Page:The One Woman (1903).pdf/310

 She took Ruth's hand and kissed it impulsively.

"Thank you. You are an angel."

"Come, we will be burned to death if we don't get out of here in a minute," Ruth cried, excitedly.

She found the berth ladder she had thrown through the window and broke the windows out on the lower side of the car, and called:

"Is any one down there?"

Only the roar of the water and crackling flames answered.

She looked and saw a strip of ground on the bank of the river some eight feet below. They might slide down the trestle if no one could help.

The black eyes flashed into the blue for a moment and the little brunette face went white.

"Where is Frank?" she gasped.

Kate shivered and glanced at the flames.

"I don't know. He was in the berth in front of mine. I hope he is gone for help."

Ruth handed her the children and leaped back to the berth. It was smashed upward and a great hole torn through the roof.

She hurried back and again peered down through the broken window at the narrow strip of ground on the river's brink lit by the rising flames.

And then she gave a cry of joy at the sound of a voice somewhere amid the mass beneath.

"Ruth! Ruth! Is that you and the children in that car?"

"Yes, Frank," came back the steady answer.