THE TRAPPED TRAIN!
The reader has of course guessed that the Steam Horse and the Steam Man
became separated in some manner.
After starting away on the tracks of Pomp’s pursuers, all went smooth
for some time, and then Charley’s man got out of order in some part,
and he was forced to pull up and investigate the matter.
“I’ll keep right on,” yelled Frank.
“That’s right!” shouted back Harry Hale from Charley’s wagon. “We’ll
soon be on the road again.”
And then Frank shot away over the plains with his gallant Steam Horse,
the animal of mettle and metal spurning the hard course with rapid
hoofs.
But Frank lost his bearings, and, in some unaccountable manner, got off
his course, and instead of following in the trail of the darkey, and
the outlaws, he took a course some points off the line, and, as the
reader knows, was enabled to rescue Jared Dwight from the roof of his
burning home.
After Dwight had registered that solemn vow that made him an avenger
for life, he sank down into the bottom of the wagon and covered his
face with his hands, and for some time did not utter a single word.
Barney then looked at him with a rather awestruck expression, and then
clambered up beside Frank.
“Frank, dear?”
“Yes, Barney.”
“It’s a bad lot he is, so he is, and he’ll make them rue the day, so he
will.”
“Shouldn’t wonder,” said Frank.
“I’d not like to mate him alone on a dark night, so I wouldn’t, if I
knew that the man had a grudge agin me.”
“He is a tough customer,” said Frank, “and I’ll back him to avenge his
wife and little ones if he gets a square show.”
The Steam Horse was now running, or rather trotting away at the rate of
about fifteen miles an hour, for Frank knew that he was off his course,
and therefore there was no use hurrying.
For some time he trotted along in a leisurely manner, but no signs
could he see of either Pomp, his pursuers, or Charley Gorse and the man.
Barney Shea turned to him with a most comical expression.
“Masther Frank.”
“Go ahead, Barney.”
“Av coorse it sames out o’ place to talk of such thrifling matthers,
whin we’re enjoying such illegant rows an’ ructions, but thin I’m only
a man afther all, and be me sowl I have a stummick.”
“And that ‘stummick’ is hungry?”
“It is that.”
“Well, I don’t mind confessing that I am in the same condition,” said
Frank. “I could eat a horse, shoes and all.”
“Unless the animal was a sthame horse,” said Barney, with a grin.
“Exactly,” said Frank. “See yonder, there’s a little grove. We’ll stop
there, cool off all my wheels, attend to everything, so as to have the
concern in the best traveling order, and get away with a square meal.
I guess by the look of the place that we shall find a little spring of
beautiful fresh water bubbling up there.”
“Arrah, and it’s meself that loikes beautiful fresh wather,” said
Barney; “that is, wid the whisky in, av coorse. Faith, it’s only
haythens that would think o’ drinkin’ beautiful fresh wather widout a
wee shmall dhrop o’ poteen to flavor wid.”
In a few moments they were at the grove, a beautiful shady little spot
of about a half acre in extent, furnished with several tall trees, a
lot of bushes, and a bubbling clear spring.
Here the Steam Horse came to a halt, and the avenger started abruptly
from the dark train of thought that had absorbed his mind.
Frank walked up to him.
“Come, sir,” he said, kindly, “I sympathize deeply with you, but it
will do you no good to brood over your troubles. You cannot forget
them, nor your vow of vengeance, so nursing your hatred in this dark
and gloomy manner can do no good. What is your name?”
“Jared Dwight.”
“And mine is Frank Reade, of the city of New York, and my companion
here is Barney Shea, of Clonakilty, Ireland.”
“I know you both,” said Dwight, as with an effort of will he shook off
the dark cloud hanging over his spirits. “I was with Snap Carter, the
prairie guide, when we were all penned up in that blind pass, and you
rescued us by cutting through with your Steam Man, dashing away to the
fort, and bringing the soldiers down upon the outlaws. I knew that it
must be you when I saw this Steam Horse coming over the plains when my
house was burning under me, for it is just what I expected of you.”
“Oh, it’s a wonderful gossoon he is, so he is,” said Barney, casting a
look of pride upon Frank, “and it’s rare foine ideas he has, so he has:
but divil a wan would amount to anything if I didn’t come wid the braw
jaynus to kape him straight.”
With a faint smile the avenger turned from him, and walked to the
bubbling crystal spring.
Frank had made a dive into the body of the wagon.
Here he had constructed a locker or larder, and kept in it a sufficient
quantity of food to last several days if need be; for his food was
nearly all dried or else condensed, and could be kept in a pure state
for several months.
In a few moments Barney had a cracking fire started. Frank produced a
little silver tea-pot and hung it upon a wire frame which sat airily
above the flames of the little fire, and in less than five minutes a
good cup of tea was produced by the young genius.
“I merely do this to try how my frame works,” said Frank to Dwight,
who was watching him with interest. “My furnace would serve me for
all cooking purposes, but this seems the nicer way, and it don’t seem
natural to do your cooking in the breast of a horse, even if the animal
be made of metal.”
“Science is a wonderful thing,” said Jared, looking attentively at the
horse.
“You bet it is,” said Frank, warmly. “Just by scientific trickery,
nothing else, I was able to get the best of one of the smartest Indian
jugglers in the West, and now I’m equal to a dozen of them.”
While talking they kept their jaws very busy as well as their tongues,
and in the course of half an hour Frank and Barney declared themselves
as feeling better.
Frank replaced his articles in the wagon, had a look at the axles of
his wheels, and found that all the parts were as cold as could be, and
then, after a peep at his furnace, and a squirt of steam through the
nostrils of the horse, declared everything in proper traveling order.
“Of course, you’ll go with us,” he said to the avenger.
“If you will take me I should be pleased to go,” said Dwight. “I know
that you are in the midst of wild adventures day after day, and that
will afford me chance for the revenge I seek. I am a homeless wanderer
now, and all spots are alike to me, so that they do not take me too far
away from the wretches I have sworn to track down to the bitter end;
but--hark!”
He ceased speaking, and held up his hand in a listening attitude.
Frank and Barney bent forward in eager attention.
The distant thundering of many rifles, clear, though far away, came
with a rumbling echo to their ears.
“Where is that same firing?” demanded the impatient Irishman. “Oh,
there’s an illegant row going on somewheres around here, and I’m not
there to take a hand. Och, where the divil is the foight?”
Frank leaped up to his seat and seized the telescope that lay in
brackets alongside his driving-place.
In a moment he adjusted it, placed it to his eye, and slowly swept the
plain with the powerful glass.
He saw, some four or five miles away to the right hand, the very trap
Dwight had spoken of a few moments before.
Two narrow but high spurs of rock, closing in at one end and forming a
blind pass; into this rocky trap a band of mounted men wore forcing an
emigrant train, and from both sides came the thunder of the guns that
they had heard.
He handed the glass to his companions, and they took in the scene at a
glance through the lens.
“That damnable blind pass again,” said the avenger. “What will you do?”
“Not go to the fort again, anyhow,” said the inventor of the Steam
Horse, as he took his seat. “I hold myself good for a tribe of
red-skins, and, I reckon, to be able to scare a few white men, also,
with my odd contrivance. Let me look again through the glass.”
When he looked again he found that the train was fairly into the trap,
and that the outlaws of the plains--red or white--were forced to draw
out of gunshot, for the emigrants were at bay.
“What will you do?” asked Dwight. “I’d like to pile right down there.”
“So would I,” said Barney. “Hooroo! give me a whack at ’em, Frank,
dear.”
“You’d both lose your hair and mine, too,” said Frank. “It is growing
dark rapidly now, and when night comes on I shall be able to astonish
you with some of my little inventions. I shall stay here until it is
perfectly dark, and then if I don’t trot down to that pass and yank
those poor people out of that trap lively, then you can call Frank
Reade a fool. But just you wait.”