They were forced close up to the outlet, when there was a check. More
officials had been summoned; somebody had dropped a heavy box which
obstructed the passage, and a group of passengers began a savage fight
for its recovery. George seized a man who was jostling the girl and
thrust him backward; but the next moment he was struck by somebody, and
he saw nothing of his companions when, after being violently driven to
and fro, he reached the gate. A woman with two screaming children
clinging to her appeared beside him, and he held a man so that she
might pass. He was breathless, and almost exhausted, but he secured
her a little room; and then the pressure suddenly slackened. The crowd
swept out like a flood from a broken dam, and in a few more moments
George stood, gasping, on the platform amid a thinner stream of running
people. There was no sign of the Canadian or his daughter; the cars
were besieged; and George waited until Edgar joined him, flushed and
disheveled.

"I suppose I was lucky in getting through with only my jacket badly
torn," said the lad, "I wondered why the railroad people caged up their
passengers behind iron bars, but now I know."

George laughed.

"I don't think this kind of thing is altogether usual. Owing to the
accident, they've no doubt had two trainloads to handle instead of one.
But the platform's emptying; shall we look for a place?"

They managed to enter a car, though the stream of passengers, pouring
in by the two vestibules, met within in dire confusion, choking up the
passage with their baggage. Order was, however, restored at last; and,