nson, so that he supposed him buried
beneath the wreckage, but presently he discovered his crumpled form
lying jammed between the base of the ledge and a boulder. Weir lifted
the limp figure from its resting place and bore it to open ground,
where he made an examination of the still form. Clearly Sorenson had
been pitched free of the car and crushed against the rock wall. His
cap was missing; his coat was ripped up the back and a part of it gone
as if caught and held by some obstruction in the car when he had been
shot forth; blood and a great bruise marked one cheek; and the way his
legs dragged when he was lifted up indicated some serious injury to
those members. But the man still breathed.

"Miracles haven't ceased," Weir muttered, when he had made sure of the
fact. "But his chance is slim at best."

It would be false to say that the engineer felt compassion at the
other's sudden catastrophe; he experienced none. On the contrary he
had a sense of justice fittingly executed, as if, escaping bullets and
man's blows, Sorenson had been felled by a more certain power, by the
inevitable consequences of his own deeds and sins, by a wall of evil
he himself had raised as much as by a wall of stone.

He searched the man's breast pocket, then hunted for the missing
document among the stones and bushes. At last he gave up for the time
further seeking, with a conviction that the vital paper was gone for
good, destroyed in the fire of the burning car. But for his own
over-confidence, his belief he had Sorenson a safe prisoner back there
in the cabin, the sheets might be secure in his pocket. Well, it was
too late now.

He again lifted the unconscious man in his arms and returned to the
log house. Inside he laid him on the rude bed which Sorenson himself
had spread with sheets and blankets.

"He's alive?" Janet asked, awed.

"Alive, but badly hurt."

"You'll leave him here?"

"Yes, while I take you away. We could do nothing for him in any case;
his injuries are grave and need a doctor's help. The best service we
can perform in his behalf is to start your father or some other
physician here as quickly as possible. He may live or he may die; that
isn't in our hands. He's unconscious and not suffering, and probably
will not feel pain for some hours if he does live, so we can go
without feeling that we're robbing him of any of his chances of
recovery. Your conscience may rest quite easy on that point. Come,
we'll start at on