ke. He watched it lazily, while it melted into the blue sky, and
another ribbon took its place. But presently the pain in his leg
aroused him. He perceived that the car was lying on one side, making
the other side into a roof, and one open window was opposite his
eyes. At the other end the car was hardly more than a mass of broken
seats and crushed sides, but it was almost intact where he lay. He saw
that the stove had charred the wood-work near it; hence the smoke,
which escaped through a crack and floated above him. The few people in
the car were climbing out of the windows as best they might. A pair of
grimy arms reached down to Demming, and he heard the brakeman's voice
(he knew Jim Herndon, the brakeman, well) shouting profanely for the
"next."

"Whar's the Bishop?" said Demming.

"Reckon he's out," answered Jim. "Mought as well come yo'self! H----!
you've broke yo' leg!"

"Pull away, jes' the same. I don' wanter stay yere an' roast!"

The brakeman pulled him through the window. Demming shut his teeth
hard; only the fear of death could have made him bear the agony every
motion gave him.

The brakeman drew him to one side before he left him. Demming could
see the wreck plainly. A freight train had been thrown from the track,
and the passenger train had run into it while going at full speed.
"The brakes wouldn't work," Demming heard Jim say. Now the sight was a
sorry one: a heap of rubbish which had been a freight car; the
passenger engine sprawling on one side, in the swamp, like a huge
black beetle; and, near it, the two foremost cars of its train
overturned and shattered. The people of both trains were gathered
about the wreck, helplessly talking, as is the manner of people in an
accident. They were, most of them, on the other side of the track. No
one had been killed; but some were wounded, and were stretched in a
ghastly row on car cushions. The few women and children in the train
were collected about the wounded.

"Is the last man out?" shouted the conductor.

Jim answered, "Yes, all out--no, d---- it! I see a coat-tail down
here."

"Look at the fire!" screamed a woman. "Oh, God help him! The car's
afire!"

"He's gone up, whoever he is," muttered Jim. "They ain't an axe nor
nuthin' on board, an' he's wedged in fast. But come on, boys! I'll
drop in onct mo'!"

"You go with him," another man said. "Here, you fellows, I can run
fastest; I'll go to the cabin for an axe. Some of you follow me for
some