Gwen had been shaken from her seat and jammed beneath the one before her. The twins, gripping the sides, held on as if riding a fractious broncho, and were not shaken loose.

“Oh!” cried Marjory, as the car settled to rest, “Johnny Thompson and our ponies! We must find them. They may be killed.”

The pair of them, sliding from their seats, had crawled through a window, and were away before Gwen could sufficiently recover her breath to call them back. She wrung her hands in real distress.

“They’ll be killed!” she cried frantically. “Half the lions and tigers in the circus must be loose!”

Then she scrambled out of the car to find Johnny Thompson. He would know what to do!

CHAPTER XVII “GET THAT BLACK CAT”

At the first shock of the wreck, Johnny Thompson and Pant were thrown with such violence against the express car door that the lock was sprung, and they were pitched head foremost among the surprised and panic-stricken counterfeiters.

Pant was the first to regain his wits. The car, like many others, had careened to one side and lay there motionless. The instruments in the room had been tossed about. Everyone was splashed with a stinging fluid which came from the vats. The peculiar instrument which had occupied the center of the room, and was undoubtedly the color-photo camera, an instrument of priceless value, had apparently sustained little injury. Pant seized upon this and was about to dash through the door with it, when the large man with the black moustache wrenched it from his grasp, and, poising it for an instant in his right hand, hurled it at Pant’s head. Leaping to one side, Pant barely escaped the blow. There was a crash, followed by the tinkle of glass and metal instruments.

The next moment the big man shot suddenly upward and fell back with a groan. Johnny’s good right hand had got him under the chin. Two of the men leaped from the door and fled. The one remaining sprang at Pant, but was at once borne down by Johnny.

“Tear some of those wires from the wall,” panted Johnny. “We’ll tie them and drag them out.”

The fat man, who was completely within their power, was soon tied, then carried out of the car to the embankment.

“Now for the other,” puffed Johnny.

They dodged back into 

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