Will remonstrated vigorously, however. “See here, Mildred,” he said seriously, “it will never do in the world for you to start off this way at night into an unknown region, and ride in these wretched cars. Very likely you will have to sleep on a straw bed in some vile little tavern no one knows where. You can give this woman some money, and”—
“I haven’t time to argue,” interposed Mildred, packing her bag. “I have made up my mind to go. Don’t think me stubborn, but money can’t do for that disconsolate, frightened little woman what I can do. She has not a single friend; her baby is ill; some Yankee sharper would swindle her out of her money; and, besides, I want to go. I want to know from experience a little about the life of these people.”
“Then if I can’t dissuade you I must go with you. Mother can”—
“No, she can’t; and I can’t let you leave her, cousin Will,” replied Mildred with quiet determination. “Nothing can possibly happen to us. We are in a civilized land, and robbers are not wont to attack an immigrant train. We shall not be hurt by ‘roughing it’ for twenty-four hours, and if anything happens to delay us longer we will telegraph you.”
“Let me go instead of you,” insisted Will, still frowning upon the project; “there is no need of you three interrupting your journey when I can manage the affair perfectly well.”
“But you don’t speak German and I do,” replied Mildred, decisively.
There was nothing more to be said, and we bade them good-by, with no misgiving on our part, and stepped into the uncomfortable, stuffy immigrant cars. Mildred seated herself beside little Frau Kopp and held in her lap chubby two-year-old Hans, dressed like a little old man in the clumsy, German peasant fashion. Hélène and I meanwhile took turns in occupying the only vacant seat in the car. The motley crowd of Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Germans, and Bohemians, who for five or six days and nights had been traveling together in heat and discomfort, sat nodding sleepily and apparently unexcited at the near approach of their long journey’s end.
All the afternoon it had looked lowering in the west, and as the dim kerosene lamps were lighted one by one, we heard the dash of rain upon the roof of the car, and by the flashes of lightning could discern with our faces pressed close to the panes that we were just entering upon the track of a storm. Trees were uprooted and lay in confusion beside the track. But we could see little, and I gave scarcely a thought to it as I sat on the hard, uncushioned seat, with my lap full of bags and wraps, and watched Mildred a few seats in front of me as she talked cheerily to the tired little children. Our destination was to be the little mining town of Blivens, and we were to reach it at half-past eight.
On we went whizzing through the darkness, the train rocking from side to side, and the red-kerchiefed, brown faces of the women lighting up picturesquely the dark mysterious shadows. We were about to reach our destination, and I had just risen to rest my stiffened limbs, when suddenly I was thrown headlong down the aisle, and a hideous grating, jarring noise drowned every other sound. Then a sense of falling, rolling, pitching, of absolute darkness, and of frightful pain.
I lay I know not how long. One foot and hand were pinioned under something hard and immovable, the other foot doubled under me, and my head twisted awry and also immovable. I was lying between two bodies, one above and one under me. Something warm was dripping down over my face, and shrieks and dying groans rent the air.