All this had happened in a very brief space of time. The many details which, combined, made the accident possible, stretched over a period of some duration, but the accident itself passed from beginning to conclusion in a few ticks of a watch.
Sick and unnerved, Merriwell leaned against the target. The screech of the ore car’s wheels rasped wildly in his ears. He had a glimpse of the runaway ore carrier sliding from the loop track to the switch, with Jode kneeling on the ore and clinging to the brake wheel.
The next instant Merriwell realized that Jode, by his daring work, had plunged himself into a fresh catastrophe.
The spur track was short and lay on level ground. There was no barrier at the end of it, but a plunge downward for half a dozen feet right from the ends of the rails. Lenning, with the car and its load, must take that plunge!
The events of Lenning’s past life were such as to lead people to believe that he was a coward, and had a yellow streak. Yet how could that be when he voluntarily threw himself into terrible danger to save his uncle?
Under Merriwell’s horrified eyes the ore car sped out to the end of the spur and dived downward. Not a cry escaped Lenning as, white-faced and rigid, he tipped off into space with the load of ore.
Colonel Hawtrey was himself a witness of his nephew’s
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 plunge from the end of the spur track. His senses returned to him quickly and he lifted himself on one elbow. As it chanced, his eyes were fixed on the spot where Jode and the car were shooting off into space from the spur.
Burke was another eyewitness. Quickly as he could come, he rushed down the hill and hurried out to the end of the little siding. There he and Merriwell stood together, looking down.
The car lay bottom up on the ground below. The ore it had carried was scattered widely.
“Do you see him?” Burke whispered hoarsely in Merriwell’s ear.
“Yes,” Merriwell answered, and forthwith began descending to the foot of the slight slope.
Lenning had been thrown quite a little distance from the car, and was lying face downward in the sand and gravel. He was silent and motionless.
“Jode!” called Frank, kneeling beside him and touching his shoulder.
There was no answer from the lad who had fought so hard to clear his record. With a sinking sensation at his heart, Frank lifted Jode in his arms and turned his face upward. His cheek and temple were gashed and bleeding, and his eyes were closed.
“Can’t he talk?” asked Burke. “Is he unconscious?”
Frank nodded. “Let’s take him somewhere,” said he; “to the bunk house, where we can get him on a bed. He must be badly hurt, Burke.”
“I don’t see how he ever came through that alive!” muttered the superintendent.
A crowd had gathered, racing to the scene from the cyanide works, from the blacksmith shop, from the mill.
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“That was the bravest thing I ever saw!” declared King, the cyanide expert. “Is he going to live, Burke?”
“Of course he’s going to live!” declared Frank, white-lipped but with a voice of conviction. “What do you think now,” he added, “you fellows that thought Jode was a thief and had a yellow streak?”
“If he had ever had a yellow streak,” returned King, “he has wiped it out for good and all.”
“King,” said Burke quietly, “telephone to town for a doctor. The rest of you men,” he added, “go back to your work. Everything possible will be done for Lenning—I don’t need to tell you that. Come on, Merriwell,” he finished, “and let’s get him to the bunk house.”
As carefully as they could, Frank and the super lifted Lenning between them and bore him away to the long, low building where the miners and mill men had their sleeping quarters.
They had hardly laid Lenning down on his cot, before Colonel Hawtrey, his face ashen, pushed into the............