MYLES FALLS INTO A TRAP.
THE straightforward account that Myles and his companion were able to
give of themselves and their movements quickly convinced the dapper
little lieutenant that they were all right, but he warned them never
to do so again. He had to say this, or something like it, in order to
impress them with the importance of his position. This was the first
time he had ever worn the wonderfully gorgeous uniform of his battalion
in actual service; he might never again have a chance to exhibit it
as a real commander of real soldiers on real duty, and he believed in
making the most of opportunities as they were presented.
At the conclusion of this farce the suspected individuals were set at
liberty and allowed to communicate the unwelcome intelligence that
one of the crack New York City regiments was on its way to Mountain
Junction. It was unwelcome news to the lieutenant, because he knew that
he would thus be speedily relieved of his command by some superior
officer, and that his brief day of glory would be over.
“It is perfectly absurd to send more troops to this place,” he
sputtered, “especially a lot of city boys. What good can they do, I
should like to know? Why, a single night’s work such as we have just
had would break them all up, while I, for instance, am fresh as a daisy
and good for another just like it. I tell you, gentlemen, you want
men of experience in affairs of this kind, not a lot of toy soldiers
like those New York chaps. We don’t need any help here, even if they
were the fellows to help us. I and my command are perfectly well able
to attend to all the strikers in this part of the country. Why, we
have cleared the town of them already, arrested their ringleader, and
to-morrow, or rather to-day, I propose to run a train over the Western
Division, and see that it goes through, too! Of course you will make
no mention of this,” he added, with a laughable expression of anxiety;
“for we do not wish our plans to be known generally.”
“Of course not,” answered Myles. “We understand that you do not wish
to have your proposed ride on the cars interrupted by any meddlesome
strikers. But whom did you say you arrested? I should like to have his
name for publication.”
Now this word “publication” meant a great deal to Lieutenant Easter.
To get his name into the New York papers as one of the heroes of this
great strike would be the crowning glory of his military career. Of
course this reporter could not describe the arrest of one of the
ringleaders of the strike and its attendant circumstances without
mentioning the important part borne in the affair by himself, the
commanding officer. So, without noticing Myles’ remark about the
proposed opening of the Western Division, he proceeded to give him a
full account from his own point of view of what had taken place during
the few hours just past.
According to this account, about one o’clock that night Mr. Watkins,
filled with the responsibility of his position as acting division
superintendent, had been making a round of the railroad buildings
to see that every thing was all right. Near one of the car-shops he
noticed a man evidently trying to conceal himself in its shadow. Mr.
Watkins challenged him, asked him what he was doing there, and ordered
him off the premises. The man, answering in the well-known voice of
Jacob Allen, a recognized leader of the strike, said he was only going,
by the shortest way, to his home, and that he did not propose to go
back and take a roundabout route to please Mr. Watkins or anybody else.
Thereupon Mr. Watkins, very properly, called one of the military guards
of the building and ordered him to arrest Allen.
The guard attempted to obey this order, but the striker, exhibiting
a desperate ferocity, snatched his gun from him, and, pointing it at
them, ordered both Mr. Watkins and the guard to leave or he would
shoot. He even went so far as to cock the gun, and of course they were
obliged to do as he told them.
Mr. Watkins immediately reported this outrage to him (Lieutenant
Easter), and, taking a squad of a dozen of his best men, he went to
Allen’s house, and arrested him just as he was getting into bed. While
they were doing this a fire broke out in the very car-shop near which
he had been discovered, and there was not the slightest doubt but that
this Jacob Allen had set it. At any rate he would be tried for it, in
connection with his other offences against the law, and he now occupied
a cell in the town jail, where he was chained and handcuffed beyond a
possibility of escape. In the meantime all the other strikers had taken
to the woods, and he (Lieutenant Easter) could congratulate the town on
being well rid of them.
Thanking the lieutenant for the information he had given them, Myles
and the telegraph operator took their departure, the former to seek his
bed in the hotel and get a few hours sleep, the latter to hunt up some
particular friends for whom he had important news.
When Ben Watkins returned to his room, after his wicked attempt to burn
the railroad building and his struggle with Myles, he was filled with
such a fury of rage, shame, and hatred that his sole thought was of
revenge.
For some time he paced restlessly up and down the room, trying to
conceive some plan for the young reporter’s utter humiliation and
overthrow. He felt almost sure that in consequence of the telegram he
had sent to the _Phonograph_ the night before, Myles would be dismissed
from the paper; but that was not enough. Could he not inflict some
more serious injury upon the fellow who had just told him that he, Ben
Watkins, was whipped and in his power?
“Whipped, am I!” cried Ben, bitterly, “I’ll show him yet who is
whipped. I may be in his power or he may be in mine; but that question
is not settled yet, as he will find out before long.”
Then the old evil smile crept over his face. A new idea entered his
mind, and he paused in his hurried walk to consider it.
“Yes,” he exclaimed, half aloud. “I believe it will work; and if it
does it will land him in State prison, certain as fate! All I have to
do is to make no mistake in my part of the programme and it will work
itself out without any further effort. Why, the fool has actually gone
and stuck his own head right into the trap. Things couldn’t suit me
better if I had planned them beforehand.”
Then Ben saw that his door was locked, plugged the key-hole, pinned
the curtains to the window-frame so that it was certain no one
could peep in, and, producing the express package that he had
taken from the safe, sat down to examine it. One thousand dollars
in fifty-dollar bills! A careful count assured him that the sum was
correct. Then he began to examine the bills separately and with the
utmost care, studying their every detail on both sides. He even used a
magnifying-glass to aid in his search.
At last his efforts seemed to be rewarded, and he laid one of the
bills aside, though he did not cease his labor until every note in the
package had been thoroughly examined. Leaving the bill thus selected,
together with the express envelope in which they came, lying on the
table, he thrust the rest into the pocket from which he had taken them
and buttoned his coat tightly. Next he wrote a letter. It was short,
but it evidently needed to be written and worded with great care, for
several sheets of note-paper were torn into minute fragments before one
was prepared to his satisfaction. Folding the selected bill inside of
this letter, he placed them in an envelope which he sealed, directed,
and stamped. This he also placed in his pocket.
Now, turning out his light and taking the empty express envelope, he
softly unlocked and opened the door of his room, took out the key,
and for a minute peered cautiously up and down the dimly lighted hall,
listening intently at the same time. Then he removed his shoes and
walked rapidly, but with noiseless tread, to the door of the room
occupied by Myles Manning. It was locked, of course, but, as is often
the case in small hotels, the key of one room would unlock the door of
every other, and Ben’s key unlocked this door as readily as his own.
Although certain that the room was empty, for he knew Myles to be out
of town, Ben exercised the utmost caution as he entered it and softly
closed the door behind him. He did not remain there more than a minute,
but when he came out he trembled so violently that it was difficult for
him to insert the key into the lock. When he had accomplished this he
sped back to his own room, possessed of the miserable fear that always
follows a guilty conscience. Ben was bad, and had been for years; but
he was now practising a new style of wickedness, and the terror that it
inspired was unlike any he had ever before known.
Having transacted all these items of business to his satisfaction he
resumed his shoes, put on his hat, and, quietly leaving the hotel
without being noticed, walked down town to the post-office, where he
mailed his letter.
Then, for fear that he had been seen, and wishing to have a good excuse
for being on the street at that hour of the night, he made the pretence
of examining into the safety of the car-shops, that resulted in meeting
with Jacob Allen, as Myles afterward learned from Lieutenant Easter.
The fire that followed so closely upon Allen’s arrest was set to carry
out a threat made by the strikers that they would destroy some piece of
railroad property for every one of their number who should be thrown
into prison.
When Myles Manning, completely worn out with the hard work and
excitement of the night, threw himself, without undressing, upon his
bed, he fully intended to be up again and ready to go out with the
train that Lieutenant Easter proposed to put through that day. He had
been told that it would start at ten o’clock, or possibly earlier than
that hour. When, therefore, after what seemed to him but a few minutes
of heavy, dreamless sleep, he awoke to find the sun shining brightly
and already high in the sky, he feared he had neglected another
opportunity of obeying the orders under which he was working, and lost
his chance of accompanying the first train sent out since the beginning
of the great strike.
Instinctively feeling for his watch, that he might see what time
it really was, he was for a moment puzzled to account for its
disappearance. Then the memory of the use to which it had been put
the previous evening came back to him, and again he flushed with hot
indignation as he recalled the mortifying position in which he was
placed.
“Oh, what a fool I was—what a fool I was!” he cried out in his
distress. “To gamble away money that I needed so badly, and which,
at the same time, was not my own. That I am in this fix is all my
own fault, though, and I am well paid for my folly. It is a bitter
experience that I shall remember so long as I live, and it has at least
cured me of gambling; for never again will I risk one cent upon a game
of chance. No, not one cent,” he repeated earnestly, as if registering
a vow.
He hated to go down stairs with the chance of meeting the proprietor of
the hotel.
“Though why should I?” he thought. “He holds security worth twenty
times the amount of his wretched bill. Oh, for a few dollars with which
to pay him and demand the return of my watch, with an apology for his
suspicions! I almost wish I had accepted that operator’s offer of a
loan. He’s a good fellow, and I wouldn’t so very much mind being under
an obligation to him.”
Thus thinking, the young reporter went down to the hotel office, where
a glance at the clock showed him that it was already past ten. As he
was hurrying out of the front door the clerk at the desk said:
“Here is a letter for you, Mr. Manning.”
Stepping back and getting it Myles thrust it into his pocket, feeling
that he had no time to read letters just then, and set out on a run for
the railway station.
There, to his great relief, he found the train that he feared had gone
without him. It stood on the main track, and consisted of two cars, but
no locomotive. The men of Lieutenant Easter’s command, who were to go
with it as a guard, stood in small groups near it, and everybody was
evidently waiting for something. Myles soon learned that the difficulty
was with the locomotive. One had been got ready for the trip, but,
with the first revolution of its great wheels, their connecting rod had
fallen to the ground, and a serious injury to the machinery resulted. A
small steel pin was missing, and could not be found. Upon examination
of the other engines in the round-house it was discovered that the same
important little pin was missing from every one of them. Each engineer
upon leaving had drawn this pin and taken it with him. Now, therefore,
the train could not move until a new one of these pins could be made
and fitted to its place. Under the circumstances this was a slow and
difficult undertaking, and it would be at least an hour yet before a
start could be made. This being the case Myles thought he might as well
return to the hotel for the breakfast of which he stood so greatly in
need.
Going to his room, to wash his face and hands before sitting down to
table, he suddenly remembered his letter. It was post-marked Mountain
Junction, and the post-mark bore the date of that very day.
“That is curious,” thought Myles.
His surprise was greatly increased when, as he opened the letter, a
fifty-dollar bill fell from it, and he turned eagerly to its contents:
MY DEAR MR. MANNING:
Having accidentally learned of your temporary embarrassment, and
knowing your unwillingness to accept pecuniary assistance from
strangers, I take this method of forcing a slight loan upon you. Do
not hesitate to make use of the enclosed $50 for when you are again in
funds I will call upon you for repayment. Say nothing of this little
affair, but use the money as your own, and believe me to be
A FRIEND IN NEED.
“Well, if that telegraph fellow isn’t a trump!” thought Myles, as he
finished reading this friendly note. “He has sent me the exact sum
that I asked the office for in that dispatch, and sent it in such a
delicate, generous way that I don’t see how I can very well refuse to
take it. He is, indeed, ‘a friend in need,’ and one whom I won’t forget
in a hurry. Yes, I will use the money, now that it has actually come to
me, for I shall certainly soon be able to pay it back.”
With a lighter heart than he had known since arriving in this town of
incident and adventure, and with the bill in his hand, Myles ran down
stairs and called for the proprietor, to whom he said:
“I’ll thank you, sir, for my watch, together with a receipted bill for
my board to date, and here is the money to pay it. If there was any
other hotel in town I would not spend another minute in yours, you may
depend upon it. Now make the change quickly, if you please, for I am in
a hurry.”
The landlord did not deign to reply to this little speech; but, taking
the proffered bill and satisfying himself that it was genuine, he
handed out the change, the watch, and a receipt without a word.
Myles ate his breakfast, or, rather, his lunch, for it was now nearly
noon, with a hearty appetite, and then started off briskly and happily
toward the railway station, prepared to encounter any adventure that
the day might bring forth.