But all at once those in the car began to realize that something else was occurring.Somehow, they could feel the accommodation car wavering as if on the brink of a precipice.Then it began to settle slowly and the mystified performers and car hands thought it was going to rest where it was on the ties.
Instead, the car took a sudden lurch.
"We're going over something!" cried a voice.
Phil, who had scrambled quickly to his feet, half-dazed from the fall, stood irresolutely for a few seconds then began making his way toward where Little Dimples had fallen.At that moment young Forrest was hurled with great force against the side of the car.Everything in the car seemed suddenly to have become the center of a miniature cyclone.Dishes, cooking utensils, tables and chairs were flying through the air, the noise within the car accompanied by a sickening, grinding series of crashes from without.
Groans were already distinguishable above the deafening crashes.
Those who were able to think realized that the accommodation car was falling over an embankment of some sort.
Through accident or design, what is known as a "blind switch" had been turned while the engine was shunting the accommodation car about the yards.The result was that the car had left the rails, bumped along on the ties for a distance, then had toppled over an embankment that was some twenty feet high.
It seemed as if all in that ill-fated car must be killed or maimed for life.A series of shrill blasts from the engine called for help.
The crash had been heard all over the railroad yards.Railroad men and circus men had rushed toward the spot where the accommodation car hadgone over the embankment, Mr.Sparling among the number.He had just arrived at the yards when the accident occurred.