CHAPTER XXXV.THE LITTLE PILOT.
Frank and Jack slept on the bed of the latter. It was necessary for Merry to rise early and get away, but little Jack was up ahead of him, and had breakfast ready when the hour came for him to get out of bed.
Old Joe had been sleeping. After rising and washing, Frank went over and stood beside the man.
The engineer opened his eyes and saw Merry. Instantly an ugly lookoverspreadhis face.
“You?” he grated, hoarsely.
“Yes,” nodded Frank.
“Where did you come from?”
“It must be that you do not remember what happened last night.”
“Last night?”
“Yes.”
“No. My head! Why, how strange I feel! Where am I? This is not my room. Let me get up!”
He tried to do so, but fell back limply, moaning a bit.
“Why, my strength—my strength is gone! I don’t know why this is so! What has happened to me?”
“You fell downstairs.”
“Fell? How?”
“You were pursuing Jack Norton.”
“Ha! And I struck on my head when I fell. But that should not make me so weak. I can scarcely lift my hand. I’m afraid I’m going to die. Afraid? No! What do I care? I’d as lief croak now as any time. I ain’t got anything to live for.”
“Oh, yes, you have, dear uncle!” said the blind girl, as she came into the room and approached the bed.
“Dear uncle!” gasped old Joe. “Did she call me that?”
“She did,” nodded Frank. “Last night she cared for you.”
The old man seemed bewildered.
“Mebbe it’s all right,” he said; “but it don’t seem so.Nobody’s called me ‘dear’ for a long time. Why, I’m an old wreck. It’s too much!”
“You are my uncle,” said the girl.
“Well, you’d be better off if I wasn’t. Help me up, somebody. I must go. I can’t stay here. I must have a drink! Won’t you help me up?”
“You had better keep still,” said Frank.
“No; I must get up—I will!”
He rolled off the bed and tried to stand on his feet, but would have fallen sprawling had not Merry caught him.
“All gone—strength all gone!” moaned the engineer, as he was restored to the bed. “It’s sure I’m goin’ to die now!”
“You shall stay here till you have recovered,” said little Nell. “I will take care of you, dear uncle.”
“Why is she so kind to me? Why is anybody so kind to me? I don’t deserve anything.”
“All I have to say,” observed Frank, “is that hanging will be too good for you if you harm one of these children after this!”
Then he turned away to eat his breakfast.
When Frank left that morning the old engineer was sleeping, having eaten some gruel which little Jack had prepared for him.
Frank’s heart was not as light as it might have been when he went to work, for he could not help thinking of the secret the blind girl had revealed to him, and he pitied her.
Frank was put on with an engineer by the name of Hank Slattery. It happened that Slattery was almost theonly friend old Joe Hicks had on the road. He scowled blackly at Frank, but said nothing at first. When they had hitched on and pulled out, Slattery observed:
“So you’re the chap that kicked Joe Hicks out of a job, are ye?”
“No, sir, I am not,” was the reply.
“What? Why, your name’s Merriwell?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you’re the one. No use denyin’ it.”
“I do deny it, for it isn’t true. I never kicked any man out of a job. Old Joe had no one but himself to blame. If he had treated me right, it would have been all right.”
“Oh, so that’s the way ye talk! I s’pose you think you’re runnin’ the road now?”
“Nothing of the sort. I think I am attending to my business, and that’s all. It’s plain you do not like me.”
“No.”
“Well, I can’t help that.”
“You think you’re too smart.”
“How do you know?”
“Oh, you’ve got the swelled head. Poke in more coal there.”
Frank soon found that he was forced to work quite as hard as he had done when he started out with old Joe, and he was not at all satisfied.
“See here,” he finally said, “what are you trying to do? Have you started in to knock me on this trip?”
“No; but this engine takes a heap of coal.”
“Because you’re not running her right.”
“Hey?” shouted Slattery; “I said you thought youknew too much! That proves it. You’re trying to tell me how to run this engine.”
“You are running her just as old Joe started to run her yesterday. That’s what the row was over.”
“And you’re goin’ to pick a row with me, are ye? Well, they’ll get onter you after a while, if you keep it up.”
“I am not going to pick a row with you, but I am going to tell you this: On the return trip old Joe ran her right, and we got along well. The quadrant shows his notch. You are not keeping her there.”
“His notch? Where?”
“Where it is worn smooth there.”
“Did he run her there?”
“After our trouble.”
Slattery looked doubtful, but Frank gave him some straight talk then and there, telling what Hicks had done on the return trip.
“Joe’s one of the best engineers on the road,” said Slattery. “What he don’t know ain’t worth knowin’. Just you show me how he ran her.”
Frank was surprised, but he did as requested, and his surprise increased when the engineer did his best to change his style of handling the locomotive. As a result, Frank, the fireman, was the instructor of his engineer during the greater part of the trip. When the trip was almost over, Slattery said:
“Young feller, I’m much obliged to you. You’re all right, and I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told any living person before. I’m not a regular engineer;I’m a machinist by trade. When this road was opened, I had a pull, and I got a job. I’ve managed to hook along all right, though my firemen would always growl. I said I didn’t like you when we started out, but I lied. I did like your appearance, and, somehow, I was willin’ to have you show me how old Joe ran his engine. I think I’ve learned something to-day, and I kinder reckon we’ll git along all right. Yes; I’m much obliged.”
Frank felt satisfied with the result of that day.
When he arrived home that night, little Nell was telling old Joe some Bible stories which she had learned from the lips of her mother and Sabbath-school teacher. The old man was on the bed, listening in a wondering way. Without letting them know it, Merry paused and watched them.
“I never read the book any,” confessed the man. “Never seemed to care for it, for I thought it was full of foolish things; but them stories you have been tellin’ me have made me feel a heap better. If them’s the things what’s in the Bible, I don’t wonder people read it. It must do ’em good.”
“It is our guide,” said the girl; “all the guide we have in this life. If it were not for the Bible, all humanity would be adrift.”
“Yep, I reckon you’re right. I’ve been adrift myself, an’ I ’lowed there was no port open for me, but now——”
“Now you see a light.”
“Yes; it seems so. It seems that I’m goin’ into port at last, and I’ll drop anchor where no storms can reach me. You must be my pilot, Nellie.”
He held out his hand, and she took it.
“I will!” she exclaimed. “And I will ask the aid of the Great Pilot above.”
She knelt down beside the bed and began to pray.
Frank Merriwell turned and stole softly away.
“God bless her!” he whispered, tears in his eyes. “She is, indeed, an angel! She has done for that wretched man what no other living being could have done.”