ounds, Bessie's dear voice, came to him, and the
next minute he had caught up the child as she ran to him and strained
her to his breast as in the old days when he had carried her about the
house and yard.

"Where are Will and Clara?"

"O father, they're here! and Will wasn't hurt much more than I was; but
Clara has fainted, and she is lying down over here."

Bess dragged her father out across the ice to the edge of the bank,
where a number of the victims had been laid on the cushions of the
seats, some dead, some dying. There lay Clara, very white and still,
with Will bending over her, himself bleeding from several wounds about
the head and hands, but still conscious and trying to restore his
sister.

Mr. Hardy kneeled down in the snow by his son's side. Will was not
surprised at seeing him there; but he sobbed excitedly: "Oh, she is
dead!"

"No," replied her father; "she is not."

Clara stirred, and her lips moved; but she did not open her eyes, and
then her father noticed that a strange mark lay over her face.

How Mr. Hardy succeeded in carrying the girl to the top of the bank,
and how he left her there in the care of brave-hearted women while he
went down into that hell's pit to rescue victims imprisoned and
groaning for help; how Bess related the accident of the night and tried
to explain how she was not hurt except a scratch or two, because she
fell between two car-seat cushions that were jammed around her and
protected her from injury; how the excitement grew as it was discovered
that the dead and dying would number more than seventy-five, instead of
ten or twelve, as Burns had said; how finally Robert Hardy and Will and
Bess and Clara, with other victims, were taken back to Barton, where a
great crowd of anxious, pale-faced people was surging through the
station and over the track; how James Caxton was first to board the
train down by the shops, at the risk of his neck, as in the rainy
darkness he swung himself on the dead run up to the platform of the
coach; how Mrs. Hardy met her children and husband; how there was
sorrow in many a home in Barton that night and for many days to come;
how Mr. Hardy, a little after midnight, entirely exhausted by the
events of the day and night, finally fell asleep and dreamed the scene
all over again,--all this and a great deal more might be of interest
concerning one of the most remarkable railroad accidents that ever
occurred in this country, but it would be out o