Page:The Black Cat November 1916.djvu/41

Rh seat and rewrote his list of names very plainly, labeling it, "Partial list of dead and injured." He then wrote a brief account of the wreck, skeletonizing it to save time in transmission; merely listing the essentials for the rewrite man in the office, and confining it to a single sheet of copy paper. The relief train upon which he had come was about to return, carrying the first of the dead and injured. Stratton gave his story into the keeping of one of the trainmen, who promised to get it on the wire for him.

He went back to the line by the fence. Several new figures had been added to the end and he obtained the names of these. The last one in the row was a little girl. She was conscious, so he leaned down and asked her name. The child stared back at him in a wide-eyed, dazed fashion; and Stratton, obtaining no answer, wrote on his list, "Unidentified girl, about seven, slightly injured—shock." As he wrote, he became conscious that someone had kneeled down opposite. Very tenderly this newcomer raised the frightened girl in her arms and drew a caressing hand over her forehead. "Now tell me your name," she said, a note of maternal gentleness in her tone, and the child answered immediately.

"Why," said the girl, softly, "her mother is down at the other end of the line. How glad they both will be!" And the tense, strained lines of her face relaxed in a quick smile at Stratton.

He had looked up at the first sound of her voice, and now, for an instant, their eyes held each other's. A moment passed before either spoke, and then, unconscious of their surroundings, their hands went out in an instinctive, friendly grasp. Tongues were loosed and words came tumbling from their lips.

"Helen Dimmick—"

"The great Stratton!" exclaimed she, and then the girl between them stirred; this brought both back to the present, repentant at their moment of self-interest. Helen Dimmick, a quick look of sympathy in her face, gathered the child up and carried it to its mother.

"I'll look for you on the train," promised Stratton, returning to his work.

During the greater part of the journey back to town the girl was busy at her volunteer nursing and Stratton gathered up the loose ends of his story. Then he sought her out and they sat together in a deserted rear seat. In a few brief words he explained to her the story of his return to the Sun. Helen Dimmick listened eagerly.

"Why—why I, myself," she began haltingly, and then paused. "It's so surprising; I can hardly explain—"

"There's no need," said Stratton, slowly. "I can do it as well; explain how you one day found leisure to look along the road ahead, and how you fell to wondering if such things as quiet and restfulness really existed anywhere, or if they were only soft-sounding names. And, how, after a time, the days on the Sun rose before your eyes, and you had your answer, and—"

"And the next morning I bought my ticket, laughing at my own folly,