The rules of the company did not force him to stand
all the time. His head seemed to sag forward on his breast. The car
was running so fast that he pitched from side to side on his seat--
Or was it from some other reason that his body swayed so? The
question shocked Nan Sherwood.
"Oh, Rhoda!" she exclaimed, turning to the Western girl, "what is
the matter with him?"
Rhoda Hammond sprang up. Her face was pale but her lips were firmly
compressed. She clung to the handle of the door. Nan was holding
herself upright by clinging to the other handle.
"There is something the matter with that man!" cried the girl from
Tillbury.
They shook the door handles. Of course they could not open the
door, nor did the motorman heed them in any way.
Nan screamed aloud then. She saw the hands of the man slip from the
handle of the brake and from the controller. The car seemed to leap
ahead, gaining additional speed. The man slipped sideways from his
stool and crumpled on the platform of the car.
The other girls did not see this. Even the conductor on the rear
platform did not know what had happened. Only Nan and Rhoda
realized fully the trouble.
"My dear!" gasped Nan, "we cannot get to him. And nobody can stop
the car!"
She felt almost a sensation of nausea at the pit of her stomach.
She did not weep or lose control of herself. But she felt
frightfully helpless.
There seemed nothing to do but to stand there, clinging to the door
handle, and watch the car reeling down the slope at a speed that
promised disaster at the curve, if not before.
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