CHAPTER XXIIITHE RAILROAD WRECK.
Walter Burrage accompanied Merry, and they had entered the car and approached while Inza was talking with Swift.
“As you have been expressing your mind so very freely concerning me,” said Frank, in a calm, restrained tone, “let me tell you that there are persons in this world who have not sufficient judgment to discern between conceit and self-esteem, and the man who does not possess a certain amount of self-esteem never can win the regard and esteem of his fellow men. Others are not liable to judge you higher than you judge yourself.”
“Which is wisdom straight from the shoulder,” put in Walter Burrage; “And I’ve found the people with the greatest amount of conceit are forever jeering at others for being conceited.”
Swift had straightened up, flinging his shoulders back and assuming a military attitude, everything about him proclaiming self-consciousness and pride in his fine appearance, for he truly was a well-built young man.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, looking at Frank. “I did not know you were within hearing. But it is an old and true saying that ‘listeners seldom hear good of themselves.’”
“Which is an insinuation that I was intentionally eavesdropping, and is on a par with your recent slurring observations concerning me.”
Now Inza was showing her satisfaction, which, however, was not unmingled with apprehension and dread as she glanced from Swift to her brother.
“I’m sure I have a right to my opinion,” said the young soldier, trying to return Merry’s steady, searching look, but finding it no easy task to meet those penetrating eyes.
“But you may find, sir, that it will be better for you not to express your opinions with too much freedom.”
“My tongue is my own, and I shall use it as I choose.”
“Then do not blame it if it gets you into trouble.”
“And many a man has found himself in a peck of trouble by talking too much,” put in Walter Burrage, thinking at the moment of himself and his own misfortune.
Roy Swift seemed to recognize something familiar about Walter’s voice, for he turned and looked searchingly at Inza’s brother. After a moment a light dawned upon him and he showed astonishment.
“Can it be you, Burrage?” he exclaimed. “By Jove! it is. I’m glad to see you, old man! You haven’t forgotten me—Swift?”
He held out his hand to Walter.
“No, I haven’t forgotten you, Swift,” was the reply; “but I don’t care to shake hands with you unless you are ready to take back your words about my friend Frank Merriwell.”
The soldier frowned and looked angry. His first impulse was to tell Burrage to go to a warm climate, but the presence of Inza held him in check. Inza also led him to quickly decide to be conciliatory, and, forcing a laugh, he said:
“Oh, all right, my dear boy! I’m ready to do anything to promote peace and harmony. Perhaps I was hasty, and I’ll swallow the words—just to get a grip on your hand.”
This was scarcely a satisfactory apology, and Walter Burrage might have continued to decline to accept the proffered hand had he not observed the look of anxiety on the beautiful face of his sister and divined its meaning.
“All right, Swift,” he said, permitting the young soldier to grasp his fingers. “I didn’t think you a cad in the old days at the academy, and I don’t wish to think so now.”
“We all have our likes and dislikes,” said Swift significantly. “Now, for instance, Mr. Merriwell never liked me very much, and so why should I like him?”
“If I do not like a man,” said Frank, “it is not my way to sneer about him behind his back. I have a way of saying to his face what I have to say.”
Swift flushed, and it was plain that he longed to make a savage retort, but he did not consider such a course wise just then.
“I am not seeking a quarrel with an old schoolmate,” he declared, “so let’s talk of something else. How in the world do you happen to be here, Walt?”
Ignoring Frank, he turned to Inza’s brother. Inza drew Merry down on the seat beside her father, saying in a low tone:
“I’m sorry Walter came in with you, for I do not trust Roy Swift. A word from him to the ones interested would get Walter into a dreadful scrape. I told Walt it was dangerous for him to accompany us to Fardale, but he did not seem to think so, and he laughed at my fears.”
Frank did his best to reassure her, telling her there was no reason why Swift should wish to injure her brother.
While they were talking thus there came a sudden jarring shock, followed by a frightful crash, and the passengers were hurled from their seats as the car plunged down an embankment.
A part of the train had left the track!
At the first jar Merry had leaped to his feet, the reeling car flung him fairly over the back of a seat. Then came the terrible shock that followed.
For a moment Frank was stunned. He had heard the sound of splintering wood, and for a few moments an awful silence followed.
Then rose the shouts of the injured and the groans of the dying, for the engine and three cars of the train were piled in a splintered, shattered heap in the ditch at the foot of the embankment, and one of the three was the coach occupied by Merriwell and the others.
Frank stirred, and found one leg pinned down. All around him seemed to be débris. He heard the cries of the injured, and the sound chilled his blood.
“Inza!”
That was his first thought.
“Where is she?”
Still pinned fast, he tried to look around in search of her.
There were shrieks for help. He saw a man crushed and silent beneath a heavy mass that had flattened his chest. The horror of it all began to dawn upon him.
Then Frank struggled with sudden desperation to set himself free and find the girl he now knew he loved. He wondered for one moment if his foot and ankle had been crushed, but only for that one moment did he think of himself.
“Inza!” he gasped. “Where are you? I pray she has not been killed—she, my own sweetheart!”
A man with an ax began to smash furiously with it to break a way to freedom. It was Roy Swift, and he seemed frantic with terror. In his furious haste to escape from the wreck he several times came near hitting Frank on the head with the ax.
“Hold on, Swift!” cried Merry. “You can get out there all right in a moment. Just help me get my foot free here, will you?”
The young soldier gave him a look, and then snarled:
“Take care of yourself!”
Then, having made an opening large enough, he dropped the ax and crawled out.
“You cur!” said Frank. “That’s the kind of a man I fancied you were!”
Then he managed to reach the ax, with which he set about freeing his foot. He was forced to work carefully, in order not to injure himself, but he set the foot at liberty very soon.
All this time he had been thinking of Inza, and now he set out to find her. He called her name, crawling and forcing his way through the wrecked car toward the point where he fancied she must be.
A shrieking woman caught hold of him. He saw she, also, was held fast by broken timbers.
“Help me!” implored the woman.
Frank’s clear eyes discovered that there was a way to set her free. Out came his knife, and he quickly cut away a part of her skirt that had held her helpless. Three blows with the ax knocked aside a timber and enabled Merriwell to lift her to her feet. He told her how to find her way out.
Then he continued his search for Inza. His heart sank lower and lower with each moment. Before him seemed an impassable barrier of splintered and broken timbers. Was she beneath that mass?
The thought was enough to sicken him, but his heart did not fail. Selecting a weak point, he began his assault, and soon cleared a space through which he could force his body.
“Inza!”
Was that an answer? No, it was one of the many cries of distress coming from every side. Then the terrible conviction that she must be somewhere beneath that twisted and splintered mass fastened on him again. For once in his life, Frank seemed to lose his head. For once he was not his usual cool, calculating self.
He smote the timbers with the ax, he tore at them with his fingers, he flung his body against them.
“Inza!” he huskily shouted.
Then, almost beneath his feet, he found her!
Down on his knees he went, seeing her pale face dimly, finding her still and senseless.
“Inza, my sweetheart!” he groaned. “Merciful Heaven! is she dead? Have I lost her thus?”
He lifted her beautiful head and kissed her unresponsive lips. He whispered loving words in her ears. He pressed her to his throbbing heart and begged her to give one sign of life.
She had not been crushed beneath the timbers, but had fallen between two of the seats, which had served to protect and shield her. Still, something must have injured her severely, for she was not a girl to faint from fright.
A smell of smoke came to Frank’s nostrils, telling him of a new and frightful peril—fire!
He lifted the unconscious girl and started to escape with her. This he found a difficult thing to do, but with a sort of desperate persistency he kept at it till he had reached the spot where a smashed opening in the side of the car permitted him to crawl forth with Inza to the open air.
The spectacle he beheld was appalling. The cars and engine were piled one upon another in a shattered mass which had already taken fire.
As Merry placed the unconscious girl gently on the ground, calling for a doctor, Inza stirred, moaned, and opened her eyes. Instantly he had her in his arms again. She saw him and recognized him.
“Frank!” she whispered faintly, like the sighing of a distant breeze.
“Inza!” he answered—“Inza, my sweetheart, my love!”
A look of untold happiness appeared on her beautiful face. It had been long, long years since such words passed his lips, but now once more he called her his sweetheart, as he had that night over the gate in Fardale.
And there was far more in his tone than in the mere words. His voice spoke all the deep passion of his nature, and in that moment she knew once more that his heart belonged to her, and to her alone.
She did not realize at once what had happened. She knew some dreadful thing had taken place, but, somehow, she felt that it had restored to her the lover of her girlhood days, and she was happy. His arms were about her—those iron arms which had won many a hard-fought battle for Yale, and that brave heart that had never faltered or known fear in the face of the mightiest obstacle or danger beat against her own.
There was a step close at hand, and a man stopped near them.
“So you got out, Merriwell!” said a voice. “Is that Inza? Is she hurt?”
It was Swift.
One look of scorn Merry gave the fellow, but no word did he speak in reply.
Now the black smoke was rising and the fire was crackling like a joyous fiend. Still, from that fearful wreck came the cries of the poor wretches who were held fast in that trap of death.
“Walter!” cried Inza, realizing at last what had happened. “Where is he?”
“I do not know,” confessed Frank.
“My father?”
Merry shook his head.
“He is in there!” she screamed, sitting upright. “They are both there! Oh, my brother!”
A man with his clothing torn, and one arm hanging helpless at his side, staggered toward him.
“Inza!” he hoarsely shouted, joy in his tone. “I could not find you! I thought you still in there!”
It was Walter Burrage, badly bruised and having a broken arm, but alive and not dangerously hurt. He fell on his knees and clasped his sister’s hand.
“Take her!” said Frank Merriwell hoarsely—“take her, quick!”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going back in there to look for your father!”
“The cars are burning!”
But Frank heeded this not the least. Thrusting Inza upon her brother, he sprang up and turned toward the wreck.
One of the trainmen saw Merry’s movement, saw the grim look of determination on his white face and the glare in his eyes. He grasped Frank, demanding;
“What’re you goin’ to do, young feller? Don’t get crazy!”
Frank grasped the man’s wrists and flung him off, sending him reeling. Then he crouched and plunged headlong through the very opening by which he had escaped from the wreckage.
“Mad as a March hare!” gasped the trainman. “He’ll roast in there, for the whole thing will be a roaring bonfire in less than five minutes! He’s a goner!”
Inza had watched him, and now she was seized by a frightful terror lest he had indeed gone to his death. He had called her sweetheart again as of old! He had held her clasped in his strong arms! She had seen the old love-light in his eyes! And now he was gone!
“Walter,” she sobbed, “he’ll not come back! Look! See the fire! He will be burned to death!”
Perhaps for the first time in her life she was seized by a terrible fear that Frank would fail to accomplish his purpose. Always before, under the most trying circumstances, she had maintained perfect confidence in him, perfect faith that he would triumph in the end and come forth unscathed.
“He was a fool!” declared Roy Swift, who still was near.
“He’s the bravest fellow in the whole world!” declared Inza. “You escaped, but you thought of no one save yourself. He rescued me, and now he has gone back there, risking his own life in an attempt to find and save my father from a frightful death.”
Swift was silent, but he mentally told himself:
“That’s the end of the fellow! He’s gone back into the jaws of the trap, and he’ll never come out! The fire is spreading swiftly.”
“There’s a chance for him, Inza,” Walter declared, wishing to keep her courage up. “But father may have been taken out already. We can’t tell till we investigate.”
She rose to her feet and stood staring at the spot where Frank had vanished, her hands clenched, her face pale as death, her bosom heaving.
“He loves me!” she mentally cried. “I know it now! Oh, why did I let him throw his life away!”
Blacker rolled the smoke against the wintry sky. In the west the sun broke through a bank of clouds and shot a bar of yellow light across the snowy fields.
Was this Frank Merriwell’s funeral-pyre? Was this to be the tragic ending of the most remarkable youth of the New World?
There rose a sudden shout. Men sprang forward to assist some one from the wreck. Then, with his clothes torn, his hands bleeding, but with triumph written on his determined face, Frank Merriwell, of Yale, reappeared.
In his arms he bore Bernard Burrage!