CHAPTER X
TOMMY McGUIRE SEES THE CITY
Ittook Tommy McGuire more than a month to recover from the effect of his head-end collision with the White Mail. The old pump mule, upon whose back Tommy had hurried to the top of the hill in the face of the flying train, had lost his life, and the railway company had lost a mule, but the company made no complaint. The brave boy, by warning the engineer, had saved the company the trouble and expense of hauling a heavy engine from the bottom of a very muddy stream, rebuilding a number of cars, and apologizing to the postal authorities at Washington, to say nothing of costly damage suits. And the President of the Vandalia had marked the pump boy at West Silver Creek for promotion. He had issued orders to that effect to his subordinate officials. All these interesting facts had been made known to Tommy by little Mary Connor, who had it by letter from her brother Jack, themessenger boy in the office of the roadmaster at East St. Louis.
It had been arranged that Tommy should visit his friend, little Jack, at the river, as soon as he was able to travel, and to that visit the pump boy looked forward with great expectations.
It was midsummer when Tommy boarded the Highland accommodation one morning at St. Jacobs. Heidelberg, the agent, had consigned him to the care of the conductor, for none thought of transportation for Tommy McGuire, the hero of Silver Creek. Jack met him at the depot at East St. Louis and took him at once to his boarding house. After dinner the messenger boy, who had been in the great city for nearly a year, allowed Tommy to accompany him on his rounds among the various departments of the road.
Tommy was surprised to see the timid Jack pushing his way through crowds, darting across the tracks between the snorting switch engines, talking back to the big policemen, and even threatening to thump a grocer’s boy who was trying to run them down.
After supper that evening the boys took a ferry and crossed the great river. Tommy, who had found little to awe him in his short life, said, looking over-side, that it was awful. As they neared the west bank the noise of the heavy traffic along the river front became deafening. As far as they could see, up and down the river, there was nothing but houses, and high above their heads hung the skeleton of the big bridge. Tommy breathed easier when he felt the flagging beneath his feet. He was inclined to shrink from the big wagons and heavy drays that rattled past them in the narrow street, but when he caught little Jack grinning at him, he determined to face whatever came without flinching. A boy who had once ridden a mule up against an express train ought not to be afraid of a dray, or a thousand drays.
When they had wandered for an hour, never losing sight of the river that showed through the narrow streets up as far as Broadway, Jack bethought him of the spending-money the roadmaster had given him. Presently, near the door of a little wooden shop, they saw a sign that read:
“Sweet Cider and Cigars.”
They were too big for candy, and not big enough for beer, so Jack thought the sweet cider sign about the proper thing.
There was no light in the place, save the little that filtered through the dirty window and fell from the street lamp through the open door.
The boys hesitated, but when the voice of a woman called kindly to them, bidding them enter, they stepped inside. Jack called for cider, and when they had tasted it they both said it was not cider. They refused to drink it, but both pulled out their pocket books and wanted to pay. They had each put a quarter on the little show-case and the woman took both. The boys waited in silence for their change, and the silence was broken by the snoring of a man just behind the calico curtains that cut the narrow room eight feet from the door.
“Won’t yez have some candy, boys?” asked the woman, sliding the door in the show-case and putting in a fat hand.
“No!” said Jack; “we want our change.”
“Yez don’t git no change. Drinks is twenty-five cents in this shop.”
“Come on! les go,” said Tommy.
“No, yez don’t,” said the woman, stepping from behind the low counter and pushing the door shut. “Yez’ll drink what yez ordered or I’ll call th’ police.”
The boys glanced at each other. Jack was thoroughly frightened. Tommy was fighting mad. “Open that door,” he demanded. The woman laughed, a laugh that the boys had never heard before, locked the door and removed the key.
Tommy was about to throw himself upon her as she stepped toward the curtains, but Jack caught hold of his arm.
“Moik! Moik! I say Moik, wake up. Come ahn, ye brute, git up.”
The woman passed behind the curtains and was endeavoring to rouse the sleeping man. The place was quite dark now, with the door shut. The narrow window panes were covered with dust, and only a faint ray struggled through from a street lamp.
Tommy tried the door. “Take hold of myshoulder,” said he to Jack, “and pull for your life.”
Tommy grasped the knob, put one foot against the door jamb, and the two scared boys threw themselves back with all the strength they had. The screws that held the lock in place must have been eaten with rust, or the wood rotten, for the door gave way and the boys fell backward into the room.
As they scrambled to their feet and rushed out, the woman came after them, calling: “Police! police!” but the boys kept on running. They turned a corner and made for the river. Once or twice they thought they heard the heavy boots of a policeman close behind them, but they never looked back. They reached the river just as a ferry-boat was about to pull in the plank, and leaped aboard.
When they had gained courage to look back they saw a policeman standing on the wharf looking at the boat. No doubt he was looking at them, and they went forward, their hearts still beating wildly when they stepped ashore on the Illinois side.
“Les go home,” said Tommy.
“Never. Everybody in St. Louis knows me, and if we’ve been reco’nized they’ll go right to the house to git us. We must not go home to-night.”
“Well, les don’t stan’ here where they can see us,” said Tommy, and they strolled down along the water-edge.
They climbed up onto an old, abandoned cart and watched the ferry-boats come and go. They watched closely for the caps and buttons of police officers among the passengers that passed out between the two big lamps on the landing.
“Like as not they’ll put on citizens’ clothes, or maybe send detectives after us, an’ you can’t tell a detective from anybody else; sometimes they dress up like storekeepers an’ sometimes like tramps.”
It was quite dark now, where the boys sat upon the old cart, and presently they saw three men coming up the river, walking slowly and talking low.
“Come on,” said Jack, grasping Tommy’s arm, and hurrying down to the very water-edge. They hid under an old, abandoned woodenpier and waited for the men to pass by, for they made no doubt that they were detectives.
“They must have seen us,” whispered Jack, “they’re comin’ out on the pier.” Now the boys tried to hold their breath, for the men were walking silently over their hiding-place, and not four feet above them.
The three men sat down upon one of the stringers that pointed out over the water.
“Hark! what’s that?” said one.
“What’s what? you idiot; you’re worse ’an a two-year-old, shyin’ at a fallin’ leaf.”
“I heard someon’ cough.”
“It’s that chicken heart of yours hittin’ your vest. Close that fissure in your face.”
“Aw, cheese it,” said the third man, “what’s on yer mind, Charley?”
“A whole lot,” said the severe man, who seemed to be the captain. “The night express is the proper train, Monday night the time, and Casey Water Tank the place.”
Tommy hunched Jack.
“There’s always a lot of mail and express matter that accumulates here over Sunday,therefore the Monday fast express ought to be good picking.”
A bareheaded woman came down to the river, looked into the boiling flood, shivered and went away, manifestly determined to make one more effort to solve the bread and butter problem.
When she had passed out of hearing, the man went on: “Jim’ll go to Casey to-morrow, Sunday, and make his way to the tank. Having the only decent suit, I’ll take a sleeper for Indianapolis, but I promise you I won’t sleep. And Pete, you white-livered coyote, you’ll take the blind baggage at Greenup, so as to be on hand when the time comes.”
“An’ how do we proceed?” asked Jim.
“You’ll be hiding behind the tank, and when the fireman’s wrestling with the spout an’ the engineer’s watching his signals so as to place the engine, you’ll step quietly aboard, holding your gun close to the engineer, but not offensively close so as to enable him to take it away from you.”
“An’ must I pint it butt fust, er nozzle fust? You know I hain’t never handled a gun afore.”
“Well, if you handle it as recklessly as you handle the English language you’ll kill the man on sight. Well, to my tale: Pete will uncouple the train the moment the engineer has placed the engine and wait for me.”
“An’ what’ll the great man do?” demanded Jim, who was feeling the insult to his grammar.
“The great man will herd the car-hands up through the sleepers and into the day coach, where he will proceed to pacify the passengers. Having slipped into his false face he will pause with his back to the door at the rear of the car, twirl his arsenal playfully, and bid the multitude be quiet. For the further awing of those who may meditate violence he will fire three shots—bang, bang, bang—that shall come like the measured thumping of my lady’s heart, when she sees a cow. These pistol shots will be followed by the tinkling sound of falling glass, for the three glims will have been doused. And, by the same token you shall know, O, Jimmie, and you, my shivering Pete, that your uncle is doing business in the day coach.”
“An’ I’ll come in wud a mail sack an’ git de watches and diamins.”
“Watches! shade of Jesse! Does Two-card Charley rob unarmed men and helpless women? You will devote your time and that mite of gray matter that you are supposed to have in your head to the parting of the train.”
“S’pose some on’ shows fight?”
“Why, apologize and bow yourself out, of course. Oh, Pete! Pete! I’ve tried to make something of you, but it isn’t in the wood. It hurts me to hint such a thing, and yet I know the day will come when I must needs lay violent hands on you; kill you, mayhap, and cache you in the waving grass, you ass.”
Pete had stuck a short pipe into his mouth, and now indiscreetly struck a parlor match and held it to the pipe. The intellectual leader struck the pipe and the match with his open hand and drove them into the face of Pete, and immediately the conference broke up.
The two boys lay quiet until the men had passed the big lamp at the landing, and then crawled out.
“Say, Jack,” said Tommy, and the sound of his voice broke the silence so suddenly that Jack started and clutched at his friend’s arm,“them fellows’ll be hidin’ out same as us, if they don’t watch out.”
“Shall we tell on ’em?”
“Sure! Aint the company’s business our business?”
“Yes; still we wouldn’t like to have somebody tell on us.”
“But what have we done, Jack Connor? We ordered the drinks an’ paid for ’em—both of us.”
“An’ pulled the door down. You often hear of fellows bein’ sent up for breakin’ into houses.”
“We didn’t break in; we broke out, to gain our freedom. Liberty, Heidelberg says, is the rightful heritage of American citizens.”
Now, the boys, full of a great tale, stole softly up the shadow side of the street, and to bed.