The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound Part 7

Three men were on the car tracks, and two of them seemed to be trying to pull one away, out of the path of an approaching car. The shouts came from a number of pedestrians who had seen the danger of the man.

The latter seemed to be caught by the foot on the rail, though how this was possible was difficult to understand, as the rail was flat.

The motorman was doing his best to stop the car, but the rails were slippery and it was easily seen that he could not do it. Then he added his shouts to those of the others.

"Oh, he'll be killed!" cried Alice, covering her face with her hands.

Ruth had also turned aside.

"No, he won't!" cried Russ, with conviction. "They'll get him off, I think. There! He's free! I guess they took off his shoe."

As he spoke the girls looked, and they saw the man fall in a peculiar way, to one side, so as to be out of the path of the car, which swept past him. The vehicle, however, seemed to hit him, but of this neither Russ nor the girls could be sure.

"That's a queer accident," murmured Russ, as he started toward the scene of it. "Come on, girls."

Ruth and Alice went with him. There was a little crowd about the fallen man, and at the sight of the fellow's face Alice suddenly cried:

"Look! That is Dan Merley!"

CHAPTER VI

NEW PLANS

Alice's announcement caused her sister to start in surprise. Ruth looked as if she could not understand, and Alice repeated:

"See, the man who fell is Dan Merley--the one who says daddy owes him five hundred dollars."

"I believe you're right!" agreed Russ, who had had a good look at the impudent fellow the night he invaded the DeVere rooms. "And I know one of those other men--at least by sight. His name is Jagle. Let's see what is going on here."

Fortunately no very large crowd gathered, so the girls felt it would be proper for them to remain, particularly as the accident was not of a distressing nature.

The motorman had stopped his car and had run back to the scene with the conductor.

"What's the matter here? What did you want to get in the way of the car for, anyhow?" demanded the motorman. He was nervously excited, and the reaction at finding, after all, he had not killed a man, made him rather angry.

"Matter? Matter enough, I should say!" replied one of the men with Merley. "My friend is badly hurt. Someone get an ambulance! Fripp, you call one."

"That was Jagle who spoke," Russ whispered to the girls. "But I don't know the other one."

"He doesn't seem to be badly hurt," remarked the motorman. The conductor, with a little pad and pencil, was getting the names of witnesses to be used in case suit was brought. This is always done by street car companies, in order to protect themselves.

"Hurt? Of course he's hurt!" exclaimed the man Russ called Jagle. "See that cut on his head!"

There was a slight abrasion on Merley's forehead, but it did not seem at all serious.

"Aren't you hurt, Dan?" asked Jagle.

"Of course I am!" was the answer. "I'm hurt bad, too. Get me home, Jim."

"If he's hurt the best place for him is a hospital," remarked the motorman. "But I can't see where he's hurt."

"I can't walk, I tell you," whined Merley, and he attempted to get up, but fell back. One of his friends caught him in his arms.

"There, you see! Of course he's hurt!" declared Jagle. "Go call an ambulance, Fripp."

"I'll get an ambulance if he really needs one," spoke a policeman, who had just come up on seeing the crowd. "Where are you hurt?"

"Something's the matter with my legs," declared Merley. "I can't use my right one, and the left one is hurt, too. My foot got caught between the rail and a piece of ice, and I couldn't get loose. My friends tried to help me, but they couldn't get me away in time. I'm hurt, and I'm hurt bad, I tell you! I think one of my legs must be run over."

"Nothing like that!" declared the motorman. "There's been no legs run over by my car!"

That was very evident.

"Get me away from here," groaned Merley.

"Well, if you're really hurt I'll call an ambulance and have you taken to the hospital," offered the policeman as he went to turn in a call.

"I sure am hurt," insisted Merley. "Why, I can hardly move now," and he seemed to stiffen all over, though there was no visible sign of injury.

"Why doesn't someone get a doctor?" a boy in the crowd asked.

"There'll be one in de hurry-up wagon!" exclaimed another urchin. "A feller in a white suit--dem's doctors. I know, cause me fadder was in de 'ospital onct."

Merley's two friends carried him to a drug store not far from the scene of the accident. Ruth and Alice shrank back as he was borne past them, for they feared he might recognize them, and cause a scene. But if he saw them, which is doubtful, he gave no sign.

"Here comes de hurry-up wagon!" cried the lad who had thus designated the ambulance. "Let's see 'em shove him on de stretcher! Say dis is great!"

"I think we had better be going, Alice, dear," said Ruth. "Daddy wouldn't like us to be in this crowd."

"Oh, I want to stay and see what happens. Besides, it might be important," Alice objected. "This is Dan Merley, who might make trouble for papa. We ought to see what happens to him. I think that whole accident was queer. He didn't seem to be hit at all, and yet he says he can't move. We ought to stay."

"If you want to go, I'll stay and let you know what happens," offered Russ. "I don't mind."

"Perhaps that would be best," said Ruth.

"All right," agreed Alice, and she and her sister, with a last look at the crowd around the ambulance, started for their apartment.

Russ came along a little later.

"What happened?" asked Ruth, when he had knocked on the door of their hall and had been admitted.

"Not much," he replied. "They took Merley home, instead of to a hospital. He wouldn't go to an inst.i.tution, he said."

"Did those other two men go with him?" asked Alice.