CHAPTER XV

THE EXPRESS AHEAD

“Come on, fellows, tumble out!”

Thus Jerry called to his two chums, but they needed no urging. The curtains of their berths were violently shaken as the lads drew on their clothes, and leaped out into the aisle.

“Has anything happened?” asked the professor, hardly awake, even after his first question.

“Not to us,” answered Jerry. “Our luck seems to have turned. But there must be a lot of people badly hurt on the Limited. Come on, we’ll do all we can to help.”

Without stopping to dress fully, the three boys hurried out of the car. The professor and some of the other men passengers followed, the women remaining in frightened and tearful groups, discussing what had happened.

Jerry saw a brakeman hurrying from the sleeping car with several tools under his arm--an axe, a saw and a crowbar.

“Are passengers imprisoned in the wreck?” asked the tall lad.

“Some of ’em,” was the quick response. “We need all the help we can get. There weren’t many on the Limited, and what few there are can’t do anything. It’s a good thing her tail lights were burning, or we’d have smashed into her. Come along, boys.”

“Say, we’re right in the woods,” remarked Ned as he stumbled along the track in the darkness. Ahead of them they could see a glow of flames, reflected from the dark trees.

“It’s on fire!” cried Bob.

“That’s why we need all the help we can get to chop the people out!” cried the brakeman. “Here, you boys, take those tools, and run ahead with ’em. I’ll get more from some of the other cars.”

Jerry caught up a saw, Ned the iron bar and Bob the axe.

“Isn’t there anything for me?” demanded the professor, who was anxious to help.

“You’ll find more tools up ahead!” shouted the brakeman, with a wave of his hand toward the blazing wreck. “Hurry!”

The screams and cries of the injured could be heard more plainly now, and the fire was burning brighter. The three boys hastened their pace, and Jerry headed for one car, around which most of the rescuers were grouped.

“Here’s work for us, fellows!” he cried.

“That’s right!” shouted a brakeman. “Get busy!”

The motor boys could see the havoc wrought by the wreck. The engine lay on its side, down a slight embankment, and one car--a combined mail and express coach--had followed. The other cars were on the track, with the exception of one, which had fallen on its side, and was partly smashed. It was from this coach that the cries were proceeding, but fortunately that was not the car that was burning. The one on fire was an express car.

“There are people imprisoned in this car!” cried the conductor of the train, who was directing operations. “Chop and saw away at the windows, so we can get ’em out! Lively now, everybody!”

“But the fire!” cried a man, pointing to the express car. “Hadn’t we better try to put that out?”

“Can’t be done,” replied the conductor briefly. “We have no water.”

“But the poor souls----” cried the man.

“None in there,” was the quick answer. “The express messenger got out, and the stuff will have to burn. All the people in danger are in this car, and we’ve got to get ’em out. There’s no danger from the fire. It will have to burn out. Lively now!”

The boys fell to with a will, as did the other passengers from the wrecked Limited and from the Express. Several of the unfortunates had already been rescued, and were being laid on the cushioned car seats, or carried back to the rear train.

“Here’s someone under this window!” cried Jerry, as in the darkness, illuminated by the glow from the fire, he saw a white hand tapping on the glass, that had, through some strange agency, not broken.

“Chop ’em out!” cried Bob, raising his axe.

“Go easy there!” yelled Jerry. “You’ll do more harm than good!” The tall lad tapped on the pane, and a face was thrust close to it.

“Protect yourself from the flying glass,” ordered Jerry. “We’re going to break it, and pull you out. Cover yourself up.”

A few taps with the axe served to shatter the pane, after Jerry had noticed that the dim figure wrapped itself in a blanket, for this car was a sleeper. Soon the hole was big enough to haul out a fairly large person, and Jerry and Ned carefully scraped away the jagged points of glass.

“Come on now!” cried Jerry, thrusting his hands down into the opening. “We’ll lift you out!”

He caught hold of the wrist of someone, and Ned the other hand. They lifted, and there came into view a little girl, with light, curly hair. She did not seem to have a scratch on her, but she was crying from fright. As soon as Jerry had her in his arms she screamed out:

“Oh, where is mamma--and papa?”

A man came bursting through the crowd at the sound of the child’s voice.

“Oh, Gladys! Thank the dear Lord!” he cried, fairly snatching her from Jerry. “You are saved! I thought you were gone! Your mamma is safe. Come. Oh, boys, I can’t thank you enough! You have saved my little daughter.”

“And the glass didn’t cut me!” cried Gladys. “I was in a blanket. But, papa, I can’t go. Annabell is in there.”

“What, another little girl!” cried Jerry. “Come on, boys. More work!”

“Annabell is my doll!” explained Gladys, smiling now in her father’s arms. “But I want her. I love her.”

Jerry looked in through the broken window. In a pile of blankets, on what had been a berth, he saw what seemed to be a tousled head of hair. Reaching in his arm he pulled out a big doll, minus one leg.

“Oh, poor Annabell is hurt!” cried Gladys. “Oh, papa!”

“Never mind, you shall have a dozen dolls. Boys, I can’t begin to thank you! Montrose is my name, James Montrose, of Denver. I’ll see you again. I want your names. Now I must take Gladys to her mother. Mrs. Montrose is slightly injured. Oh, what a terrible wreck!”

He hurried away, and Jerry and his chums looked for more work to do. But, so well had the rescue operations been conducted that, as far as could be learned, not another soul remained in the wrecked sleeper. From the other cars the passengers had hastened themselves, or been helped, after the crash, bruises and cuts being their worst injuries.

And, strange as it may seem, no one was killed outright, though several were grievously hurt. The wounded had been carried back to the stalled Express, and made as comfortable as possible. Fortunately, there was a doctor aboard, and a supply of bandages and medicine. The conductor of the wrecked Limited checked over his passenger list, and reported no one missing.

“I think everyone is out now, gentlemen,” he said to Jerry and his chums, and the little group of rescuers.

“Then I suppose we must wait here until the wrecking crew comes,” said one man.

“No,” answered the conductor, “we will go back, and get aboard the Express, just behind us. There is a switch, not far away, and we can go around the wreck, and proceed to Denver, though we’ll stop at the nearest hospital with the worst wounded.”

“On to Denver!” exclaimed Jerry. “Then we’ll beat the Limited after all. We’re going on ahead.”

“Yes, but Noddy is still in front of us,” spoke Ned in a low voice. “We’ll never catch up to him.”

“It can’t be helped,” remarked Bob. “Say, but we run into excitement and adventures when we least expect it.”

“That’s better than running into a wreck,” replied Jerry. “Hello, here’s someone evidently forgotten!”

The boys and Professor Snodgrass were walking back toward the Express, and were somewhat by themselves, when Jerry noticed the figure of a man lying on a pile of seat cushions on the railroad embankment.

“Let’s carry him back to the doctor!” cried Ned, and he advanced to take hold of one corner of the seat, which was like an improvised stretcher. The man on it never moved.

“We four can carry it nicely,” said Jerry. “Catch hold here, Professor.”

Mr. Snodgrass used one hand to reach for the corner of the plush-covered seat. His left he held clenched, some distance away from his body. As might have been expected, with only one hand, he could not lift his corner.

“What’s the matter?” asked Ned. “Is your hand hurt, Mr. Snodgrass?”

“Hand hurt? No. Why?”

“You’re not using it. Why do you hold it that funny way?”

“Funny way? I--er--bless my soul! It’s my collar button. I’ve been holding my collar button all this while. I started to put it in my shirt when I heard the call for help, and I guess I was so excited and absent-minded that I’ve been holding it ever since. I wondered why I couldn’t do more work, and all the while it was because I only used one hand. The other held the collar button. How stupid!”

He thrust the button into his pocket, while the boys could hardly restrain a smile. Then, with the professor’s two-handed aid, the sufferer on the seat was carried to the rear. He had fainted from a comparatively slight injury and was soon being cared for.

A little later, with all the wounded from the Limited on board, and all the other passengers squeezed in somehow, the Express backed up, went around the wreck by means of a switch, and headed for Denver.

The boys were beating the Limited, which they had missed, but they would reach the Western city considerably in the rear of Noddy Nixon for all that, since the Limited could not now pass the local train on which the bully and his cronies were riding.

“Well, it can’t be helped,” remarked Jerry, as he saw Mr. Montrose, whose little daughter they had rescued, caring for his wife. Gladys was happy with her injured doll.