Gordon was already struggling to his feet when they reached him, and somehow he made them understand that some thirty yards away lay the unconscious form of Jonathan Brent’s son. After that events were very hazy and confused to Gordon. Kindly hands pulled and lifted him up the embankment and into the car, where he subsided weakly on a seat. Voices asked questions and he tried to answer them. Someone caught sight of the overturned automobile and there was much pointing and much exclaiming. And then three men came toiling across the ground below with Morris and others slid and stumbled down to help them, and almost at once the big car was pounding back the way it had come, its strident whistle shrieking above the hum of the rails in an incessant warning and alarm! CHAPTER IX MR. MERRICK BREAKS A PLATE That was perhaps the quickest trip a Rutter’s Point car ever made, and almost before Gordon realized that town had been reached, and certainly before he had fully recovered from his experiences, the big yellow-sided car was coming to a stop at the foot of B Street, from where it was but two short blocks to Brentwood. The prolonged and frantic whistling had summoned a knot of curious persons to the corner as the car trundled around the curve and there were plenty of willing hands to bear the still unconscious form the remaining distance. Gordon, not a little faint and weak, followed slowly. Someone had sped ahead and when the little throng reached the house anxious faces were already at the doorway. Gordon remained without and soon the men who had carried Morris inside returned to linger about the door and await the doctor’s verdict. The latter reached the gate a minute later, and, leaping from his buggy, hurried up the walk, his black bag swinging briskly. There was a long wait after that. The accident was discussed in low voices by the small gathering outside and Gordon was forced to go through his story again. Presently he left the front steps and wandered around to the side of the house. From an upper window came the low mutter of voices. Near at hand was a rustic seat, placed against the wall of the screened porch, and on this Gordon subsided with a big sigh of relief. Inside the house a telephone bell rang shrilly. Footsteps hurried. The voices in the room upstairs still came indistinctly through the open window. It was pretty late, Gordon reflected, and he ought to be at home. His father would be angry with him if he was late for supper. But he didn’t want to go until he had heard whether Morris was going to get well. Meanwhile, it was fine and comfortable in the corner of the rustic seat and he would just close his eyes a minute——