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Read Ebook: The Automobile Girls at Chicago; Or Winning Out Against Heavy Odds by Crane Laura Dent
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Ebook has 1265 lines and 44349 words, and 26 pages
Barbara thrust two shoes into the girl's hands. One was Mollie's shoe, the other Barbara's, but she could not be particular under the circumstances.
Now a new danger threatened. Bab was certain that she could smell smoke. She fairly dragged Mollie from the berth into the aisle that was now tilted at an angle.
"Hurry! Get to the upper end of the car as fast as you can. The other passengers are out I do believe."
"Oh, I can't! Help me, Bab."
"Help yourself. I must look after Grace."
"Grace!" groaned Mollie, a sudden and new fit of trembling seizing upon her until her legs threatened to collapse under her.
Barbara gave her a violent push.
"Climb up the aisle. Support yourself by the seats. You will be able to get through all right. I'll follow you just as soon as I can find Grace. She may have gotten out, but I don't believe she has."
"Is--is--do you think she is dead?" gasped Mollie.
"Hurry!" urged Barbara, as the smell of smoke smote her nostrils more strongly than before. "Grace!" she called, as soon as she saw that Mollie had begun climbing.
There was no answer. Barbara was hurrying into such of her clothing as she was able to find. The intense darkness of the car made any systematic effort to dress impossible.
"Grace! Oh, Grace!"
Still no answer. Bab observed by the light that now filtered through the broken windows of section number thirteen on the opposite side of the aisle, that that section was empty. The car itself appeared to be empty. At least the cries had died out, though outside the car there was a great uproar. Barbara climbed into the upper berth occupied by Grace Carter, who lay silent, unheeding Barbara's voice.
"Oh, Grace! Grace!" begged Barbara, throwing her arms about her friend. "Answer me."
There was no response. A bar of moonlight shone through the broken window of section number thirteen, falling directly on the pallid face of the unconscious girl. Barbara shook her, calling upon her friend to answer, but Grace neither spoke nor stirred.
"Is there any one left in here?" called a voice from the other end of the car.
"Yes, yes; come here quickly and help me," cried Barbara.
Instead of coming to her assistance, the owner of the voice appeared to turn back and go out again. Barbara was now chafing the hands and face of the motionless girl in the upper berth.
"Oh, she's dead, she's dead. What shall I do?" gasped Bab.
With a suddenly formed resolution, she clasped her arms about Grace and with considerable difficulty--for Grace was now a dead weight--dragged the unconscious girl from her berth into the aisle. Bab did not pause for an instant. Handling her friend as tenderly as possible, she began working her way up the steep aisle, making but slow progress, one arm about Grace Carter, the other pulling herself and her heavy burden along by grasping the backs of the seats and the partitions between such of the berths as were made up.
THE MISSING PASSENGER
AN endless corridor it seemed to Barbara Thurston as little by little she dragged her drooping burden to the end of the aisle. Reaching the narrow passage that led past the staterooms, she was obliged to creep on hands and knees along the slippery lower side of the car.
Suddenly she heard a groan.
Bab glanced apprehensively at the curtains that hung over the door of the smoking room. The curtains now stood out at a sharp angle. A thin cloud of smoke filtered out from the smoking compartment.
"Oh, there's some one in there," exclaimed the girl. But she had other work to do just then. The young woman struggled on, at last reaching the platform that now stood in the air some feet above the track.
"Jump! We'll catch you," called a voice.
"I--I can't. Help me. My companion is hurt."
"She's got someone with her. Get up there," commanded a sharp voice.
Two trainmen clambered to the platform.
"Is the girl dead?" demanded one.
"I don't know. Oh, please hurry," begged Barbara in an agonized tone.
The men quickly lifted down Grace Carter's limp form. Then they turned to assist Barbara, but she already had swung down without assistance. Mollie was kneeling beside Grace, other passengers crowding about the unconscious girl who lay stretched out on the ground beside the track. Someone pushed through the crowd to Grace and thrust a bottle of smelling salts under her nose.
This served to restore her to consciousness, and she feebly brushed the bottle aside.
"She's alive," screamed Mollie, almost beside herself.
"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Barbara in an ecstacy of joy.
Grace Carter sat up dazedly.
"Are you hurt, dear?" urged Bab.
"I--I don't know. I think not. Oh, it was awful. I--I thought the world surely was coming to an end. Was anyone--anyone killed?"
"No," answered a voice from the crowd. "Some of us got a fine shaking up, but the train was running so slowly that the shock of the accident was not very severe."
"What was the matter?" asked Grace as Barbara assisted the trembling girl to her feet.
"The trainmen say it was a loose rail. They've been putting in new rails at this point and the train was running slowly on that account, the work not yet being entirely finished."
At this juncture the conductor came bustling up, ordering the passengers to go to the cars ahead, which had not left the track. The train was to move on in a few minutes. A flagman had been stationed some distance to the rear to stop any following trains and the conductor was anxious to reach the next station ahead to telegraph for a wrecking train and report the wreck of the sleepers. A pleasant-faced woman whom Barbara had seen on the train the day before, stepped up and offered to assist them, which she did by placing an arm about Grace, helping to support the latter in the walk to the cars.
"I am Miss Thompson, from Chicago," said the woman. "My father is with me. I saw you yesterday and wanted to speak to you. Are you going to Chicago?"
"Yes. You are very kind," answered Barbara.
"I wonder if all the passengers were gotten out of the sleeper?" asked Miss Thompson when they had finally reached the cars up ahead and Grace had been comfortably disposed of in another sleeper.
Barbara started.
"Oh, I forgot. Conductor! There was a man in the smoking compartment of our car."
The porter who had followed them with the other passengers and such luggage as he could find, shook his head.
"I know there was. I had forgotten all about it," declared Bab. "I heard someone groan in there as I passed the compartment with my friend. Where is the man who occupied the lower berth of section thirteen?"
No one had seen him. All the other passengers had been accounted for, but no one had seen the tall, slim, sandy-haired man from section number thirteen.
"Then he is in that smoking compartment. I saw him when he went there. The compartment was on fire when I passed it," cried Barbara Thurston, springing up, her face flushed, her eyes large and troubled.
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