ROD, SMILER, AND THE TRAMP.
“Help! Murder! Take off your dog!” yelled the young tramp, throwing up his arm to protect his face from Smiler’s attack, and springing backward. In so doing he tripped and fell heavily to the floor, with the dog on top of him, growling savagely, and tearing at the ragged coat-sleeve in which his teeth were fastened. Fearful lest the dog might inflict some serious injury upon the fellow, Rodman rushed to his assistance. He had just seized hold of Smiler, when a kick from the struggling tramp sent his feet flying from under him, and he too pitched headlong. There ensued a scene which would have been comical enough to a spectator, but which was anything but funny to those who took part in it. Over and over they rolled, striking, biting, kicking, and struggling. The tramp was the first to regain his feet; but almostat the same instant Smiler escaped from Rod’s embrace, and again flew at him. They had rolled over the caboose floor until they were close to its rear door; and now, with a yell of terror, the tramp darted through it, sprang from the moving train, and disappeared in the darkness, leaving a large piece of his trousers in the dog’s mouth. Just then the forward door was opened, and two men with lanterns on their arms, entered the car.
They were Conductor Tobin, and rear-brakeman Joe, his right-hand man, who had just finished switching their train back on the main track, and getting it again started on its way toward New York. At the sight of Rod, who was of course a perfect stranger to them, sitting on the floor, hatless, covered with dust, his clothing bearing many signs of the recent fray, and ruefully feeling of a lump on his forehead that was rapidly increasing in size, and of Smiler whose head was bloody, and who was still worrying the last fragment of clothing that the tramp’s rags had yielded him, they stood for a moment in silent bewilderment.
“Well, I’ll be blowed!” said Conductor Tobin at length.
“Me too,” said Brakeman Joe, who believed in following the lead of his superior officer.
“May I inquire,” asked Conductor Tobin, seating himself on a locker close to where Rod still sat on the floor, “May I inquire who you are? and where you came from? and how you got here? and what’s happened to Smiler? and what’s came of the fellow we left sleeping here a few minutes ago? and what’s the meaning of all this business, anyway?”
“Yes, we’d like to know,” said the Brakeman, taking a seat on the opposite locker, and regarding the boy with a curiosity that was not unmixed with suspicion. Owing to extensive dealings with tramps, Brakeman Joe was very apt to be suspicious of all persons who were dirty, and ragged, and had bumps on their foreheads.
“The trouble is,” replied Rod, looking first at Conductor Tobin and then at Brakeman Joe, “that I don’t know all about it myself. Nobody does except the fellow who just left here in such a hurry, and Smiler, who can’t tell.”
Here the dog, hearing his name mentioned, dragged himself rather stiffly to the boy’s side; for nowthat the excitement was over, his hurts began to be painful again, and licked his face.
smiler drives off the tramp.—(page41.)
“Well, you must be one of the right sort, at any rate,” said Conductor Tobin, noting this movement, “for Smiler is a dog that doesn’t make friends except with them as are.”
“He knows what’s what, and who’s who,” added Brakeman Joe, nodding his head. “Don’t you, Smiler, old dog?”
“My name,” continued the boy, “is R. R. Blake.”
“Railroad Blake?” interrupted Conductor Tobin inquiringly.
“Or ‘Runaway Blake’?” asked Brakeman Joe who, still somewhat suspicious, was studying the boy’s face and the M. I. P. bag attached to his shoulders.
“Both,” answered Rod, with a smile. “The boys where I live, or rather where I did live, often call me ‘Railroad Blake,’ and I am a runaway. That is, I was turned away first, and ran away afterwards.”
Then, as briefly as possible, he gave them the whole history of his adventures, beginning with the bicycle race, and ending with the disappearance of the young tramp through the rear door of thecaboose in which they sat. Both men listened with the deepest attention, and without interrupting him save by occasional ejaculations, expressive of wonder and sympathy.
“Well, I’ll be blowed!” exclaimed Conductor Tobin, when he had finished; while Brakeman Joe, without a word, went to the rear door and examined the platform, with the hope, as he afterwards explained, of finding there the fellow who had kicked Smiler off the train, and of having a chance to serve him in the same way. Coming back with a disappointed air, he proceeded to light a fire in the little round caboose stove, and prepare a pot of coffee for supper, leaving Rodman’s case to be managed by Conductor Tobin as he thought best.
The latter told the boy that the young tramp, as they called him, was billed through to New York, to look after some cattle that were on the train; but that he was a worthless, ugly fellow, who had not paid the slightest attention to them, and whose only object in accepting the job was evidently to obtain a free ride in the caboose. Smiler, whom he had been delighted to find on the train when it was turned over to him, had taken a great dislike to thefellow from the first. He had growled and shown his teeth whenever the tramp moved about the car, and several times the latter had threatened to teach him better manners. When he and Brakeman Joe went to the forward end of the train, to make ready for side-tracking it, they left the dog sitting on the rear platform of the caboose, and the tramp apparently asleep, as Rod had found him, on one of the lockers. He must have taken advantage of their absence to deal the dog the cruel kick that cut his ear, and landed him, stunned and bruised, on the track where he had been discovered.
“I’m glad he’s gone,” concluded Conductor Tobin, “for if he hadn’t left, we would have fired him for what he did to Smiler. We won’t have that dog hurt on this road, not if we know it. It won’t hurt him to have to walk to New York, and I don’t care if he never gets there. What worries me, though, is who’ll look after those cattle, and go down to the stock-yard with them, now that he’s gone.”
“Why couldn’t I do it?” asked Rod eagerly. “I’d be glad to.”
“You!” said Conductor Tobin incredulously.“Why, you look like too much of a gentleman to be handling cattle.”
“I hope I am a gentleman,” answered the boy with a smile; “but I am a very poverty-stricken one just at present, and if I can earn a ride to the city, just by looking after some cattle, I don’t know why I shouldn’t do that as well as anything else. What I would like to do though, most of all things, is to live up to my nickname, and become a railroad man.”
“You would, would you?” said Conductor Tobin. Then, as though he were propounding a conundrum, he asked: “Do you know the difference between a railroad man and a chap who wants to be one?”
“I don’t know that I do,” answered the boy.
“Well, the difference is, that the latter gets what he deserves, and the former deserves what he gets. What I mean is, that almost anybody who is willing to take whatever job is offered him can get a position on a railroad; but before he gets promoted he will have to deserve it several times over. In other words, it takes more honesty, steadiness, faithfulness, hard work, and brains to work your way up in railroad life than in any other business that I know of. However, at present, you are only goingalong with me as stockman, in which position I am glad to have you, so we won’t stop now to discuss railroading. Let’s see what Joe has got for supper, for I’m hungry and I shouldn’t be surprised if you were.”
Indeed Rod was hungry, and just at that moment the word supper was the most welcome of the whole English language. First, though, he went to the wash-basin that he noticed at the forward end of the car. There he bathed his face and hands, brushed his hair, restored his clothing to something like order, and altogether made himself so presentable, that Conductor Tobin laughed when he saw him, and declared that he looked less like a stockman than ever.
How good that supper, taken from the mammoth lunch pails of the train crew, tasted, and what delicious coffee came steaming out of the smoke-blackened pot that Brakeman Joe lifted so carefully from the stove! To be sure it had to be taken without milk, but there was plenty of sugar, and when Rod passed his tin cup for a second helping, the coffee maker’s face fairly beamed with gratified pride.
After these three and Smiler had finished theirsupper, Conductor Tobin lighted his pipe, and, climbing up into the cupola of the caboose, stretched himself comfortably on the cushioned seat arranged there for his especial accommodation. From here, through the windows ahead, behind, and on both sides of the cupola, he had an unobstructed view out into the night. Brakeman Joe went out over the tops of the cars to call in the other two brakeman of the train, and keep watch for them, while they went into the caboose and ate their supper. They looked curiously at Rod as they entered the car; but were too well used to seeing strangers riding there to ask any questions. They both spoke to Smiler though, and he wagged his tail as though recognizing old friends.
The dog could not go to them and jump up to be petted because Rod was attending to his wounds. He carefully bathed the cut under the left ear, from which considerable blood had flowed, and drew its edges together with some sticking plaster, of which he always carried a small quantity in his M. I. P. bag. Then, finding one of the dog’s fore shoulders strained and swollen, he soaked it for some time in water as hot as the animal could bear. Afterarranging a comfortable bed in one corner of the car, he finally persuaded Smiler to lie there quietly, though not until he had submitted to a grateful licking of his face and hands.
Next the boy turned his attention to the supper dishes, and had them very nearly washed and wiped when Brakeman Joe returned, greatly to that stalwart fellow’s surprise and delight; for Joe hated to wash dishes. By this time Rod had been nearly two hours on the train, and was so thoroughly tired that he concluded to lie down and rest until he should be wanted for something else. He did not mean to even close his eyes, but within three minutes he was fast asleep. All through the night he slept, while the long freight train, stopping only now and then for water, or to allow some faster train to pass it, rumbled heavily along toward the great city.
He could not at first realize where he was, when, in the gray of the next morning, a hand was laid on his shoulder, and Conductor Tobin’s voice said: “Come, my young stockman, here we are at the end of our run, and it is time for you to be looking after your cattle.” A quick dash of cold water on hishead and face cleared the boy’s faculties in an instant. Then Conductor Tobin pointed out the two stock cars full of cattle that were being uncoupled from the rest of the train, and bade him go with them to the stock-yard. There he was to see that the cattle were well watered and safely secured in the pen that would be assigned to them. Rod was also told that he might leave his bag in the caboose and come back, after he was through with his work, for a bit of breakfast with Brakeman Joe, who lived at the other end of the division, and always made the car his home when at this end. As for himself, Conductor Tobin said he must bid the boy good-by, as he lived a short distance out on the road, and must hurry to catch the train that would take him home. He would be back, ready to start out again with the through freight, that evening, and hoped Rod would come and tell him what luck he had in obtaining a position. Then rough but kind-hearted Conductor Tobin left the boy, never for a moment imagining that he was absolutely penniless and without friends in that part of the country, or in the great city across the river.
For the next two hours Rod worked hard andfaithfully with the cattle committed to his charge, and then, anticipating with a keen appetite a share of Brakeman Joe’s breakfast, he returned to where he had left the caboose. It was not there, nor could he find a trace of it. He saw plenty of other cabooses looking just like it, but none of them was the one he wanted.
He inquired of a busy switch-tender where it could be found, and the man asked him its number. He had not noticed. What was the number of the train with which it came in? Rod had no idea. The number of the locomotive that drew it then? The boy did not know that either.
“Well,” said the man impatiently, “you don’t seem to know much of anything, and I’d advise you to learn what it is you want to find out before you bother busy folks with questions.”
So the poor fellow was left standing alone and bewildered in the great, busy freight-yard, friendless and hungry. He had lost even the few treasures contained in his M. I. P. bag, and never had life seemed darker or more hopeless. For some moments he could not think what to do, or which way to turn.
EARNING A BREAKFAST.
If Rod Blake had only known the number of the caboose for which he was searching, he could easily have learned what had happened to it. Soon after he left it, while it was being switched on to a siding, one of its draw-bars became broken, and it had been sent to the repair shop, a mile or so away, to be put in condition for going out again that night. He had not thought of looking at its number, though; for he had yet to learn that on a railroad everything goes by numbers instead of by names. A few years ago all locomotives bore names, such as “Flying Cloud,” “North Wind,” etc., or were called after prominent men; but now they are simply numbered. It is the same with cars, except sleepers, drawing-rooms, and a few mail cars. Trains are also numbered, odd numbers being given to west or south bound, and even numbers to east or northbound trains. Thus, while a passenger says he is going out by the Chicago Limited, the Pacific Express, or the Fitchburg Local, the railroad man would say that he was going on No. 1, 3, or 5, as the case might be. The sections, from three to eight miles long, into which every road is divided, are numbered, as are all its bridges. Even the stations are numbered, and so are the tracks.
All this Rodman discovered afterwards; but he did not know it then, and so he was only bewildered by the switchman’s questions. For a few minutes he stood irresolute, though keeping a sharp lookout for the hurrying switch engines, and moving cars that, singly or in trains, were flying in all directions about him, apparently without any reason or method. Finally he decided to follow out his original plan of going to the superintendent’s office and asking for employment. By inquiry he found that it was located over the passenger station, nearly a mile away from where he stood. When he reached the station, and inquired for the person of whom he was in search, he was laughed at, and told that the “super” never came to his office at that time of day, nor until two or three hours later. So, feeling faintfor want of breakfast, as well as tired and somewhat discouraged, the boy sat down in the great bustling waiting-room of the station.
At one side of the room was a lunch-counter, from which the odor of newly-made coffee was wafted to him in the most tantalizing manner. What wouldn’t he give for a cup at that moment? But there was no use in thinking of such things; and so he resolutely turned his back upon the steaming urn, and the tempting pile of eatables by which it was surrounded. In watching the endless streams of passengers steadily ebbing and flowing past him, he almost forgot the emptiness of his stomach. Where could they all be going to, or coming from? Did people always travel in such overwhelming numbers, that it seemed as though the whole world were on the move, or was this some special occasion? He thought the latter must be the case, and wondered what the occasion was. Then there were the babies and children! How they swarmed about him! He soon found that he could keep pretty busy, and win many a grateful smile from anxious mothers, by capturing and picking up little toddlers who would persist in running about and falling down right inthe way of hurrying passengers. He also kept an eye on the old ladies, who were so flustered and bewildered, and asked such meaningless questions of everybody, that he wondered how they were ever to reach their destinations in safety.
One of these deposited a perfect avalanche of little bags, packages, and umbrellas on the seat beside him. Several of them fell to the floor, and Rod was good-naturedly picking them up when he was startled by the sound of a clear, girlish voice that he knew as well as he knew his own, directly behind him. He turned, with a quickly beating heart, and saw Eltje Vanderveer. She was walking between her father and Snyder Appleby. They had already passed without seeing him, and had evidently just arrived by an early morning train from Euston.
Rod’s first impulse was to run after them; and, starting to do so, he was only a step behind them when he heard Snyder say: “He must have money, because he refused a hundred dollars that the Major offered him. At any rate we’ll hear from him soon enough if he gets hard up or into trouble. He isn’t the kind of a——”
But Rod had already turned away, and what he wasn’t, in Snyder’s opinion, he never knew.
He had hardly resumed his seat, when there was a merry jingle on the floor beside him, and a quantity of silver coins began to roll in all directions. The nervous old lady of the bags and bundles had dropped her purse, and now she stood gazing at her scattered wealth, the very image of despair.
“Never mind, ma’am,” said Rod, cheerily, as he began to capture the truant coins. “I’ll have them all picked up in a moment.” It took several minutes of searching here and there, under the seats, and in all sorts of out-of-the-way hiding places, before all the bits of silver were recovered, and handed to their owner.
She drew a great sigh of relief as she counted her money and found that none was lost. Then, beaming at the boy through her spectacles, she said: “Well, thee is an honest lad; and, if thee’ll look after my bags while I get my ticket, and then help me to the train, I’ll give thee a quarter.”
Rod was on the point of saying, politely: “I shall be most happy to do anything I can for you, ma’am; but I couldn’t think of accepting pay for it,” when the thought of his position flashed over him.A quarter would buy him a breakfast, and it would be honorably earned too. Would it not be absolutely wrong to refuse it under the circumstances? Thus thinking, he touched his cap, and said: “Certainly I will do all I can to help you, ma’am, and will be glad of the chance to earn a quarter.”
When the old lady had procured her ticket, and Rod had received the first bit of money he had ever earned in his life by helping her to a comfortable seat in the right car, she would have detained and questioned him, but for her fear that he might be carried off. So she bade him hurry from the car as quickly as possible, though it still lacked nearly ten minutes of the time of starting.
The hungry boy knew well enough where he wanted to go, and what he wanted to do, now. In about three seconds after leaving the car he was seated at the railroad lunch-counter, with a cup of coffee, two hard-boiled eggs, and a big hot roll before him. He could easily have disposed of twice as much; but prudently determined to save some of his money for another meal, which he realized, with a sigh, would be demanded by his vigorous appetite before the day was over.
To his dismay, when he asked the young womanbehind the counter how much he owed for what he had eaten, she answered, “Twenty-five cents, please.” He thought there must be some mistake, and asked her if there was not; but she answered: “Not at all. Ten cents for coffee, ten for eggs, and five for the roll.” With this she swept Rod’s solitary quarter into the money-drawer, and turned to wait on another customer.
“Well, it costs something to live,” thought the boy, ruefully, as he walked away from the counter. “At that rate I could easily have eaten a dollar’s worth of breakfast, and I certainly sha’n’t choose this for my boarding place, whatever happens.”
GAINING A FOOTHOLD.
Though he could have eaten more, Rod felt decidedly better for the meal so unexpectedly secured, and made up his mind that now was the time to see the superintendent and ask for employment. So he made his way to that gentleman’s office, where he was met by a small boy, who told him that the superintendent had been there a few minutes before, but had gone away with President Vanderveer.
“When will he be back?” asked Rod.
“Not till he gets ready,” was the reply; “but the best time to catch him is about five o’clock.”
For the next six hours poor Rod wandered about the station and the railroad yard, with nothing to do and nobody to speak to, feeling about as lonely and uncomfortable as it is possible for a healthy and naturally light-hearted boy to feel. He strolled intothe station twenty times to study the slow moving hands of its big clock, and never had the hours appeared to drag along so wearily. When not thus engaged he haunted the freight yard, mounting the steps of every caboose he saw, in the hope of recognizing it. At length, to his great joy, shortly before five o’clock he saw, through a window set in the door of one of these, the well-remembered interior in which he had spent the preceding night. He could not be mistaken, for there lay his own M. I. P. bag on one of the lockers. But the car was empty, and its doors were locked. Carefully observing its number, which was 18, and determined to return to it as quickly as possible, Rod directed his steps once more in the direction of the superintendent’s office.
The same boy whom he had seen in the morning greeted him with an aggravating grin, and said: “You’re too late. The ‘super’ was here half an hour ago; but he’s left, and gone out over the road. Perhaps he won’t be back for a week.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Rod in such a hopeless tone that even the boy’s stony young heart was touched by it.
“Is it R. R. B.?” he asked, meaning, “Are you on railroad business?”
“Yes,” answered Rod, thinking his own initials were meant.
“Then perhaps the private secretary can attend to it,” said the boy. “He’s in there.” Here he pointed with his thumb towards an inner room, “and I’ll go see.”
In a moment he returned, saying, “Yes. He says he’ll see you if it’s R. R. B., and you can go right in.”
Rodman did as directed, and found himself in a handsomely-furnished office, which, somewhat to his surprise, was filled with cigarette smoke. In it, with his back turned toward the door, and apparently busily engaged in writing, a young man sat at one of the two desks that it contained.
“Well, sir,” said this individual, without looking up, in a voice intended to be severe and business-like, but which was somewhat disguised by a cigarette held between his teeth, “What can I do for you?”
“I came,” answered Rod, hesitatingly, “to see if the superintendent of this road could give me any employment on it.”
The words were not out of his mouth, before the private secretary, wheeling abruptly about, disclosed the unwelcome face of Snyder Appleby.
“Well, if this isn’t a pretty go!” he exclaimed, with a sneer. “So you’ve come here looking for work, have you? I’d like to know what you know about railroad business, anyhow? No, sir; you won’t get a job on this road, not if I can help it, and I rather think I can. The best thing for you to do is to go back to Euston, and make up with the old gentleman. He’s soft enough to forgive anything, if you’re only humble enough. As for the idea of you trying to be a railroad man, it’s simply absurd. We want men, not boys, in this business.”
Too surprised and indignant to reply at once to this cruel speech, and fearful lest he should be unable to control his temper if he remained a moment longer in the room, Rodman turned, without a word, and hurried from it. He was choked with a bitter indignation, and could not breathe freely until he was once more outside the building, and in the busy railroad yard.
As he walked mechanically forward, hardly noting,in the raging tumult of his thoughts, whither his steps were tending, a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder, and a hearty voice exclaimed: “Hello, young fellow! Where have you been, and where are you bound? I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Here’s your grip that I was just taking to the lost-parcel room.”
It was Brakeman Joe, with Rod’s M. I. P. bag in his hand, and his honest, friendly countenance seemed to the unhappy boy the very most welcome face he had ever seen. They walked together to caboose Number 18, where Rod poured into the sympathizing ears of his railroad friend the story of his day’s experience.
“Well, I’ll be blowed!” exclaimed Brakeman Joe, using Conductor Tobin’s favorite expression, when the boy had finished. “If that isn’t tough luck, then I don’t know what is. But I’ll tell you what we’ll do. I can’t get you a place on the road, of course; but I believe you are just on time for a job, such as it is, that will put a few dollars in your pocket, and keep you for a day or two, besides giving you a chance to pick up some experience of a trainman’s life.”
“Oh, if you only will!——” began the boy, gratefully.
“Better wait till you hear what it is, and we see if we can get it,” interrupted Joe. “You see the way of it is this, there was a gent around here awhile ago with a horse, that he wants to send out on our train, to some place in the western part of the State. I don’t know just where it’s going, but his brother is to meet it at the end of our run, and take charge of it from there. Now the chap that the gent had engaged to look after the horse that far, has gone back on him, and didn’t show up here as he promised, and the man’s looking for somebody else. We’ll just go down to the stock-yard, and if he hasn’t found anybody yet, maybe you can get the job. See?”
Half an hour later it was all arranged. The gentleman was found, and had not yet engaged any one to take the place of his missing man. He was so pleased with Rod’s appearance, besides being so thoroughly satisfied by the flattering recommendations given him by Brakeman Joe, and the master of the stock-yard, who had noticed the boy in the morning, that he readily employed him, offering him five dollars for the trip.
So Rod’s name was written on the way-bill, he helped get the horse, whose name was Juniper, comfortably fixed in the car set apart for him, and then he gladly accepted the gentleman’s invitation to dine with him in a restaurant near by. There he received his final instructions.
A THRILLING EXPERIENCE.
Between the time that Rod took charge of Juniper, and the time of the train’s starting, the young “stockman,” as he was termed on the way-bill, had some pretty lively experiences. Before the owner of the horse left, he handed the boy two dollars and fifty cents, which was half the amount he had agreed to pay him, and a note to his brother, requesting him to pay the bearer the same sum at the end of the trip. After spending fifty cents for a lunch, consisting of crackers, cheese, sandwiches, and a pie, for the boy had no idea of going hungry again if he could help it, nor of paying the extravagant prices charged at railroad lunch-counters, Rod took his place, with Juniper, in car number 1160, which was the one assigned to them. Here he proceeded to make the acquaintance of his charge; and, aided by a few lumps of sugar that he hadobtained for this purpose, he soon succeeded in establishing the most friendly relations between them.
Suddenly, while he was patting and talking to the horse, car number 1160 received a heavy bump from a string of empties, that had just been sent flying down the track on which it stood, by a switch engine. Juniper was very nearly flung off his feet, and was greatly frightened. Before Rod could quiet him, there came another bump from the opposite direction, followed by a jerk. Then the car began to move, while Juniper, quivering in every limb, snorted with terror. Now came a period of “drilling,” as it is called, that proved anything but pleasant either to the boy or to the frightened animal. The car was pushed and pulled from one track to another, sometimes alone and sometimes in company with other cars. The train of which it was to form a part was being made up, and the “drilling” was for the purpose of getting together the several cars bound to certain places, and of placing those that were to be dropped off first, behind those that were to make the longest runs.
Juniper’s fears increased with each moment, untilat length, when a passenger locomotive, with shrieking whistle, rushed past within a few feet, he gave a jump that broke the rope halter confining him, and bounded to the extreme end of the car. Rod sprang to the open door—not with any idea of leaving the car, oh, no! his sense of duty was too strong for that, but for the purpose of closing it so that the horse should not leap out. Then he approached the terrified animal with soothing words, and caught hold of the broken halter. At the same moment the car was again set in motion, and the horse, now wild with terror, flew to the other end, dragging Rod after him. The only lantern in the car was overturned and its light extinguished, so that the struggle between boy and horse was continued in utter darkness. Finally a tremendous bump of the car flung the horse to the floor; and, before he could regain his feet, Rod was sitting on his head. The boy was panting from his exertions, as well as bruised from head to foot; but he was thankful to feel that no bones were broken, and hoped the horse had escaped serious injury as well as himself.
After several minutes of quiet he became satisfiedthat that last bump was the end of the drilling, and that car number 1160 had at length reached its assigned position in the train. Still he did not think it safe to let the horse up just yet, and so he waited until he heard voices outside. Then he called for help. The next moment the car door was pushed open, and Conductor Tobin, followed by Brakeman Joe, entered it.
“Well, I’ll be everlastingly blowed!” cried Conductor Tobin, using the very strongest form of his peculiar expression, as the light from his lantern fell on the strange tableau presented by the boy and horse. “If this doesn’t beat all the stock-tending I ever heard of. Joe here was just telling me you was going out with us to-night, in charge of a horse, and we were looking for your car. But what are you doing to him?”
“Sitting on his head,” answered Rod, gravely.
“So I see,” said Conductor Tobin, “and you look very comfortable; but how does he like it?”
“I don’t suppose he likes it at all,” replied the boy; “but I couldn’t think of anything else to do.” Then he told them of the terror inspired in the animal by the recent drilling; how it had broken loose anddragged him up and down the car, and how he came to occupy his present position.
“Well, you’ve got sand!” remarked Conductor Tobin admiringly when the story was finished. “More ’n I have,” he added. “I wouldn’t have stayed here in the dark, with a loose horse tearing round like mad. Not for a month’s pay I wouldn’t.”
“No more would I,” said Brakeman Joe; “a scared hoss is a terror.”
Then they brought some stout ropes, and Juniper was helped to his feet, securely fastened and soothed and petted until all his recent terror was forgotten. To Rod’s great delight he was found to be uninjured, except for some insignificant scratches; and by his recent experience he was so well broken to railroad riding that he endured the long trip that followed with the utmost composure.
A BATTLE WITH TRAMPS.
After quieting Juniper, and having the satisfaction of seeing him begin to eat hay quite as though he were in his own stable, Rod left the car and followed his railroad friends in order to learn something about getting a train ready for its run. He found them walking on opposite sides of it, examining each car by the light of their lanterns, and calling to each other the inscriptions on the little leaden seals by which the doors were fastened. These told where the cars came from, which information, together with the car numbers, and the initials showing to what road they belonged, Conductor Tobin jotted down in his train-book. He also compared it with similar information noted on certain brown cards, about as wide and twice as long as ordinary playing-cards, a package of which he carried in his hand. The destinations of the several carscould also be learned from these cards, which are called “running slips.” Each car in the train was represented by one of them, which would accompany it wherever it went, being handed from one conductor to another, until its final destination was reached.
At length, about ten o’clock, through Freight Number 73, to which car number 1160 was attached, received its “clearance,” or order to start, from the train-dispatcher, and began to move heavily out from the yard, on to the main west-bound track. Juniper now did not seem to mind the motion of the car in the least; but continued quietly eating his hay as though he had been a railroad traveller all his life. So Rod, who had watched him a little anxiously at first, had nothing to do but stand at the open door of his car and gaze at what scenery the darkness disclosed. Now that he was beginning to comprehend their use, he was deeply interested in the bright red, green, and white lights of the semaphore signals that guarded every switch and siding. He knew that at night a white light displayed from the top of a post, or swung across the track in the form of a lantern, meant safety, a redlight meant danger, and a green light meant caution. If it had been daytime he would have seen thin wooden blades, about four feet long by six inches wide, pivoted near the top of the same posts that now displayed the lights. He would have learned that when these stretched out horizontally over the track, their warning colors must be regarded by every engineman; while if they hung down at an angle, no attention need be paid to them.
Being a very observant boy, as well as keenly interested in everything to be seen on a railroad, Rod soon discovered that the semaphore lights also appeared at intervals of a few miles along the track, at places where there were no switches, and that these always moved as soon as the train passed them. He afterwards discovered that these guarded the ends of the five-mile blocks, into which the road was divided along its entire length. Each of the stations, at these points, is occupied by a telegraph operator who, as soon as the train enters his block, displays a red danger signal behind it. This forbids any other train to enter the block, on that track, until he receives word from the operator at the other end of the block that the first train has passed out of it.Then he changes his signal from red to white, as a notice that the block is free for the admission of the next train. This “block system,” as it is called, which is now in use on all principal railroad lines, renders travel over them very much safer than it used to be before the system was devised.
After watching the semaphore lights for some time, and after assuring himself that Juniper was riding comfortably, Rod spread a blanket, that Brakeman Joe had loaned him, over a pile of loose hay, placed his M. I. P. bag for a pillow, and in a few minutes was sleeping on this rude bed as soundly as though he were at home.
Some hours later the long, heavily laden train stopped at the foot of the steep grade just east of Euston, and was cut in two in order that half of it might be drawn to the top at a time. Rear Brakeman Joe was left to guard the part of the train that remained behind, and he did this by walking back a few hundred yards along the track, and placing a torpedo on top of one of the rails. Then he went back as much farther and placed two torpedoes, one a rail’s length behind the other.
These railroad torpedoes are small, round tin boxes,about the size of a silver dollar, filled with percussion powder. To each is attached two little straps of lead, which are bent under the upper part of the rail to hold the torpedo in position. When it is struck by the ponderous wheels of a locomotive, it explodes with the sound of a cannon cracker. The explosion of two torpedoes, one directly after the other, is the signal for caution, and bids the engineman proceed slowly, keeping a sharp lookout for danger. The explosion of a single torpedo is the signal of immediate danger, and bids him stop his train as quickly as possible. Thus Brakeman Joe had protected his train by arranging a cautionary signal, which would be followed immediately by that of danger. Before his train started again he intended to take up the single torpedo, leaving only those calling for caution, to show that the freight had been delayed. In the meantime he decided to walk back to the cars left in his charge and see that no one was meddling with them.
Rod was too soundly asleep to know anything of all this, nor did he know when an ugly-looking fellow peered cautiously into his car, and said, in a low tone: “This here ain’t it. It must be the one ahead.”The first thing of which he was conscious was hearing, as in a dream, the sound of blows, mingled with shouts, and a pistol shot, and then Brakeman Joe’s voice calling: “Rod! Rod Blake! Help! quick!”
An instant later the boy had leaped from the car, and was by his friend’s side, engaged in a desperate struggle with four as villainous-looking tramps as could well be found; though, of course, he could not judge of their appearance in the darkness. Joe was wielding the heavy oak stick that at other times he used as a lever to aid him in twisting the brake wheels; but Rod was obliged to depend entirely on his fists. The skill with which he used these was evidently a surprise to the big fellow who rushed at him, only to receive a stinging blow in the face, which was followed by others delivered with equal promptness and effect. There were a few minutes of fierce but confused fighting. Then, all at once, Rod found himself standing alone beside a car the door of which was half-way open. Two of the tramps had mysteriously disappeared; he himself had sent a third staggering backward down the bank into a clump of bushes, and he could hear Brakeman Joe chasing the fourth down the track.
A few minutes later the locomotive came back, sounding four long blasts and one short one on its whistle, as a recall signal for the rear flagman. It was coupled on, and some one waved a lantern, with an up-and-down motion, from the rear of the train, as a signal to go ahead. The engineman opened the throttle, and the great driving wheels spun round furiously; but the train refused to move. He sounded two long whistle blasts as a signal to throw off brakes. Then a lantern was seen moving over the tops of the cars, the brakes that had been holding them, were loosened, and the signal to go ahead was again waved. After this the lantern disappeared as though it had been taken into the caboose, and the train moved on.
Its severed parts were re-united at the top of the grade, and it passed on out of the block in which all these events had taken place, before Conductor Tobin, who had wondered somewhat at not seeing Brakeman Joe, discovered that the faithful fellow was missing. He was not on top of any of the cars, nor in the caboose, and must have been left behind. Well, it was too late to stop for him now. Freight Number 73 must side-track at the next station, toallow the night express to pass, and it had already been so delayed, that there was no time to lose.
When the station was reached, and Conductor Tobin had seen his train safely side-tracked, he went to look for Rod Blake. He meant to ask the boy to take Brakeman Joe’s place for the rest of the run, or until that individual should rejoin them by coming ahead on some faster train. To his surprise the young stockman was not in car number 1160, nor could a trace of him be found. He, too, had disappeared and the conductor began to feel somewhat alarmed, as well as puzzled, by such a curious and unaccountable state of affairs.
BOUND, GAGGED, AND A PRISONER.
When Rod Blake was left standing alone beside the train, after the short but sharp encounter with tramps described in the preceding chapter, he was as bewildered by its sudden termination as he had been, on awaking from a sound sleep, to find himself engaged in it. He knew what had become of two of the tramps, for one of them he had sent staggering backward down the embankment, and Brakeman Joe was at that moment pursuing the second; but the disappearance of the others was a mystery. What could have become of them? They must have slipped away unnoticed, and taken advantage of the darkness to make good their escape. “Yes, that must be it; for tramps are always cowards,” thought the boy. “But four of them ought to have whipped two of us easy enough.”
Then he wondered what the object of the attack could have been, and what the tramps were after. All at once it flashed into his mind that the M. S. and T. car number 50, beside which he was standing, was filled with costly silks and laces from France which were being sent West in bond. He had overheard Conductor Tobin say so; and, now, there was the door of that very car half-way open. The tramps must have learned of its valuable contents in some way, and been attempting to rob it when Brakeman Joe discovered them. What a plucky fellow Joe was to tackle them single-handed.
“I wonder if they got anything before he caught them?” thought the boy; and, to satisfy his curiosity on this point, he went to his own car for the lantern that was still hanging in it, and returned to car number 50, determined to have a look at its interior. As he could not see much of it from the ground, he set the lantern just within the open doorway, and began to climb in after it. He had hardly stepped inside, and was stooping to pick up his lantern, when he was knocked down by a heavy blow, and immediately seized by two men who sprang from out of the darkness on either side of him.Without a word they bound his wrists with a stout bit of cord, and, thrusting his own handkerchief into his mouth, fastened it securely so that he could not utter a sound. Then they allowed him to rise and sit on a box, where they took the precaution of passing a rope about his body and making it fast to an iron stanchion near the door.
Having thus secured him, one of the men, holding the lantern close to the boy’s face, said in a threatening tone: “Now, my chicken, perhaps this’ll be a lesson to you never to interfere again in a business that doesn’t concern you.”
“Hello!” exclaimed the other, as he recognized Rod’s features, “if this ere hain’t the same cove wot set the dog onto me last night. Oh, you young willin, I’ll get even with you now!”
With this he made a motion as though to strike the helpless prisoner; but the other tramp restrained him, saying: “Hold on, Bill, we hain’t got no time for fooling now. Don’t you hear the engine coming back? I’ll take this lantern and give ’em the signal to go ahead, in case that fool of a brakeman doesn’t turn up on time, which I don’t believe he will.” Here the fellow chuckled meaningly. “You,” hecontinued, “want to stay right here, and begin to pitch out the boxes as soon as she starts, and the rest of us’ll be on hand to gather ’em in. You can easy jump out when she slows up at the top of the grade. You want to be sure, though, and shut the door behind you so as nothing won’t be suspected, and so this chap’ll have a good, long ride undisturbed by visitors; see?”
If Rod could not talk, he could still hear; and, by paying close attention to this conversation, he formed a very clear idea of the tramps’ plans. They meant to rob car number 50 of as many of its valuable packages as Bill could throw from it while the train was on the grade. He felt satisfied that they had, in some way, disposed of Brakeman Joe. Now, they intended to get rid of him by leaving him in the closed car, helplessly bound, and unable to call for assistance. What would become of him? That car might be going to San Francisco for aught he knew, and its door might not be opened for days, or even weeks. It might not be opened until he was dead of thirst or starvation. What tortures might he not suffer in this moving prison? It seemed as though these thoughts would drive him crazy, andhe realized that if he wished to retain his senses and think out a way of escape, he must not dwell upon them.