. The car was going down hill and had acquired considerable speed—dangerous speed Joe thought—and the motorman did not seem to have it well under control.
But what had caused the cry of alarm was this. Driving along the street, parallel with the tracks, and about three hundred feet ahead of the car, was a boy in an open delivery wagon. He was going in the same direction as was the electric vehicle.
Suddenly his horse stumbled and fell almost on the tracks, the wagon sliding half over the animal while the boy on the seat was hemmed in and pinned down by a number of boxes and baskets that slid forward from the rear of the wagon.
“Put on your brakes! Put on your brakes!” yelled the conductor to the motorman. “You’ll run him down!”
The motorman ground at the handle, and the brake shoes whined as they gripped the wheels, but the car came nearer and nearer the wagon. The conductor on the rear platform was also putting on the brakes there.
Suddenly the horse kicked himself around so that he was free of the tracks, lying alongside them, and far enough to one side so that the car would safely pass him. There was a sigh of relief from the two women passengers, but a moment later it changed to a cry of alarm, for the boy on the seat suddenly fell to one side, and hung there with his head so far over that the car would hit him as it rushed past. The lad was evidently pinned down by the boxes and baskets on his legs.
“Stop! Stop the car!” begged one of the ladies. The other had covered her eyes with her hands.