the drive to the station. Her mind was on getting home and turning the
precious old coins and postage stamps into real money. Then she could
arrange about going to Three Towers Hall and about sending her brother
to Boxton Military Academy.

Fortunately the train was only ten minutes late, and presently they were
safely aboard and on the way to North Bend.

Half an hour passed. Boys and girls were chatting gaily, the others
congratulating Billie over and over again on her good fortune.

"Just like a page out of the Arabian Nights----" Teddy was saying when
his words were cut short most unexpectedly.

There was a jar and a crash, a shock and another crash, and then the
lights in the car went out, leaving the passengers in darkness.

CHAPTER II

THE WRECK

What followed was like a terrible nightmare. Shaken and jolted badly,
but not seriously hurt, it took the girls a horrible minute or two to
realize what had happened. There had been an accident--a terrible
accident. Then hands went out in the blackness and the girls called to
each other in strangled whispers that could not be heard above the din
and uproar outside.

They heard Mr. Bradley shouting above the noise, asking if any one of
them was hurt and reassuring them. Gradually they managed to grope their
way to his side, guided by his voice, and with an agony of relief in his
heart he gathered the three girls to him and heard the voices of Mrs.
Gilligan and the boys at his elbow.

"Let's get out of this," he cried, and began feeling his way cautiously
toward what had been the front of the car.

He soon found the aisle blocked by what appeared to be the wreck of the
forward end of the car and was forced to turn back and feel his way
toward the rear platform.

Fortunately the train had not been crowded. There had been only three or
four passengers in that car besides themselves, and so there was little
danger of being trampled in the dark.

Fearfully, holding on to one another, the girls followed Mr. Bradley and
the boys, stepping gingerly over broken glass and other debris and
shivering with fear and excitement.

"I wonder if anybody was hurt," Laura cried into Billie's ear.

"Oh, I hope not," said Billie, her voice almost lost in the uproar. "I
guess it must have been the forward cars that caught the worst of it. We
just escaped." She shuddered and clasped Laura's hand more tightly.

It seemed ages before they finally reached the platform of