The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas | Page 4

up ahead and the machine is kicking it up behind. Hoo-oo! Hoo-oo!" cried the girl, frantically waving her handkerchief to attract the attention of the driver of the car, at the same time pointing to the rapidly approaching train.
Instead of slackening speed, the driver of the motor car appeared to be putting on more. The car was rapidly nearing the railroad crossing. So was the train.
"Oh, I can't look at it," cried Margery, throwing herself on the ground and burying her face in her arms.
Hazel stood perfectly rigid. She scarcely breathed. Her eyes were wide and staring.
"Ha--as it hap-p-pened?" faltered Margery.
"No-o-o. Oh! The driver is going to be killed! Oh, oh!"
For one awful second the motor car and engine of the special were swallowed up in a cloud of dust, then out of the cloud darted the locomotive on one side. On the other dashed the automobile, still on four wheels, continuing at the same reckless speed along the highway.
Hazel uttered a little scream.
"He's made it. Oh!" She sank to the ground pale and trembling. Margery raised a very red, very scared face.
"Wa--as he killed?"
"No."
"Oh, fudge! Why didn't you scare me to death while you were----"
"Look Oh, look!"
"I won't," declared Margery firmly. "Go crazy if you wish. I won't."
"It's Tommy!"
Buster bobbed up in a fresh panic.
The "man" in the motor car was gazing up at the girls waving one hand to them, steering the car with the other hand.
"It's a woman!" gasped Hazel.
"It's Crazy Jane," cried Margery. "No wonder she nearly ran down a train of cars."
"Tommy! Oh, Tom-my!" screamed Hazel Holland, hopping about frantically, waving both arms above her head, seeking to attract the attention of the woman driver as well as that of Tommy.
The little white figure had climbed the bank into the highway and was now fleeing down the road to meet her friend Miss Elting. Tommy did not see the automobile approaching from the rear. A knoll and a bend in the road hid the driver of the car and the little white figure from each other. The noise of the train either drowned that of the automobile, or else, Grace thought the rumble made by the car to be that made by the train that had just passed down the valley.
The motor car roared around the bend. Miss Elting screamed as she saw it. Grace heard the scream, but failing to understand the meaning of it, decided it to be some sort of greeting. The little girl waved her arms in reply. Miss Elting was gesticulating and pointing frantically. The two girls on the hillside were for the moment paralyzed with fright.
All at once, Grace appeared to perceive her danger. She turned sharply. There she stood, her frightened face turned toward the oncoming car that was rapidly approaching her enveloped in a blinding cloud of dust. The driver and Tommy discovered each other at about the same instant. There was no time to stop the car.
Suddenly, car and Tommy were swallowed up in the dust cloud.
"Grace is killed!" screamed Margery.
"Yes, oh yes!" wailed Hazel, wringing her hands. "What shall we do?"
Out of the dust cloud hurtled the little white figure. She appeared to have been doubled up into a large white ball by the car when it struck her.
The ball rolled from the road, disappearing into the roadside ditch. The motor car lurched around the curve in the road, zig-zagged past Miss Elting, then became a rolling cloud of dust again.
CHAPTER II
WHAT HAPPENED TO TOMMY
"Oh-h-h!" moaned Margery. "Poor Tommy has been killed."
In that terrible moment Hazel Holland came nearer to fainting than ever before in her life. She pulled herself sharply together. Margery was by this time sobbing hysterically.
"Don't do that," commanded Hazel sharply, "We must do something. Come quickly!"
Hazel started down the hillside in the trail followed by Tommy during her break-neck sprint to meet Miss Elting. The latter was already running toward the scene of the accident. Hazel recalled afterwards having wondered at the time that a woman could run so fast. Miss Elting's feet seemed barely to touch the ground. Margery, mustering her courage, staggered to her feet and followed Hazel at a slower pace, though she, too, was running.
Hazel was the first to reach the place where Grace had been hurled from the highway by the car.
"Grace!" she screamed, clambering awkwardly over the fence, dropping down on the road side. "Oh, Grace, are you killed?"
A pale-faced girl was sitting at the bottom of the dry ditch with both feet tucked under her. There was a bewildered look on her small face. She was blinking dazedly.
"Oh, dearie, are you injured?" cried Miss Elting, slipping and sliding down into the ditch beside the pale-faced Tommy.
"Yeth."
"Tell me where, what?"
"My feelingth are hurt."
"She's alive! She's alive," cried Hazel, throwing impulsive arms about the neck of