Then he wondered if her father had escaped, for, like Joe, he had a short time before the accident gone forward into the smoking-car, and the boy saw as through a mist the locomotive, express-baggage, and smoking cars back slowly down on the wreck, a crowd of wild and excited passengers tumbling off the rear platform of the latter.
It was impossible for anyone to say just what had caused the trouble, but it might have been a broken axle or a suddenly loosened rail that had snapped the connection between the cars.
A portion of the top of the car Dick had just wriggled from under lay near him, and seeing a woman’s foot exposed beneath, he exerted his strength and raised one end a bit.
It rested heavily upon the form of the fair passenger from Poughkeepsie.
The sight aroused all his energies.
With desperate eagerness he put his shoulder to the heavy fragment that was crushing out the girl’s life, and shifted it aside.
Then he bent down and lifted her in his arms.
“Great Scott!” he exclaimed, anxiously, “I believe she is dead.”
She looked the picture of death, for her eyes were closed and her pallid cheek was stained with blood.
Dick, hardly knowing what to do, bore her down to the river edge and splashed the water into her face, eagerly watching for some sign of returning animation.