The Automobile Girls at Chicago Part 2

"What was the matter?" asked Grace as Barbara a.s.sisted 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 pa.s.sengers 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 a.s.sist 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 pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sed it," cried Barbara Thurston, springing up, her face flushed, her eyes large and troubled.

"If there's anyone there the men will find him. There was no fire in that car," said the conductor, with which statement the porter agreed.

"There was smoke," declared Bab. "I don't know about fire. I do know that I'm going back to find out about that man," she announced.

"Come back," called the conductor. "We're going to start."

Unheeding, Barbara ran for the door, and, leaping from the platform, started on a run back to the wrecked sleeper. The conductor was determined to move his train, but the pa.s.sengers objected so strenuously that he reluctantly decided to wait and make a further hurried search of the wrecked sleeper.

With a porter and half a dozen pa.s.sengers the conductor followed Barbara. She could smell the smoke before she reached the car. Hastily climbing to the platform, she crawled in. By the time she had gotten into the corridor a porter had also climbed up. The smoke was so thick and suffocating that the girl choked and coughed.

"He's here," she cried, as a faint groan reached her ears. "Hurry! Oh, do hurry!" Then Bab's words were lost in the fit of coughing that had seized her.

Three men pushed their way into the smoking compartment. They saw that the carpet was smouldering. It had probably been set on fire by a burning cigar or a lighted match. There was no blaze, just a dull smoulder and a lot of smoke. It did not seem possible that one could live in that atmosphere for very long.

Suddenly the porter stumbled over the form of a man. It was the former occupant of section number thirteen.

"Young woman, get out of here at once," commanded the conductor. "We will take care of this man."

Bab staggered out to the platform, where she waited. A minute later the men came out bearing the unconscious form of the stranger. Barbara asked if he were dead. The men said no, but that he was half suffocated from the smoke he had inhaled. They carried the man on ahead to the train and up to the dining car, after which a doctor was hurriedly summoned from one of the other cars. In the meantime Barbara had returned to her companions, who were anxiously awaiting her reappearance. She told them of finding the man, and was warmly commended by the pa.s.sengers for her bravery.

"I do wish we could get word to Ruth Stuart that we are all right," said Barbara, after she had related the story of the finding of the man from section thirteen.

"Ruth Stuart?" questioned Miss Thompson. "I wonder if by any chance she could be related to Robert Stuart, a Chicago broker?"

"Why, she is his daughter. Do you know the Stuarts?" cried Barbara, a smile lighting up her face still pale and somewhat drawn.

"No, but my father wishes to know Mr. Stuart. Only yesterday he was speaking of him. I should not be surprised if he were to call on Mr.

Stuart soon to discuss a business matter with him."

"The world is small, after all, isn't it?" smiled Bab. "We are on our way to Chicago to visit the Stuarts. We are friends of Ruth Stuart. We four are known to our friends as the 'Automobile Girls.'"

The readers of this series must undoubtedly feel well acquainted with that quartette of sweet, dainty, lovable girls, Ruth Stuart, Barbara and Mollie Thurston and Grace Carter, who were met with in the first volume of this series, "THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS AT NEWPORT." Their acquaintance really dated from the time Barbara Thurston so pluckily stopped a team of runaway horses driven by Ruth Stuart, a wealthy western girl, then summering at Kingsbridge, the home of the Thurstons. A warm friendship sprang up almost at once between the two girls, culminating in a long trip in Ruth's automobile, during which journey Ruth, Bab and Mollie Thurston, their friend Grace Carter, and their chaperon, Aunt Sallie Stuart, met with many exciting adventures. It was on this eventful trip, as will be recalled, that Barbara distinguished herself by causing the arrest of a society jewel thief, at the same time heaping coals of fire on the head of a girl cousin who had treated Barbara and Mollie with scornful contempt.

The girls were next heard from in "THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS IN THE BERKSHIRES," to which region, chaperoned, as always, by Ruth's Aunt Sallie, they had driven in Ruth's car for a month's stay in a lonely cabin in the Berkshire Hills. Their experiences with the "Ghost of Lost Man's Trail" was not the least of their exciting adventures there; in fact, their stay in the mountains was filled with a succession of strange happenings that thrilled the girls as nothing in their lives ever had done before.

By this time they considered themselves veteran automobilists and seasoned travelers. As related in "THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS ALONG THE HUDSON," the now famous quartette showed themselves fully equal to the more than ordinary emergencies they met with from time to time on a most eventful journey. From balking highwaymen to fighting a forest fire that for a time threatened the ancestral home of Major Ten Eyck, whose guests they were at the time, the "Automobile Girls" fully lived up to the reputation they had earned for themselves.

After their trip through the Sleepy Hollow country, Ruth had returned to her home in Chicago, while Mollie, Barbara and Grace had settled down to their studies in the Kingsbridge High School. But with the approach of the holidays had come Ruth's cordial invitation to spend Christmas with her in her own home, not forgetting to mention "Mr. A. Bubble,"

who, she promised, would do his part toward making their visit a lively one. The three girls had set out on their journey to the Windy City on the Chicago Express, that journey having been interrupted in a most unexpected manner, as already related.

The conductor sent off a message for them to Ruth Stuart at the next stop. It was a characteristic message from Barbara, reading:

"Train wrecked. 'Automobile Girls' safe. Arrive some time.

"GRACE, MOLLIE, BAB."

This telegram for a time created no little excitement in the Stuart home.

Daylight was upon them by the time the train started from the scene of the wreck. Grace said she felt as though she had contracted a severe cold, for she was aching in every muscle of her body. Mollie declared that she was all right, but Bab averred that she knew she hadn't been in bed in a hundred years.

The dining car was opened early, for all the pa.s.sengers felt the need of something more sustaining than fright. When the girls came back from the dining car they felt much better. Grace had suffered no serious injuries, but Bab's face was scratched from the particles of broken gla.s.s that had showered over her when the windows burst in.

A young man was occupying Barbara's seat when she entered the car they had occupied since the accident. He was leaning back against the high chair. His eyes were closed and a bandage was bound about his head.

"That's the man from number thirteen," whispered Barbara over her shoulder to Mollie. He glanced up, met Barbara's eyes and smiled.

"I am very glad to see that you weren't seriously hurt," said Bab.

The young man rose, supporting himself by the back of the chair.

"Are these your seats?" he asked.

"Yes, but please do not disturb yourself," urged Bab, taking a seat across the aisle. The young man leaned toward her.

"You are Miss Thurston, are you not?" he asked.

Barbara nodded, flushing a little.

"I have been told that I practically owe my life to you. The fire was nothing but a smoulder of the carpet, but I was slowly being asphyxiated. Thirty minutes more and it would have been all up with me.

Even had I been rescued too late to get this train it would have been serious for me. My presence in Chicago to-day is imperative. I might say that it involves my whole future. You see, my dear young lady, you have done more for me than you perhaps realize. You are going to Chicago?"

"Yes; we are going on a visit to our friends, Mr. Robert Stuart and his daughter."