CHAPTER VIII
ACROSS THE GULLY
Gordon raised himself on one aching elbow and looked dazedly about him.Up the bank a dozen feet away lay the blue runabout on its side, oneforward wheel--or the remains of it--thrust through a broken panel ofthe white fence that guarded that side of the road. A cloud of duststill hovered above the car, proving to Gordon that the accident hadhappened but the moment before. If it was not for that he could wellhave imagined that he had lain huddled up in a clump of bushes halfwaydown the steep bank for some time. His head was spinning wildly and hefelt horribly jarred and bruised. But a tentative effort to get to hisfeet, while it was not successful because of dizziness, showed that atleast he had no limbs broken. A second effort, made when the clouds hadstopped revolving overhead like a gigantic blue-and-white pin-wheel,brought him staggering to his feet.
Strangely enough, it was not until he stood swaying unsteadily on thebank that he remembered Morris, or, rather, that he felt any concern forhim. Anxiously then he looked about on every side. But no Morris was tobe seen. Gordon called in a weak and shaky voice. There was no reply.Summoning his strength, Gordon crawled slowly up the side of thedeclivity, pulling himself by bushes and grass-tufts until at last hewas clinging limply to the fence rail. There he leaned for an instantand closed his eyes. He felt very much as if he was going to faint, andperhaps he would have had he not at that moment, just as he seemed aboutto go off into a deliciously fearsome black void, heard the sound of alow groan.
Gordon pulled himself erect, opened his eyes and tried to look about,but the sunlight was frantically hot and glaring and the dusty road andthe helpless hulk of the overturned auto danced fantastically beforehim. It was a full minute before he dared attempt to again lift his headand look. Even then sight was uncertain. But he realized that thegroans--he heard them quite plainly now, low and monotonous--came fromthe further side of the car. He squirmed through the stout rails andstepped dizzily out into the road. Then he saw Morris.
He lay half in and half out of the car, one arm stretched from him inthe dust and the other caught between the spokes of the steering wheel.Evidently the wheel had saved him from being thrown out as Gordon hadbeen, but the latter, gazing with horror at the white face that seemedcrushed against the dirt of the highway, surmised that it would havebeen better for Morris had he too been hurled over the fence. Thedreadful thought that Morris was killed assailed Gordon, only to bebanished by the comforting knowledge that dead folks don't groan.
Gordon cast despairing looks up and down the road. Not a team or personwas in sight. Then he knelt by Morris and spoke to him. But only low,unconscious moans answered him. Panic-stricken for an instant, Gordongazed helplessly, his wits quite deserting him. Then common-sensewhispered and he drew a deep breath of relief and seized Morris underthe shoulders. Tug as he might, though, he could not budge the limpbody. Then he saw why. Morris had evidently started to leap from the carand had got his left leg over the side when the car struck. Now that legwas imprisoned with the whole weight of the runabout upon it. AgainGordon looked along the highway for assistance, but, as before, the roadstretched in either direction empty and deserted. Off toward town acloud of dust hovered, but whether it indicated an approaching vehicleor a farmer's wagon moving slowly toward Clearfield there was noknowing. Gordon set his lips firmly, striving to close his ears toMorris' groans, and tried to think what to do. Perhaps if he could findwater he could bring Morris back to consciousness, but what use to dothat so long as the boy was pinned there under the car? No, the firstthing to do was to set him free, and Gordon strove to think of a way todo it. He didn't believe for an instant that he was capable of liftingthat car and at the same time pulling Morris' leg from beneath it. Infact, he doubted if he was strong enough to raise the weight of it. Tomake certain, however, he tried. It did move a little, he thought, butthere was no question of raising it. Then he recalled seeingautomobilists lifting their cars with jacks to put on new tires. IfMorris had a jack----!
In a moment he was struggling with the cover over the box at the rear ofthe seat. It was jammed at one corner and it took him a full minute towrench it open. When he finally did, however, the lifting jack was thefirst thing he saw. It was a small contrivance, scarcely a foot high,and Gordon viewed it doubtfully as he hurried with it around to theside. Morris' leg was held down at the ankle by the edge of theturning-board and there was barely space between the ground and the sidepanel of the car in which to slip the jack. But it went in finally andGordon began to work the handle. There was a heartening click as thecogs slipped into place and a cracking of frame and varnish as the carslowly rose. Bit by bit it went and at last Gordon pulled the imprisonedleg out. And not an instant too soon, for there was a lurch, the jacktoppled sideways and the car settled back again in the dust, a forwardwheel spinning slowly around.
Gordon turned Morris over on his back, placed a seat cushion, which hadtoppled out, under his head and again viewed the road anxiously. In thedistance the dust cloud had disappeared and the road was still empty. Hegroaned with disappointment and exasperation. Usually a half-dozenvehicles would have passed in the ten minutes that had elapsed. To-day,because Morris' life perhaps depended on getting him to a doctor, notone appeared! Gordon again thought of water and looked around him. Onlydry hillside met his gaze on one side and only the equally dry gullyseparating road from trolley track on the other. But sight of the trackgave Gordon an idea. The cars ran every quarter of an hour or so and ifhe could somehow get Morris down the bank, across the wide gully and upthe slope on the other side it would be only a matter of a few minutesto town. But the distance was a good two hundred and fifty yards, hecalculated, and Morris was no light burden. And, to increase hisdifficulties, he himself was in poor shape to make the effort. There wasnothing else for it, however, and Gordon hurried to the fence and viewedthe descent. A little further along was a place where the bank had atsome time loosened and fallen in a miniature landslide and toward thatspot Gordon was presently making his way.
He tried carrying Morris in his arms, but after the first few yards hehad to give up. Instead, he took him by the wrists and dragged him as hemight have dragged a sack of potatoes. It was hard work getting himthrough the fence, but easier when that obstacle was negotiated, for thedescent helped. At the bottom of the bank it was necessary to worm inand out between bushes, while briars caught at him and tripped him as hetoiled backward toward the further side of the gully. Twice he stoppedto regain his breath and mop his streaming face. And it was while he wastaking his second rest that a buzzing, humming sound came to him fromthe direction of town, a sound that grew louder even while he turned tolook. Far down the track, visible here for a half-mile, came one of thebig trolleys, swaying from side to side and eating up the rails in itsrapid flight. There was but one thing to do, and Gordon did it.
Dropping Morris' wrists, he set off at a run for the track. Once hetripped and measured his length in the briars, but he was up again inthe instant, while, almost at hand as it seemed, the buzzing andthrobbing of the rails sounded. When he finally reached the foot of thebank it seemed that he had not enough strength left to climb it. Butclimb it he did, somehow, with toes digging into the loose gravel andhands clutching at the infrequent tufts of grass or weeds. And when hereached the top and the side of the track the plunging car was almost upto him.
He knelt there on the edge of the embankment and waved his arms,shouting at the top of his exhausted lungs. A screech from the whistlesent its warning and then the big car was hurtling past him, themotorman casting a puzzled, indifferent glance as he shot by and the fewpassengers turning inquiring faces toward the boy crouched beside thetrack. Dust enveloped him and a great despair crushed him, and he didwhat was perhaps the one thing that could have stopped the car. Hecrumpled up in a heap at the ends of the ties and then rolled, slowly atfirst and then gaining momentum as he went, down the gravel slope into aclump of bushes at the bottom.
The conductor, who had leaned outboard at the warn
ing shriek of thewhistle, had seen the boy and had kept his eyes on him as the car hadgone past. "Some kid wants to get on," he explained to a passengerbeside him on the rear platform, "but there's no stop here." Then hishand flew to the bell-cord. Boys didn't crumple up like that and gorolling down embankments for the fun of it! With a loud grinding ofbrakes the big car came shivering to a stop a hundred yards along thetrack. The conductor tugged again at the cord and slowly the car creptbackward. By that time the passengers were on their feet and theconductor was hanging over the steps. Then he had dropped and wasplunging down the embankment in a cloud of dust and a cascade of loosegravel, the passenger on the platform following more carefully.
Gordon was already struggling to his feet when they reached him, andsomehow he made them understand that some thirty yards away lay theunconscious form of Jonathan Brent's son. After that events were veryhazy and confused to Gordon. Kindly hands pulled and lifted him up theembankment and into the car, where he subsided weakly on a seat. Voicesasked questions and he tried to answer them. Someone caught sight of theoverturned automobile and there was much pointing and much exclaiming.And then three men came toiling across the ground below with Morris andothers slid and stumbled down to help them, and almost at once the bigcar was pounding back the way it had come, its strident whistleshrieking above the hum of the rails in an incessant warning and alarm!
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