CHAPTER XV
ON THE PRAIRIES
Billy Chase looked at the two Racer boys, and then back at the telegraph operator.
"Is there any way in which I could get that information?" he asked. "It may be very important to me."
"I'm afraid you can't get it," replied the agent. "In the first place, I only happened to hear the message as it went over my wires, and, though I caught it all, for I was not busy at the time, it would be as much as my job was worth to repeat it."
"Why?" asked Frank.
"Because a telegraph company regards a message entrusted to it just as sacred as Uncle Sam does the mail. No one but the persons directly interested are allowed to know of it."
"Then there's no chance for me to find out about it?" remarked Billy.
"I'm afraid not," answered the operator. "But why are you so anxious?"
Then the Western lad told something of the trouble he and his uncle had been experiencing, and how he had been followed by a man who wanted to get possession of certain papers. Then he told of the wreck, and of this man being injured.
"I think that message you overheard, as being sent to Sageville, was from him," said Billy. "Maybe he recovered enough to tell that he was laid up, and to put some of his confederates on my track. In that case I'd like to know about it."
"Well, I don't blame you for wanting to know," commented the agent; "but, as I said, I can't tell you anything. The company forces me to remain quiet. I couldn't give out any information aboutyourmessage if some one should ask me," and he tapped the paper on which Billy had written his telegram.
"No, I suppose not," agreed the western lad, "and yet if I knew whether that message was from Shackmiller, and to whom it went, I might save my uncle a lot of future trouble. But if I can't—I can't—that's all."
"Sorry, but that's the way it is," concluded the agent, and the three boys went out.
"I believe it was from Shackmiller!" declared Andy, who often drew impulsive conclusions.
"What makes you think so?" asked Frank, who was slower in making his judgments.
"Oh, well, I just feel so. I think that when he recovered consciousness, and realized that he was laid up, he started someone else on our trail."
"Maybe," admitted Frank; "but it's pretty hard to decide. I wonder how he came to follow us in the first place? I thought we had given him the slip."
"Oh, he's as sharp as a fox," declared Billy. "Lots of times I thought I had fooled him, but he'd always turn up when I least expected him. He kept track of me somehow, though I couldn't always trace him. He knew I had that paper, and he found out that I was coming West."
"That last was easy enough," put in Andy. "It was talked of all over the school."
"Yes, I suppose he didn't have much difficulty in finding out that part," went on Billy. "And now, if he has started someone else on my trail, I've got to look sharp."
"We all will," said Frank. "We'll stand by you, Billy."
"Surest thing you know," agreed Andy. "Well, let's get back to the station; it's almost train time. Oh! look at those bananas! I'm going to have some!" and he darted into a fruit store.
"Andy isn't serious long at a time; is he?" asked Frank of his chum, with a smile.
"No, and maybe it's a good thing. There's enough serious people in this world," and Billy's tone was a trifle depressed.
"He's worrying about that message," thought Frank, and he was right.
Andy came out with a big bag of bananas and passed the fruit around to his friends. The younger Racer lad was in a joking mood, and made funny comments of the street scenes, but, though Frank laughed, Billy hardly smiled.
"Oh, I say, now; this won't do, old man!" expostulated Andy, after they had seen a fat pug dog, led by a fleshy lady, run between the legs of a tall, thin man, tripping him up. Frank and Andy went into roars of laughter, but Billy barely smiled. "This won't do at all," went on the younger Racer lad. "What's the matter, Billy? You're as glum as a burned cork."
"Well, to tell the truth," was the answer, "I am worrying about what that telegraph operator told me. I more than half believe that Shackmiller is putting someone after me."
"What if he is?" asked Andy. "We can get the best of him. Don't worry."
"That's right," chimed in Frank. "It may have been only a coincidence after all. Don't cross a bridge until you hear footsteps approaching on horseback."
"All right, I'll try," and Billy laughed for the first time since hearing the news that disturbed him. "Maybe I'm foolish, after all, to worry."
"Of course you are," said Frank. "Brace up."
After the next day's travel they reached the prairie country, and the boundless expanse of gently-rolling land was a delight to the Racer boys, who, though they had traveled much, had never been so far West.
"Say, this is great!" cried Andy, as his eyes took in scenery that was strange to him.
"It's immense!" added Frank.
"It's immense, all right," agreed Billy, with a smile. "You haven't begun to see the prairies yet. It's like the ocean; you don't appreciate it until you've seen it a dozen times—or more. It takes a long while to get acquainted with the West."
As the train passed on, the boys saw signs of the extensive way in which agricultural operations were carried on in that locality. Here were no small farms, of a few acres each, but a vast extent of territory.
They passed great herds of cattle, and whizzed by long trains of the patient beasts which were being shipped East. They saw big fields, extending farther than their eyes could reach, under cultivation, or being prepared.
Then there was plowing, which was being done in one or two places. Here were no horses hitched to the implement, with a man or boy following, with the lines about his waist. Instead, gang plows—a score or more—were pulled through the mellow soil at once by many teams or by a steam engine.
"Some plowing, that!" commented Frank.
"I should say yes," agreed Andy.
"That's the only way we can get work done in the West," said Billy. "All the operations are on a large scale. Why, if a farmer or rancher tried to do as you folks do out East—work a farm with a team of horses and one hired man—the West wouldn't be half as developed as it is to-day. There'd be buffaloes and Indians here instead of wheat lands and cattle ranches. The West is big—as big as all outdoors, and it takes big men and big business to keep it going!"
He grew enthusiastic as he proceeded, and the Racer boys saw that he meant what he said.
"You must like the West and the prairies," commented Frank.
"I do," was the answer. "There's no place like it, and when I get through with my uncle's Eastern business, maybe I'm not going back. Not that I didn't have a good time there, and that I don't like Riverview Hall," he hastened to add, "but—it isn't the West."
"No, I should say not—not by a long shot!" exclaimed Andy, as he looked across the boundless expanse of the prairies.