A terrible scene was presented to Dick’s gaze when he recovered his scattered senses.
He was stunned by the shock and made giddy by the wild vaulting of the car as it leaped the rails, swung around and buried its rear end in the Hudson.
He was bruised and badly shaken up, but he was not seriously injured.
Fortunately Dick was endowed a remarkable degree of self-possession.
Finding he was not hurt, he struggled out from beneath the wreckage which had overwhelmed him.
His first thought was for Joe, but the boy was not in sight, which, under the circumstances, was hardly to be wondered at.
Then the groans and screams of the mangled passengers pinned under the wreck confused him and distracted his attention from his chum.
Perhaps it is not strange that the fair young girl who had occupied the opposite seat in the car came to his mind, for his eyes and thoughts had been upon her at the moment of the catastrophe.
He did not see her among the men and women who were disengaging themselves from the shapeless debris.
“Is she dead?” he almost groaned, as he thought of that golden head and lithe figure smashed beyond recognition.