CHAPTER IVTHE RAILROAD WRECK
Frankhad never taken part in a scene of greater disorder and excitement. He knew at once that the train had run into some heavy obstacle or had been derailed. A dozen of the passengers were thrown from their seats. Women were shrieking, and the two little children in the seat just behind the one the professor and Frank had occupied were wailing in fright as their mother caught them in her arms and crouched speechless and dazed.
Frank saw that they were not seriously injured. The car had tilted and then, as a great shock passed through its strained woodwork, come to a stop. The frightened passengers were rushing for the doors. One or two men threw open windows and tumbled outside. Frank’s first thought was of his new friend. He sprang to the spot where the professor lay senseless and just in time managed to drag him out of the pathof the terrified people crowding the aisle in an attempt to escape.
“I declare!” spoke the dazed savant, as Frank pulled him into a seat. “What happened?”
The speaker rubbed a contusion on his head and gazed about him vacantly. Then his eyes closed and he swayed to and fro.
“Come out,” directed a train hand at the rear doorway. “It’s a wreck; but nobody is seriously hurt.”
Frank piled over the backs of half a dozen seats and got at the water tank. He wet his handkerchief, returned to his charge, and applied it to his head. In a minute or two the professor recovered his senses.
“There’s been a collision, I assume,” he remarked. “Look at that front end all smashed in! We’re lucky. Let us get out of this and see where we’re stranded.”
“Why, yes,” agreed Frank, “only—where’s the satchel!”
For the first time Frank thought of it. The car was pretty well vacated by this time, and many had left wraps and satchels behind in their haste to reach a place of safety. Frank made a casual and then a more careful survey of the floor of the coach. He finally returned to his anxious-faced friend.
“Professor Barrington,” he said, “I fear, after all our vigilance and trouble, we have been outwitted.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Durham?”
“Your satchel is missing.”
“Perhaps somebody caught it up by mistake. See, a lot of people have left their belongings behind them all mixed up. Maybe someone took it in the excitement of the moment.”
“I’d like to think that; I hope you are right,” rejoined Frank. “We must get outside and make a search right away.”
Frank had not told the professor about the man who had sat just ahead of them, and who he felt sure was an accomplice of the fellow who had tried to steal the satchel. In his own mind Frank felt sure that this accomplice had obtained the professor’s satchel during the confusion in the passenger coach.
Frank’s mind was centered on the satchel, but when he got outside the uproar and confusion took up his attention. It appeared that in making a curve the express train had run into a derailed freight car, ignoring the danger signal of a red flag, another somewhat back having been overlooked by the engineer.
The locomotive and baggage car were badly damaged. They had plunged into the rear of afreight train and demolished it. Both tracks were blocked. No one apparently had been seriously hurt, although there had been a bad shake-up all around.
The accident had occurred in a lonely cut crossed by a typical country road. The train hands were getting the passengers into the rear coaches that had not been badly damaged. Frank gathered enough from the talk of the trainmen, amid the hurly-burly of the emergency, to understand that it would be several hours before a wrecking train could arrive.
“We’re stalled here, probably till midnight,” Frank heard the conductor say to the engineer.
“You had better get into that coach while I make another search for that satchel, Professor Barrington,” Frank suggested.
“I sincerely hope you will find some trace of it,” was the anxious reply. “I declare! I thought all my troubles had ended when I left New York City with you, and here I find myself in a worse mix-up than ever.”
Frank kept a sharp eye out for the man to whom the fellow with the hollow satchel had signalled. Although he inspected all the coaches and looked over the crowd along the tracks, he could gain no trace of the one he was so anxious to find.
By the time Frank rejoined the professor the conductor of the train had got word to and from a towerman, about a mile away. He announced that it would be some hours before the track could be cleared, a fresh engine obtained, and the journey resumed.
“Any trace of the satchel, Mr. Durham?” was the first question the professor asked.
“I fear we shall never see the satchel or its contents again,” returned Frank, and thought it best to impart all of his suspicions. His companion listened with attention.
“You’ve got it right,” he decided, reluctantly. “They have been bound to get at that satchel all along. As soon as they did so they got away—crossed over to some other railroad line or went into hiding. I don’t see how we can trace them from this forlorn, out-of-the-way spot.”
“Are the contents of the satchel so very valuable, Professor Barrington?” inquired Frank.
“To men who I am assured are trying to steal my plan, immensely so,” was the reply. “You see, in the bag are all my private memoranda, lists of my connections, and the details of the very important lease I expect to close on playhouse quarters in Boston. If they get an inkling of that and obtain an option on the lease ahead ofus, it takes away about half of the merit of our proposition.”
Frank realized that they were in a pretty bad predicament. To think of running down the thief or thieves with the start the latter had would be folly. Long since, undoubtedly, the knaves had rifled the satchel and possessed themselves of the secrets of the professor’s project.
The pair grew tired of sitting in the coach and strolled outside, but the ardor of the professor seemed dampened. He did not say much, but acted as though depressed. They walked up and down the level space beside the track, each busy with his own thoughts. Finally Frank touched the professor’s arm and directed his attention to a group gathered about a figure on a stump, who was apparently addressing them.
“Someone seems to be making a speech,” observed Frank. “I wonder what he is saying.”
“Yes, it looks that way,” assented Professor Barrington, after a casual glance at the individual Frank had indicated.
Both walked towards the center of the group of people. As they neared the spot Frank saw that a bronzed, intelligent-faced lad of about sixteen was the orator. He was dressed in blue jeans and had the appearance of a typical farm boy.
“Gentlemen and ladies,” he said, “this train will be delayed for several hours. Half a mile up the road is Home Farm, where I work. Mr. Dorsett—that’s my boss—sent me down here to tell you that there will be a lunch ready for all that want it from now up to dark.”
“What kind of a lunch, sonny?” asked a big man who seemed happy over finding himself with a whole skin after his shaking up on the train.
“Doughnuts, pumpkin pie and cider—apples thrown in, price fifteen cents,” was the prompt response. “Besides that, there’s a big veranda up at the house, with easy chairs, and hammocks and a swing.”
“I think I’ll take that in,” said the fat man, smacking his lips.
“That sounds refreshing,” observed Professor Barrington. “I declare! I have been so taken up with our business that I forgot lunch in the city.”
“I think I would like to try this home-made fare,” said Frank. “If it’s as good as it is cheap, it’s worth testing. Will you act as pilot?” he asked of the boy.
“All aboard! It’s just the walk for an appetite,” declared the lad, briskly, jumping down from the stump and starting for the road.Frank, the professor and several others followed and they soon came in sight of a pleasant old homestead. Under a towering oak tree was a long picnic table, a bench on either side. The thrifty farmer and his wife ministered to the needs of their guests.
“That was prime,” remarked Professor Barrington, after they had eaten of the plain but appetizing fare. “A great relief, this cool shady spot, after the bustle and excitement down at the railroad. There’s a rustic bower over yonder; let us rest there for a bit. I would like to get my scattered wits together.”
Frank assented to this arrangement. Others of the visitors installed themselves on the porch or went into the big “company room” of the house. The professor became talkative again. He went over the playhouse project, which brought up the loss of the precious satchel.
“We had better forget that loss,” suggested Frank, “for I don’t see any way to remedy it. If certain schemers are going to become our business rivals on what they stole from you, they won’t succeed. Such people never do in the end. I shouldn’t worry about it, if I were you. It’s your brains that have worked up this idea, and you are bound to have the best of it.
“Oh, did you want something?” Frank interruptedhimself, as the boy who had piloted them from the railroad appeared at the doorway of the bower.
“Why, yes—no—I don’t know,” stammered the lad, in an embarrassed way. “Say, I don’t want you to think I’m any eavesdropper. I was resting outside here, though, and couldn’t help but hear your talk. I’m so dead gone on shows that I just had to listen, and when you spoke of the satchel——”
“Ah!” broke in the professor, eagerly, “you know something about that?”
“I think I do—I don’t know for certain,” was the reply; “but if you’ll wait here for five minutes I’ll find out if what I guess amounts to anything.”
And then the strange lad was off like an arrow, leaving Professor Barrington in a state of great suspense and Frank wondering what the next happening of their eventful journey was to be.