To Jack’s eyes, trained as they were to comprehend the details of machinery, it was perfectly plain that whoever occupied the place was engaged on some difficult, or at least abstruse, problems connected with a mechanical device; although, of course, as to what the nature of this might be, the lad could not hazard a guess.
“Where in the world are we, Tom?” he asked, as he saw by Tom’s opened eyes—one of which was badly blackened—that his cousin was in full possession of his senses.
“I don’t know. It’s a funny-looking place. Say, Jack, are you hurt?”
“No; that is, I don’t think so.”
Jack stretched his limbs carefully. Apparently the result of his self-inspection was satisfactory, for the next moment he said:
“No; I’m sound as a new dollar. How about you, Tom?”
“All right, except that my eye feels as if it was as big as the State House dome. Jiminy, what an almighty smash!”
“Yes; we were lucky to get out of it alive. But where on earth are we? That’s what I want to know.”
At this juncture a door at one end of the room opened and the same figure that had rushed from the waterside shed as the car left the curve appeared. It was that of a kindly-faced man of about sixty. His tall figure was bent and stooped, but fire and energy still twinkled in a pair of piercing black eyes. Although the possessor of these attributes wore overalls, it was evident that he was not a laboring man. His face was rather that of a dreamer, of a man accustomed to deal with mental problems. In one hand he carried a pitcher of water, while in the other he had a stout volume bound in yellow calfskin.
“Ah! So my young patients are better already,” he remarked as his glance rested on the two wide-eyed lads. “You had a miraculous escape,” he continued. “I saw you on the front platform of the car as it left the rails and headed for a clump of trees. I did not think that there was a possible chance of your surviving, but it appears that you did.”