THE STRIKERS CAPTURE A TRAIN.
AT THE railway station Myles found the train nearly ready to start and
its military passengers on board. A foreman of the locomotive works
was to act as engineer, and Ben Watkins was to be fireman. Lieutenant
Easter found a seat in the locomotive cab, where Myles would have liked
to join him but for the presence of Ben, with whom he wished to hold
no communication. The two cars of the train were well filled, for the
town was so quiet and so absolutely deserted by the strikers that the
lieutenant did not think it necessary to leave more than half a dozen
of his men in charge of a corporal to guard the jail and the railroad
buildings. So he took nearly the whole of his command with him, and an
interesting lot they were to Myles, who now, for the first time, saw
them all together.
Most of them were green, awkward-appearing young men, who had joined
the company solely that they might wear its uniform. As has been said,
this uniform was a remarkably gorgeous one, and it represented the
taste of its wearers; for they had voted to adopt it at one of the
very first meetings of their organization. It was of scarlet, black,
and gold, and above the stiff beaver caps nodded scarlet and black
plumes of cocks’ feathers. These were the particular joy and pride of
Lieutenant Easter’s men, and were regarded by them as the most truly
military and warlike portion of their equipment. If these fiercely
nodding plumes did not inspire terror in the hearts of the strikers,
what would?
The whole business of the strike was looked upon as a picnic by these
gorgeous militiamen. They had no idea that it might mean fight. Oh,
no, that was too absurd. No body of strikers with a grain of sense
among them would be so foolhardy as to await their coming. Their mere
appearance on the scene would be the signal for flight. Did they not
have law and muskets on their side?
Thus they talked and boasted as the train rolled slowly out of town
without meeting the slightest form of opposition. Nobody in the car in
which Myles had found a seat spoke to him or paid the least attention
to him, except to wonder who he was and what right he had there. He
might be a striker, for all they knew. At any rate he did not wear a
uniform, was evidently only an ordinary, every-day civilian, and was
consequently unworthy of their notice.
Every thing went on smoothly and comfortably for an hour or so. The
track was in perfect order, no strikers were to be seen, and the
citizen soldiery were boisterously happy. As many of their muskets
as could be were crowded into and snugly stowed in the package-racks
above their heads, while the rest were shoved under the seats so as to
be well out of the way. Their owners loosened their belts for greater
comfort, played cards, smoked, ate, drank, and were merry. This state
of affairs continued until they had gone about twelve miles. Then the
train began to climb a long grade. Its speed was of course slackened by
this, but not enough to attract the notice of the card-players.
All at once the great driving-wheels of the locomotive began to spin
furiously, but without taking any hold of the rails. The engineer knew
in a moment what the trouble was—the track had been soaped!—and
shut off steam. The train slid a few rods farther, and then stopped.
As it did so a wild yell was heard in the bushes that at this point
grew thickly close to the track. Then a crowd of men leaped from them
and charged upon the motionless train. Half a dozen of them sprang to
the locomotive, taking complete possession of it, and dragging its
three occupants to the ground before they had time to offer the least
resistance.
In less than a minute after it stopped the train was in undisputed
possession of the strikers, and its passengers were their prisoners.
Myles was greatly startled and not a little alarmed by these summary
proceedings. He sprang to his feet with the rest when the train
stopped, and had nearly reached the rear door of the car when the
strikers rushed in and commanded everybody to sit down. He obeyed the
order at once, slipping into a little corner seat behind the open door.
Here, as he was not in uniform, he escaped attention for a few minutes.
Then a burly fellow, who seemed a sort of leader among the strikers,
pulled back the door so as to reveal him fully, and asked gruffly:
“Who are you, and what are you doing here? What’s your position on the
road?”
“I haven’t any,” answered Myles, who did not know whether to say he was
a reporter or not.
“Well, who are you, then? Come, spit it out quick! We haven’t any time
for fooling.”
“I am a friend of Jacob Allen’s,” replied Myles, with a happy thought.
“Oh, you are, are you? Well, how do I know that? It’s easy enough to
say you are a friend of Jake Allen’s, but how can you prove it?”
“By this,” said Myles, producing a folded bit of note-paper that Allen
had given him the night before. The man read aloud:
The bearer, Mr. Manning, is my friend; and I wish all my friends to
treat him as a friend of—Jacob Allen.
“That’s all right,” said the man, returning the note to Myles, “though
some of those that Jake Allen thought were his friends have gone back
on him lately. Still, I guess we’ll have to pass you this time. I
must say, though, that for a friend of Allen’s you are in mighty poor
company just now.” Then he walked away, and Myles left the car to see
what was going on outside.
Now it happened that a soldier occupying the next seat in front of the
reporter overheard the reading of this note, and was struck by its
curious wording. He afterward told Lieutenant Easter of it, and the
Lieutenant told Ben Watkins, adding his own suspicions that this friend
of Jacob Allen-must be the very one who had conveyed to the strikers
the news of this attempt to run a train through. “Otherwise,” he said,
“they could not possibly have known of it in time to plan the stopping
and capture of the train as they did.”
In thus laying suspicion upon Myles the Lieutenant entirely forgot that
the reporter had a companion, the telegraph operator, the night before,
when he himself gave away this information.
After leaving the car Myles was witness of some very funny scenes.
First the strikers inside the cars secured all the guns they could
find and passed them to their comrades outside. Then, two at a time,
so guarded that there was no chance of escape, and solemnly assured
that they were about to be hanged, the disgusted soldiers were made to
leave the cars. As they appeared on the platforms in all the splendor
of their gorgeous uniforms they were greeted with howls of derision.
The nodding cocks’ plumes received their full share of attention,
and at the cry of “Scalp ’em! scalp ’em! give us their scalps!” the
gaudy feathers were shorn from the beaver caps or plucked out by the
roots and distributed to all who wanted them. Then the prisoners were
marched back into the bushes, struggling, protesting, pleading, making
all sorts of promises, or, in some cases, laughing, and treating it
all as a joke. As each couple reached a point beyond sight of their
companions, to whom their fate was thus a mystery, they were stripped
of their cherished uniforms with the exception of their shorn beavers,
and made to put on pairs of greasy or coal-blackened overalls in place
of them. Then the dejected-looking couple was allowed to step to one
side and witness the similar treatment of the next two who were brought
out.
Myles, who had no occasion to feel particularly sorry for the
humiliation of these boastful soldiers, could not help joining in the
merriment caused by their comical appearance. Even pompous little
Lieutenant Easter had been deprived of his sword and shorn of his
plumes, though he was permitted to retain his uniform. Beside him stood
Ben Watkins, scowling savagely, and muttering threats that he dared not
utter aloud.
[Illustration: THE STRIKERS REORGANIZING THE MILITIA. (_Page 192._)]
A little later Myles overheard a conversation between two of the
strikers, from which he learned that all the men captured with the
train were to be put on board again and taken to within a short
distance of the town to which they belonged, some thirty miles westward.
Now this would not suit him at all. His orders were to remain at
Mountain Junction until recalled, and he proposed to obey them just
as long as possible. So, fearing that Jacob Allen’s note might not
again avail him, and, watching for a chance when the attention of the
strikers was fully occupied with the mock review of Lieutenant Easter’s
company, he quietly slipped back among the bushes, and in another
moment was lost to sight.
From a well concealed hiding-place he saw all the captured men,
including Ben Watkins, for whom the strikers had no love, put on board
the cars strongly guarded. The track was then well sanded to overcome
the effect of the soap, and finally he saw the train move slowly away
and disappear over the crest of the long up grade. Still he kept his
hiding-place, until the crowd of strikers who remained had gathered
up and shouldered the captured muskets, stuck the scarlet and black
cocks’ plumes in their hat-bands, and also departed. As they marched
on the railroad toward Mountain Junction, in the very direction he
wished to go, he waited until they were out of sight and hearing. After
these prolonged waitings it wanted less than an hour of sunset when
he returned to regain the track. Then, assuring himself that no human
being was in sight in either direction, he set out bravely and at a
rapid pace to walk back over the twelve miles to the town in which he
had been ordered to stay.
Walking on a railroad track is by no means easy work, and before he had
accomplished more than half the distance to the town the young reporter
wished that a train, or, at least, a hand-car, would come along and
give him a lift. The sun had set, it was rapidly growing dark, and
Myles was as rapidly growing very hungry. His way lay through a
particularly rough and lonesome stretch of country. It was mountainous
and heavily wooded. He had not seen a house, unless one or two distant
huts of charcoal-burners could be called such, since he started. Now
the solitude and the silence, only broken by the melancholy cries of
a whippoorwill or the weird hootings of an occasional owl, became
drearily oppressive, and Myles longed for human companionship. If only
he had his jolly comrade of the night before, the telegraph operator.
But he had not, and he tried to cheer his lonely way by whistling as
he trudged wearily along. He kept a sharp lookout for lights on either
side of the way, determined to go to the first one he saw in the hope
of finding food. He also decided that if he found any sort of shelter
for the night he would remain there until morning, for the thought
of crossing, in the dark, the several trestle-bridges over mountain
torrents that lay between him and the town was by no means pleasant.
At last he saw a faint gleam, apparently that of a candle, at some
little distance on his left. Whether it was far away or near at hand
Myles could not tell. It at least betokened the presence of human
beings, and he determined to try and reach it. He did not find any road
or path leading to it, but worked his way slowly, with many a stumble
amid rocks, trees, stumps, and bushes, toward the light. He often lost
sight of it, but always found it again, until, all of a sudden, he was
close upon it.
It came from a cabin, apparently that of a charcoal-burner, only
somewhat larger than most of those he had seen. In order to announce
his presence he gave a shout, which was answered by the savage barking
of a dog that came bounding toward him. As Myles felt for a stick or a
rock with which to defend himself, the door of the cabin was opened and
a harsh voice shouted:
“Tige! you Tige! Be quiet, sir. Who’s there?”
“I am,” answered Myles.
“Well, who’s I?”
“A stranger in search of something to eat and a place to sleep in.”
“Step up here and let’s take a look at you. Tige, be quiet!”
The dog obeyed his master so far as keeping quiet was concerned, but
he followed the new-comer and sniffed at his heels in a manner both
suggestive and extremely unpleasant.
The figure that confronted Myles in the door-way was that of a tall,
broad-shouldered, rough-looking man, clad in a flannel shirt and a pair
of coarse trousers tucked into cowhide boots.
“Well, you be a stranger, sure enough,” said he, holding a candle so
that its light shone in the other’s face; “leastways I never see you in
these parts before. An’ you’ve struck a mighty poor place. This ain’t
no hotel, and I reckon you’d better travel a bit further on.”
“Where to?” asked Myles.
“To the Junction, I expect. There ain’t no place short of that, as I
know of, where you could be took in.”
“But that is a long way off,” objected Myles, “and I don’t believe I
could cross the bridges in the dark.”
“No more do I believe you could,” replied the man.
“Besides, I am willing to pay, and pay well, for whatever food and
shelter you will give me,” added Myles.
“Will you pay a dollar?”
“With pleasure.”
“In advance?”
“Yes, if you insist upon it.”
“Let’s see your money, stranger, and I’ll see what I can do.”
Now Myles had no money with him except the change from the fifty
dollars that he had tucked into the envelope in which the bill had
come to him that morning. So he was obliged to produce this in order to
get out the required dollar.
Upon receiving his pay in advance and discovering his would-be guest
to be a person of means the man’s manner softened. Saying, “Step in,
stranger, and I’ll see what I can do for you,” he led the way into the
cabin. Myles followed him, glad to accept even so poor a shelter, and
little dreaming that before morning he would be ten times more anxious
to escape from it than he was now to be admitted.