Part 9 (1/2)

”Oh, John is not feeling well, I guess. He hasn't acted like himself all day. But it's as much as my life's worth to ask him how he feels. He's got the temper of a wolf when he's under the weather--poor old John has.”

Of course, the girls gave the motorman little attention--unless Rhoda did from her situation up front. The rest of them only noticed him when he started or stopped the car with more than ordinary abruptness.

”I do wish he wouldn't jerk the car so,” complained Laura Polk.

”He's made me almost swallow my gum twice.”

”Gracious, Laura!” gasped Lillie Nevins, looking alarmed, ”if you really have any gum you had better swallow it before Miss March sees you.”

At this Laura merely chuckled delightedly.

”I really don't like the way this man is running the car,” Miss March said finally to the conductor. ”Tell him to have a care. He will have us off the track.”

The interurban line was not a smooth, straight-ahead road. They swung around turns that were somewhat sharp. John stormed along as though he were running on a perfectly straight track.

”I'll see what I can do,” said the conductor doubtfully, and he went forward and tapped on the gla.s.s of the front door. But the motorman only gave him an angry glance and would not even reach around and lift the latch.

”He's running away with us!” exclaimed Lillie Nevins, who was always easily frightened.

”Oh, my dear!” laughed another girl. ”What an elopement!”

”I hate to do it,” said the conductor, when he came back to Miss March. ”But I'll report him to the inspector when we get to the end of the route.”

The car topped the heights of the ridge of hills that lay between Adminster and Freeling. On the Freeling side of the ridge the slope to the valley was almost continuous. But near the bottom was a sharp curve. Here was a low stone wall along the edge of the road, beyond which was a sheer drop of thirty or more feet into a rocky gorge. It was a perilous spot. More than one accident had happened there; but never an electric car accident.

The rapidity with which the motorman ran the car, and the jerky way in which he stopped and started it, did not bother Nan Sherwood much, for she was not nervous. Miss March, however, began to stare ahead apprehensively, and the way in which she twisted her pocket-handkerchief in her hands as the car started down the long slope betrayed her feelings. Nan was really sorry for Miss March.

The wheels pounded over the rail-joints and the car began to rock threateningly. A small obstruction on the track would very likely have thrown the car off the rails.

”I do wish that man would have a care,” sighed Miss March.

Nan jumped up. She feared that the teacher would soon become hysterical. Also, Grace and Lillie began to betray fear and more of the girls were anxious. Nan stumbled forward to the end of the car.

Rhoda sat there, looking ahead, and betraying no emotion at all.

Nan could see the shoulders of the motorman, who was sitting on the one-legged stool on which he had a right to rest when the car was out of town. The rules of the company did not force him to stand all the time. His head seemed to sag forward on his breast. The car was running so fast that he pitched from side to side on his seat--

Or was it from some other reason that his body swayed so? The question shocked Nan Sherwood.

”Oh, Rhoda!” she exclaimed, turning to the Western girl, ”what is the matter with him?”

Rhoda Hammond sprang up. Her face was pale but her lips were firmly compressed. She clung to the handle of the door. Nan was holding herself upright by clinging to the other handle.

”There is something the matter with that man!” cried the girl from Tillbury.

They shook the door handles. Of course they could not open the door, nor did the motorman heed them in any way.

Nan screamed aloud then. She saw the hands of the man slip from the handle of the brake and from the controller. The car seemed to leap ahead, gaining additional speed. The man slipped sideways from his stool and crumpled on the platform of the car.

The other girls did not see this. Even the conductor on the rear platform did not know what had happened. Only Nan and Rhoda realized fully the trouble.