JOE'S WILD RIDE.
"Boys, we've got to stop that train," said Joe, speaking rapidly but
calmly.
"But how do we know which way it is coming from?" asked Roy, who did
not show half as much pluck now as he did while he was struggling with
the mate on board the White Squall.
"We don't know," answered Joe. "It's our business to find out. Art, you
go back along the way we have come, and I'll go ahead. Roy, you stay
here and be ready to signal either way in case anything happens to us
and we don't succeed in stopping the train. Raise your lamp as high in
the air as you can and lower it suddenly. That's 'down brakes' on the
Mount Airy road, and I suppose the signal is the same the world over.
At any rate an engineer with half sense will understand it. Off we go
now. Don't be reckless of headers, Art, but speed along lively."
In two seconds more my master and Arthur Hastings were hurrying away
in different directions, and Roy, having carried his wheel across the
ditch and placed it against the face of the bluff, was sitting on
the rock with his lamp in his hand. In another two seconds Joe and I
whirled around a sharp bend and were out of sight of everybody.
That was the wildest and most reckless run I ever undertook, for my
master did not by any means follow the advice he had given Arthur
Hastings. When Joe Wayring went into a thing he went in with his whole
heart. I went ahead faster that I had ever been driven before, but a
tricycle could not have run with more steadiness. Joe did not need the
whole road-bed to travel in as he would if he had attempted a fast gait
a week before, but held me firmly in one track. I could plainly see the
way for a short distance in front of me, catch the glimmering of the
wet rails on each side, and hear the faint "swishing" sound made by the
rubber tires as they spurned the ground under them; but all on a sudden
this sound ceased--or, rather, it gave way to a very low rumble, such
as I had never heard before. The high bank on the left sank out of
sight; the gurgling of the stream far below became a roar; solid walls
of blackness surrounded us on all sides, relieved only by that little
streak of light in front; and to my inexpressible horror I discovered
that we no longer had the firm road-bed beneath us. We had left it, and
were rushing with almost breathless speed over a trestle-work whose
height could only be guessed at. An eight-inch plank nailed to the
timbers between the tracks was our pathway. It was plenty wide enough
for Joe, now that he had "mended his style of riding," if the plank
had only been on the ground, and he had had daylight to show him where
he was going; but there was plenty of room for accident. Suppose the
plank should not extend entirely across the trestle, which was so long
that I began to wonder if there was any other end to it! Or what if
a tire should come off? Such accidents sometimes happen to the most
careful bicyclists, and when I pictured to myself Joe Wayring lying
stunned and bleeding among those timbers, and in danger of slipping
through into the rocky bed of the stream beneath while I toppled over
the edge--when I thought of these things, I shivered so violently that
my nickel-plated spokes would have rattled if they had not been tangent
and tied together.
As for Joe Wayring, there was not the faintest exclamation from him
to show that he realized his danger, although I knew well enough that
he couldn't help seeing it. If his nerves had not been in perfect
health, something disastrous would surely have happened. He struck the
plank and passed over thirty feet of its length before he had time to
take in the situation. Once started along the trestle he had to go
on; there was no help for it. The light from the lamp was all thrown
ahead, and an effort to dismount in the darkness might have resulted
in a disabling fall among the timbers with me on top. Then what would
become of the train, if it approached from the direction in which he
was going? Plainly his only chance was to keep in motion; and Joe not
only did that, but he laid out extra power on the pedals, and sent
me ahead with increased speed. The rails looked like two continuous
streaks of light, and the timbers passed behind with such rapidity
that they presented the appearance of a solid floor. So great was our
speed that by the time I had thought of all this, and become so badly
frightened that I would have tumbled over if my momentum had not kept
me right side up, that low rumbling sound ceased as suddenly as it
had begun, the graveled road-bed, trodden smooth in the middle, shot
into view and came rushing under the wheels, two high bluffs came out
of the darkness and shut us in on both sides, and the trestle and its
terrors were left behind. At the same instant, as if by a preconcerted
signal, a bright light appeared far up the track, which at this point
was perfectly straight, and another still nearer. The first was from
the headlight of the approaching train, and the second was emitted by a
lantern in the hands of a man who seemed to be searching for something,
for he held his light first toward one rail and then toward the other.
He was moving away from us.
"It's the track-walker," gasped Joe, as he sounded his bell; and those
were the first words I had heard him speak since we left the rock.
"Suppose I had run onto him while I was scooting along that narrow
plank! I'd be dead now, sure."
The moment the man with the lantern heard the bell he faced about; but,
to my surprise, he did not appear to be at all alarmed. The orders he
straightway began shouting at us showed conclusively that he was used
to wheelmen and their methods.
"Git aff the track, ye shpalpeen," he yelled, frantically flourishing
his lantern in the air. "Don't ye see the kyars coming forninst ye,
an' haven't I towled ye times widout number, that if ye gets killed ye
can't get no damages from the company? Will yees git aff the track?"
"Stop that train," shouted Joe, in reply. "There's an obstruction on
the track just beyond the trestle."
"What for lookin' abstraction is it?" inquired the track-walker,
incredulously.
"A big rock," replied Joe; and seeing at once that he had a stupid, and
no doubt an obstinate, man to deal with, he did not neglect to make
preparations to stop the train himself. He promptly got me out of the
way and detached the lamp; and when he bent over so that the light fell
upon his face, I started in spite of myself. He was as white as a sheet.
"Aw! G'long wid ye now," said the track-walker. "Don't I be goin' down
beyant there onct or twicst bechune trains iv'ry blessed day of me
loife for three years an' better? An' don't I know--"
"I don't care what you have done during the last three years, or what
you know," interrupted Joe, as he ran back to the track and signaled
"down brakes" with his lamp. "There's a rock on the track--What are
you trying to do, you loon?" exclaimed Joe, hotly, as the man made an
effort to push him away and take his lamp from him. "Let me alone or
I will report you. There'll be a wreck here in a minute more, and you
will lose your place on the road."
Although the man didn't like the idea of allowing an outsider to
interfere with his business, Joe's words had just the effect upon him
that the boy intended they should have, and after a little hesitation
he began signaling with his own light. Between them they succeeded in
attracting the attention of the engineer, who called for brakes, and
stopped his train within a few feet of the place where Joe and the
track-walker stood.
"What's the trouble?" he asked from his cab window; and while Joe was
explaining, the conductor came up and listened. The latter looked first
at my master and then at me, and presently said:
"You didn't ride across the trestle, of course."
"Of course I did," replied Joe, "I couldn't have got across any other
way. I would have been afraid to walk that narrow plank in the dark.
How high is it above the water?"
"Sixty feet in some places, and the trestle is just half a mile long,"
answered the conductor. "Here, boys, put that wheel into the baggage
car. Young man, you come with me, and I will take you to Dorchester."
"That's where we want to go," said Joe, surprised to learn that he and
his friends had been riding on the back track ever since they struck
the railroad.
In obedience to the conductor's order I was hoisted into the baggage
car, placed against a pile of trunks so that I could see through the
wide-open door and the engineer pulled slowly ahead. I had little idea
how far we had run after leaving the trestle, but we were fully five
minutes in getting back to it, and much longer in crossing it. There
seemed to be no bottom to the gulf it spanned. It was so deep that I
could see nothing but the tops of the trees that grew in it. About the
time we got to the other end of it the baggage-master, who had been
leaning half-way out the opposite door, drew in his head long enough to
remark to some one whom I took to be his assistant:
"There's a chap out there calling for brakes the best he knows how,"
and I straightway made up my mind that it must be Roy Sheldon. "This
would be a bad place for an accident with such a trainful of passengers
as we've got. There's the rock," he added, a moment later, "and it's as
big as this car."
It wasn't quite as large as that, nor do I suppose it was even half
as large as Rube Royall's cabin; but it was big and heavy enough to
tax the strength of all the men who could get around it, including the
engineer, fireman, conductor, all the brakemen, some of the passengers
and two wheelmen. With the aid of levers and much lifting and pushing
they got it started at last, and it went down into the gulf with a
terrific crash. I heard the engineer say, as he climbed back into his
cab, that if he had struck that rock going as fast as he usually did at
that place, he would have demolished his train so completely that it
would have taken a microscope to find the wreck.
"All clear," shouted the conductor. "All aboard. Pass along that other
wheel."
"One moment, please. There's another man in our party who went down
that way because we didn't know where to look for the first train,"
said Joe, waving his hand in the direction in which Arthur Hastings
had disappeared. "He'll be back directly, and as we don't care to be
separated, perhaps you had better leave us here. We're just as much
obliged to you, however."
"Has the other man got a lamp? All right, Jake," said the conductor,
addressing the engineer, "keep a lookout for another wheelman a mile or
so down the road. That'll be all right. Pile in."
Joe and Roy went into one of the passenger cars, while the latter's
wheel was placed at my side against the trunks. The first words he
uttered were:
"It's just dreadful to think of, isn't it?"
"Not so much so as it might be," said I. "If I had broken Joe Wayring's
head for him while he was driving me at top speed across that trestle,
then you might have had something to talk about."
"We've enough as it is. I know it might have been worse, and some
unknown villains meant it should be. Roy Sheldon showed the marks to
the engineer as soon as he got out of his cab."
"What marks?"
"Why, the marks on the rock. The engineer called the conductor's
attention to them, and together they made it up not to say a word
about it in the hearing of the passengers for fear of frightening them."
"What in the world did the passengers have to be frightened about so
long as Joe and I stopped the train and averted the disaster? They
ought to be tickled."
"Well, they wouldn't be if they knew how that rock came to be on the
track. You probably did not see the conductor when he threw some
pieces of round wood over the brink into the ravine, but I did, and I
know that they were the rollers that were used to bring that bowlder
into place after it had been tumbled down from the bluff. There's
train-wreckers in this country, I tell you."
Roy's bike was so excited over what might have happened if we had found
that railroad half an hour later, that he could not tell a straight
story; but this is what I managed to draw from him after much patient
and ingenious questioning:
When Joe and I disappeared in one direction and Arthur Hastings and his
wheel sped swiftly away in the other, Roy Sheldon seated himself upon
the rock with his lamp in his hand, and whistled softly, keeping time
with his heels, for a full minute; then he grew tired of doing nothing,
jumped off the rock and made a circuit of it, looking closely at it on
all sides. It had cut a deep gash in the bluff as it came down, but Roy
thought the ditch ought to have stopped it, because it was lower than
the track. Somehow Roy could not bring himself to believe that it had
come down with speed enough to run across a three foot ditch, up a hill
that was eighteen inches high and six feet long, and stop so squarely
in the middle of the track.
"There's something rather queer about it," soliloquized the young
wheelman, as he moved around the obstruction. "Now, then, what's that?"
Just then something attracted his attention, and he bent over to
examine it. It was the print of a foot in the soft earth at the end of
one of the sleepers. Roy placed his own foot within it, and found, to
his consternation, that it was at least a third larger than his shoe.
Then he made another impression beside it, and the difference in size
satisfied him beyond all doubt that he had not made that suspicious
track himself. There were hobnails in the track, and that proved that
none of Roy's party could have stepped in that particular spot, for
there were no nails of that sort in their foot-gear.
"This rock was put here for a purpose," said Roy; and when the thought
passed through his mind the cold chills crept all over him. "There
must have been a good many of them in the gang, for half a dozen men
couldn't roll so heavy a weight out of the ditch unless they had
something to work with. What's this and this, and those pieces of
timber over there?"
The longer the boy continued his investigations, the more he found
to confirm the alarming suspicions that had arisen in his mind. The
objects that now attracted his notice were several pieces of round
wood, with the bark scratched and torn from them, and as many sticks
of timber that were likewise covered with wounds and abrasions. There
were other large footprints too in abundance--in fact the ground about
looked as though a large party of men had been at work there for a long
time--and presently the boy discovered marks upon the bowlder itself
which might have been made with a spade or crowbar.
"Were we all blind that we didn't notice these things when we first
came here?" said Roy to himself. "Probably we were so highly excited
that we couldn't notice any thing except the rock. The fiends who put
this thing on the track with the intention of wrecking the train ought
to be hanged without judge or jury. I am glad I didn't know what I know
now, for I wouldn't have had the courage to stay here alone."
Just then the thought flashed through Roy's mind that perhaps the
would-be train-wreckers were concealed somewhere in the vicinity
waiting for the time when they could descend into the gulf and complete
their work, and that their evil eyes might at that very moment be
fastened upon him, while they were discussing plans for getting him out
of their way. If Joe and Arthur had known all this, would they have
been so ready to dash off into the darkness to warn the unsuspecting
engineer of his peril? How easily one of those concealed villains could
have tumbled both his friends out of their saddles with a shot from
a revolver! And what had prevented them, when the boys first started
away, from throwing from the top of the bluff an obstruction upon the
track that would have sent both the wheelmen to the ground? No doubt it
was because Roy and his friends acted with so much promptness that they
did not have time to think of it; but hadn't they had plenty of time
since then to recover from their surprise and plan vengeance? This fear
almost unnerved Roy. He took one step toward his wheel, but the thought
that passed through his mind was driven out as quickly as it came. Come
what might, he would not desert his post. He would stay there and warn
the train, if one of his companions did not succeed in doing it, and in
the mean time if those scoundrels wanted a fight, they could have it.
Roy's first care was to put his lamp behind the rock out of sight, and
his second to pull his bicycle case off his shoulder and take out the
rifle it contained. He had done considerable shooting with it since
he had been on the road, although it had not yet brought him a young
squirrel for his dinner. As often as he and his companions halted for
a rest their little weapons were brought out, and Roy had learned by
actual test that the one he owned could be depended on to shoot "right
where it was held."
"Now I am ready for them," said Roy, taking his stand behind the rock
outside the circle of light that came from the lamp. "If they advance
along the road they had better make sure work of me at the start, for
if they don't, some of them will get hurt."
If the train-wreckers were hidden where they could see him (and it was
reasonable to suppose they were), they must have taken note of Roy's
movements, and perhaps they saw that he had a weapon of some sort in
his hands and was ready to defend himself. Be that as it may, they did
not molest him, and the boy stuck to his post until the glare of the
locomotive headlight fell upon him. The train was moving slowly, and
that was proof enough that Joe Wayring had warned it; but to make sure
of it, Roy caught up his lamp and "called for brakes the best he knew
how." The engineer was the first man to speak to him, and when Roy
called his attention to the marks on the rock, the big footprints on
the ground and the timbers that were scattered about, the brave fellow
turned so white that it showed through the black on his face. He in
turn told the conductor, and the latter at once threw the timbers into
the ditch, and pitched the pieces of round wood into the gulf.
"Don't lisp a word of it," he said, earnestly. "We've got a heavy,
packed train, and the folks would be scared to death. Young fellow," he
added, turning to give Joe Wayring a hearty slap on the shoulder, "you
have been the means of preventing a slaughter. I'll bet there isn't
another wheelman in the State who can ride over that trestle."
"Haw, haw!" laughed Joe. "I guess you haven't seen many wheelmen, have
you?"
"Or who would have the courage to attempt it in daylight, let alone
a dark night like this," continued the conductor. "Why, man alive,
it's a very narrow plank that was put there for the convenience of the
track-walker, and the trestle is sixty feet high and half a mile long."
"I am glad I didn't know that when I was going over it," was all Joe
had to say in reply.
This is what I meant when I said a while ago that little things often
bring about great events. I now know that my master was frightened out
of a year's growth when he found himself on that trestle, but he had
confidence and nerve enough to go ahead without attempting to dismount.
It was that short interview with the strange wheelman that did it, and
made Joe Wayring the steady rider he was that night. He knew as well as
anybody that he "wobbled too much," but he supposed that was something
every novice did, and that the fault would correct itself without any
care or trouble on his part. But as soon as his attention was called to
it he promptly set about "mending his style," and this was the result.
He was glad of it now. It was the only thing that put it in his power
to save the train, for on the day he encountered that strange wheelman
he could not have ridden fifty feet on an eight-inch plank at full
speed without falling off.
By this time all the trainmen had come forward, accompanied by some of
the wakeful passengers who wanted to inquire into the cause of this
second stoppage, and by their united efforts the rock was tumbled
harmlessly over the brink of the gulf and the engineer pulled out for
Dorchester, keeping watch along the way for Arthur Hastings. He found
him about two miles farther on, but the boy was not signaling, because
the appearance of the train was proof enough that Joe had met and
warned it. Arthur was surprised to see it come to a stop at the place
where he got off the track, and to hear the engineer shout at him to
chuck his bike into the baggage car and get aboard, for he was half
an hour behind already. But he lost not a moment in thinking about it
after he saw Joe and Roy beckoning to him from the platform of one of
the passenger cars, and the train once more started on its way, this
time moving at a rate of speed that gave me a faint idea of the crash
that would have followed and the fearful loss of life that would have
taken place if it had come in contact with that bowlder.
This is the substance of the story Roy's wheel told me during the run
to Dorchester, and the one to which Joe and Arthur listened while
perched upon the wood-box in one of the crowded cars. The conductor
could not give them a seat, for every one was filled with weary
travelers who had slumbered serenely through it all, and who when they
awoke at intervals, and looked with sleepy eyes toward the three dusty,
white-faced boys behind the stove-pipe, never dreamed that one of
them, a short half-hour before, held all their lives in his hand. The
conductor knew it and could hardly find words with which to express his
gratitude, although he tried hard enough. The young wheelmen conversed
in whispers and looked frightened, as indeed they were; and Joe Wayring
hoped from the bottom of his heart that no such responsibility would
ever devolve upon him again.
"I don't know what you fellows want to go to Dorchester for," said
the conductor, who came into their car as soon as the train was
fairly under way. "The place has a big name, but there are only three
houses in it. There's no hotel at which you can stop. There is a
boarding-house, but I tell you plainly that it will be of no use to go
there, for old man Kane won't let you in. He says he can eat anybody
who comes along, but he can't and won't sleep 'em."
"That's queer," said Joe. "The author of our road-book has been
through here, and says he got the best kind of treatment at Kane's
boarding-house."
"Oh, the old fellow sets a good table, and can be civil and obliging
enough when he feels like it; but he won't get up after he has gone to
bed. It's against his principles."
"Why do you stop at such an out-of-the-way place?"
"Because there's a horse railroad there that connects with a little
town a few miles back in the country, and there are some people aboard
who want to get off. The depot is always kept locked at night, and I
am afraid you will have to bunk on the platform unless you will go on
with me. Will you? I'll bring you back."
The boys thanked him, but said they didn't think that was the best
thing they could do. Their route ahead was laid out, and they wanted to
stick as closely to it as they could. They were used to camping out,
had warm blankets in their bundles, and would just as soon sleep on the
platform as in a bed, provided old man Kane could be prevailed upon to
give them a good breakfast in the morning.
"But there's one thing about it," said Joe. "Every wheelman in the
State ought to be warned that if he intends to travel this route, he
had better time his runs so as to pass through this contemptible little
Dorchester in daylight, unless he is prepared to camp out."
Arthur Hastings thought it would be a good plan for one of them to
state the facts of the case to the man who wrote the guide-book, so
that he could have the warning put in subsequent editions.