“Ther’ ain’t a guess in my mind, sir,” he had said. “She came thundering down that gradient at a hundred miles. An’ that after I’d signalled ‘brakes’ to her, and got her answer. She was a ‘runaway’ and quit the metals at the bend, as she was bound to do at that pace.”
Well, the railroad management would hear something. Two injured, unconscious bodies, and ten corpses! That was the tally of human salvage. For the rest? A full-laden train completely wrecked. And as the inspector’s weary gaze searched the moonlit scene, he wondered shudderingly at the despairing horror of those who had found a grave beneath the frigid waters of the river.
Several figures were moving up beside the track, towards the waiting train. The inspector saw them, and breathed his relief. They were his four men returning. And they came empty-handed.
Three of the men passed on up the train, but the corporal in charge of them swung himself up onto the platform of the caboose.
The man saluted.
“There’s nothing more we can do down there, sir,” he said. “There isn’t an inch we haven’t explored. We’ve searched the woods along the track. And, beyond the locomotive man and his fireman we’ve already got aboard here, no one seems to have had time or nerve to make a jump for it. The rest of ’em are down there in the cars in the river, I guess. And we shan’t get them till the company salves the cars. It’s pretty sickening, sir,” he added with a sight of feeling.
“Sickening? It’s damnable, Perrin,” the officer cried. “By God! There’s going to be a red-hot report on this!”
“I’m glad, sir. I think I can hand you some stuff for it. I’m a bit of an engineer myself, and I’ve gone over all the running gear of the cars at the rear of the train. It’s all ‘scrap’ stuff. Has the doc pulled round that poor woman with her little kid?”
The inspector nodded.
“Yes. She’s come to, and the kid doesn’t seem to have had worse than a bumping. You see, she seems to have held him hugged tightly to her bosom when the crash came. Her body kind of acted as a buffer. She got all that was coming and saved her kid. And she’s only a poor half-breed.”