GOING INTO A HOT PLACE.
"Where have you started for, anyway?" inquired the conductor, after a
little pause.
Joe replied that they had set out from Mount Airy to run across the
State, and that when they reached the farther end of their route they
would be about three hundred miles from home.
"I suppose your object is to have fun and see the country, isn't
it?" said the conductor. "Now of course I don't know anything about
wheeling, but I should say that you could not have selected a worse
route. You'll see the wildest bit of country there is, but how much fun
you'll have I don't know. After you leave Dorchester you'll get into
the mountains, and then your road will be all up-hill."
"But the ascent is so gradual that we can easily accomplish it," said
Roy. "Our road-book tells us it is so very gradual that we will hardly
know we are going up. We understand that there is plenty of sport in
the way of hunting and trout fishing in the neighborhood of Glen's
Falls, and we intend to take our first rest there, if we can find any
one who is willing to board us for a few days."
"And if we can't do that, we shall camp out," added Joe. "We came
prepared to do it."
"I don't know much about hunting and fishing either," said the
conductor. "All I do know is railroading; but some of my friends used
to spend a month or so about the Glen every year, and always came back
with the report that they had had the best kind of a time. But I notice
they don't go there any more."
"What's the reason they don't?"
"Doesn't your guide-book warn you that there are some fellows up that
way you had better keep clear of?" asked the conductor in reply.
"It doesn't hint at such a thing."
"It ought to. How long since it was written?"
"Two years; but it has been revised since then."
"Couldn't it be possible that no change was made in this particular
route--I mean the one you are now taking?" inquired the official. "A
good many things have happened at the Glen during the last two years.
To begin with, the town had over a thousand inhabitants, and now it has
hardly a quarter as many. Take 'em as a class, they're a rough set up
there. They are lazy and shiftless, hate work as bad as so many tramps,
and would be called tramps if it were not for the fact that they have
permanent abodes most of the year. The rest of the time they are in the
woods shooting game in violation of the law."
"Are there no officers in the vicinity?" asked Arthur.
"Oh, there are officers enough, but they are afraid to do anything
toward bringing the law-breakers to justice. You see the latter are
in the majority. They steal timber as often as they feel like it, go
through every logging camp they find unguarded, and if you lodge a
complaint against one of them, the whole band will turn in to clear
him by false swearing, and then they will take satisfaction out of you
by burning your mill, barn or house, and by shooting or poisoning your
cattle. They're a fine lot, I assure you, and I shouldn't think you
would like to go among them."
"What a splendid place that would be for Matt Coyle if he were on deck
now!" exclaimed Roy. "Why didn't he hunt up that band--did you say
there was a band of them?"
"Yes; and I have heard it is regularly organized, and that when one of
them has to stand trial or give bonds to keep the peace with those he
has threatened, he gets help from all over the county."
"Why didn't Matt hunt up that band and live among them instead of going
to such a place as Indian Lake?" said Roy.
"Perhaps he wouldn't have got any independent guiding in that part of
the State," suggested Joe.
"There are, or used to be, plenty of guides up there," said the
conductor, "but I don't suppose they get much to do now. A man who goes
into the woods for fun doesn't pick guides from among a lot of fellows
who will rob him the first chance they get. Of course there are some
nice people about the Glen, and they will be glad to take you in if the
Buster band will let them do it."
"What has the Buster band to say about it?" demanded Joe.
"Who are they, and where did they get that name?" added Roy.
"They are the ones I have been telling you about--the lawless people in
the Glen's Falls neighborhood," replied the conductor. "They 'bust up'
property when things don't go to suit them, and that's the reason they
call themselves the Buster band."
"But what's the reason they will not allow any of the nice folks in
town to board us if they want to?" asked Arthur.
"Of course I am not sure that they will object to any arrangements you
may be able to make with the family whose name I shall presently give
you, but I think they will," answered the conductor. "You see, Dave
Daily, the leader of the band, was indicted for arson, and there's a
warrant out for him now. He and a companion were arrested for stealing
timber; but they got out of jail somehow (every one says they must have
had help from the outside in order to do it), and that night the man
who complained of them lost everything he had in the world. Everything
that would burn went up in smoke, and his stock was either poisoned or
shot. After that Daily and his friend took to the woods, and Daily is
there yet, or was the last I heard of him; but the friend was run down
by a Middleport officer who went up there for that purpose."
"That was all right," said Joe, when the conductor paused. "I wish he
had caught Daily also."
"So do I; but it seems he didn't. What I was going to say is this: That
officer went up to Glen's Falls on his wheel."
"Ah! That explains it, and the matter is perfectly clear to me now,"
said Arthur. "You think that Daily or his friends will think we are
officers too, and that they will tell this man to whom you are going
to direct us--what did you say his name is?"
"I didn't say," answered the conductor, with a laugh. "But his name is
Holmes, and he lives on the road you will have to take to reach the
town. I don't know him personally, but my friends who have been there
say he keeps the best house, and that he is the best guide for that
neck of the woods. Yes; that is what I was thinking of. Some of the
band will be sure to see you if you stop there, and they may--mind I
don't say they will, but they may--send him word to get rid of you in
short order. He'll have to do it, for the board you would be likely
to pay him wouldn't recompense him for the loss of his cow, horse, or
barn."
"Of course it wouldn't," replied Joe. "We'll state the case to him as
plainly as we know how, if we can find him, and if we learn that your
suspicions are well-grounded, we'll not ask him to shelter us."
"Well, if this isn't a pretty state of affairs I wouldn't say so,"
exclaimed Arthur, who was very much disgusted. "They must be a brave
lot up there to let a few lawless people keep them so completely under
their thumbs."
"But don't you know that they are in the minority?" demanded Joe.
"Yes; and a big one, too," added the conductor.
"If the members of that Buster band don't work, how do they live?"
inquired Roy.
"They don't live; they just stay. They all own a little land, and work
it enough to raise a few vegetables, like turnips and potatoes, and
a little corn. Their meat they get out of the woods. They will steal
timber, and then walk up and sell it to the man to whom it belongs, and
who is generally the owner of a saw-mill he can't afford to have burned
down. They sell their pigs, and by various other shifts make out to
keep themselves in tobacco and clothes. And between you and me," added
the conductor, sinking his voice to a whisper, "I believe they had
something to do with the rock you young gentlemen found on the track."
"Is _that_ the sort of folks they are?" exclaimed Joe.
"Of course I can't prove anything against them, but I bet you that when
I make my report, there'll be a detective sent up there to look into
the matter. I understand that there are spies in that band now, working
in the interests of law and order, and if the detective can only strike
one of them, he may learn something. There's Dorchester," he continued,
as a long whistle from the engine awoke the echoes of the woods, "and
I must say good-by. I don't want you to forget that you have made a
friend of every man on the road by--"
"We should think you a mighty queer set if we hadn't," Joe interposed.
"It's all right. Any decent fellows in the world would do the same, of
course, but it happened to come in our way. We are greatly obliged for
the information and warning you have given us."
"You will change your route then?" replied the conductor, and the boys
thought he looked relieved when he said it. "I was sure you would, when
you knew what sort of folks they are in that section of the country.
Good-by and good luck to you."
When the young wheelmen stepped upon the platform they shook hands
with all the trainmen, who wished them a pleasant trip and no end of
fun while it lasted, and then leaned their wheels under the eaves of
the little building that served as warehouse, operator's office and
waiting-room, and looked about them. The light that shone from the
conductor's lantern, and from the windows of the horse-car standing
upon the branch track, gave them a clear view of their surroundings,
which were so cheerless that the boys wondered how any road-book maker
could advise wheelmen to come that way, unless he wanted to have them
fooled as he had been fooled himself. At least that was the way Arthur
Hastings expressed it.
"He probably came through here in the day-time, when old man Kane had
a good dinner ready for him, and everything looked different," said
Joe. "He wouldn't have had so much to say in favor of Dorchester's
boarding-house if he had passed through in the night and been shut out
of doors."
"Are we going to let what the conductor said about that Buster band
induce us to change our route?" inquired Roy, who, as soon as the
train pulled out and the horse-car disappeared down the branch track,
began untying his bundle and taking out his blankets as if it were a
settled thing that he and his companions were to camp right where they
stood. "That's the question now before the house."
"I stand ready to yield to the majority, but for myself I say 'No,'"
answered Joe.
"Hear, hear!" cried Arthur. "But it does look dark now that the lights
have gone, don't it? To tell the truth, I wish that detective had
not gone up there on his wheel. Somehow it brings to my mind all the
stories I have read about the sudden and mysterious disappearance of
men who have been foolish enough to wear blue blouses through the
regions where the moonshiners hang out. Those interesting people think
that every one who dresses in blue must be a revenue officer, and make
it a point to shoot him from the bushes without troubling him with any
questions."
"That's a cheerful way to talk to homeless boys who have nearly sixty
miles of mountain travel before them," said Joe, driving his knife
into the side of the building and hanging his lighted lamp upon it.
"That makes things look a little pleasanter, doesn't it? I don't know
how it is with you, but I am tired and sleepy, and I'm going to lie
down."
After fastening their wheels together with a couple of chains and
padlocks, so that if any light-footed prowler happened along and
carried one of them off he would have to take all, the boys spread
their blankets upon the platform, and went to sleep. Just before he
closed his eyes Arthur said he knew he would dream of that rock and a
train tumbling over into the gulf, but he slept too soundly to dream
about anything until he was aroused by the stentorian voice of old man
Kane, the man who would eat anybody who came that way but wouldn't
sleep him. As soon as he opened his doors he saw the wheels resting
against the station-house, and came over to ask the boys if they didn't
think it about time to get up to breakfast.
"All right," replied Arthur. "We'll be there directly. It was that
jolly, good-natured face of his that deceived the author of our
road-book, and made him think Kane was a bully landlord," he added, as
the man turned away to hurry up the breakfast. "If we had a piece of
bread as big as a walnut I'd see him happy before I would show my face
inside the house he keeps locked against belated wheelmen. No one will
ever come this route by my advice."
But after he had bathed his hands and face in the cold water that came
from the spring behind the house, drank two big cups of coffee, and
eaten two boys' share of the excellent breakfast that was placed before
him, Arthur did not feel quite so much disposed to growl at old man
Kane. He voted him a number one caterer, and that was more than could
be said of every boarding-house keeper.
While they were at the table they heard a train stop at the
station-house, and after what seemed a long delay, they saw the
horse-car pass the window with a lot of passengers aboard; but they
thought nothing of it until they went into the office, which was also
the sitting and loafing room, and stepped up to the desk to pay their
bill.
"Put that back! Put that money back," exclaimed the landlord, almost
fiercely. "Bless my heart! I've a good notion to come out from behind
the desk and shake the last one of you boys, and I can do it too, old
as I am. I've just heard about it. Why didn't you wake me up last
night, instead of going to bed there on the platform?"
Roy tried to explain that they did not want to disturb him after he had
gone to bed (he didn't say why), and that their blankets afforded them
as soft a bed as they cared for, but the old man did so much talking
himself that Roy finally gave it up. He listened while the landlord
told that the men on the up-train, as well as the passengers they had
seen go by the dining-room window, had brought a full report of last
night's doings, and he wanted to give them a breakfast to pay them for
it, because he would have felt bad if that train had run into the rock
and been smashed up.
"I always did look upon wheelmen as a nuisance," said he, with
refreshing candor. "They eat you out of house and home, and the fifty
cents you charge 'em for it don't begin to pay for the damage they do;
but now I know that they ain't a nuisance. I've seen that trestle, and
I say that the boy who can ride over it in the dark has got the right
kind of pluck to make a man out of him some of these days. No, sir, I
won't tax you a cent for that breakfast; but I want to see the chap
that went over that plank. Which one was it?"
"It's nothing to make a fuss about," answered Joe, who knew that if
he did not speak Roy and Arthur would. He thought the man would have
something complimentary to say to him; but instead of that he pushed
the register toward him with the request that Joe would draw a line
under his name so that he (Kane) would know it the next time he saw it.
"Do you know what I am going to do?" said he, when the boy handed back
the pen. "I'm going to show that name to every wheelman who comes
along, and double-dare him to go up to the trestle and ride over that
plank. If he'll do it, and prove that he does it, I'll give him all he
can eat as long as he has a mind to stay."
It was right on the point of Roy Sheldon's tongue to inquire: "And will
you expect him to sleep on the platform of nights?" But instead of that
he said: "Then you will be bankrupt in less than six months if many
wheelmen come this way."
Old man Kane declared that he didn't believe a word of it, and the
boys went out on the porch and sat down to read over the day's route,
and fix it firmly in their minds, so that they would not be obliged to
refer constantly to the guide-book. It was a short one, only twenty-six
miles, but it was all they would want to do in one day, because it was
the worst part of the sixty-mile mountain road that lay before them.
The next day's run would take them to Glen's Falls, which, so the book
said, was just the place for a brain-weary wheelman to stop and take a
few days' rest. But in order to reap the full benefit of it, he ought
to go at once, before telegraph communication was opened with the rest
of the world, as it certainly would be next year.
"As the book was written two years ago that means last year," said
Joe. "Unless that conductor was greatly mistaken, the town is as much
secluded now as it was then."
"More so, and further away from telegraphic communication with the rest
of the world," said Roy, "because that Buster band has driven every one
away from there. Who knows but it will drive us away too? Let's get
there and see."
Having taken leave of old man Kane and thanked him for the good
breakfast he had given them, the boys mounted and rode away. Joe
Wayring was right when he said that Dorchester probably looked more
cheerful in broad daylight than it did in the dark. Although there
were but few people stirring, and they were mostly section hands, and
there was little business done except at train time, it was a pleasant
spot, and one that many a sweltering city boy would be glad to get
away to during his summer vacation. The guide-book said there was fine
fishing in the neighboring ponds, and the boys knew that squirrels were
abundant, for they heard them barking on all sides as they crossed the
railroad and wheeled away among the trees on the other side.
This proved to be the hardest day's run so far, but the boys "took
it easy," stopped beside every babbling brook they found, and long
before the hands on their watches told them it was twelve o'clock,
every crumb of the generous lunch that old man Kane put up for them had
disappeared. The road was steeper than they expected to find it, the
log bridges over the streams were not in the best of repair, and there
were so many stones on the hill that any attempt at coasting would
have been perilous. The house at which they intended to stop for the
night, provided the owner did not object to the company of strangers,
looked very cool and inviting when they came within sight of it. It was
nestled among the trees at the farther end of a long bridge, there was
a neat mill beside it, and the rumble of the machinery was just dying
away as the boys drew up in front of the open door.
"Hallo!" said a voice from the interior, removing all doubts from their
minds at once. "How many of you fellows are there, anyway? Went down
to New London t'other day and saw as many as seventy-five or thirty
of you, all going somewhere, but you're the first to come our way this
season. Alight and hitch."
"Thank you; but our horses stand without hitching," replied Arthur.
"Will it be convenient for you to keep us to-night?"
The dusty miller, following his voice to the door, said it would not
only be quite convenient, but he would be glad to do it, for he was
lonely up there in the hills, and he and his family were always pleased
to see new faces. The first wheelman who ever came that way stopped
with him for a week, and promised to tell any who came after him to do
the same. The miller was surprised when Arthur produced the road-book,
showed him his name, and told him that they had had him and his house
in mind ever since they left Mount Airy.
"And do you mean to say that you have come that distance with nothing
but a book to guide you?" he exclaimed. "Now that is the neatest kind
of a trick, ain't it? Well, come in and we'll get some of the dust off."
That night after supper, while they were sitting on the porch, the boys
told Mr. Hudson (that was the miller's name) that they were going on
to Glen's Falls with the intention of taking a few days' rest there,
and to their surprise and relief he did not say a word to turn them
from their purpose, as they were sure he would have done if the people
in that neighborhood had been the desperate lot that the conductor
represented them to be. This led Joe to believe that the conductor had
been misinformed, and I heard him say as much to his chums when the
miller went into the house after his pipe.
"And don't you believe in the existence of the Buster band either?" I
heard Roy ask him.
"Oh, there may be lawless men about Glen's Falls, and where in the
world will you go amiss of them?" answered Joe. "But I don't, and never
have, put any faith in that story about an organized band of outlaws
who terrorize the country, and roam around destroying buildings and
stock when things do not go to please them. Why, just think of the
absurdity of it! How long would it be before the whole power of the
State would be put forth to bring them to justice?"
"I never placed much faith in the tales I have heard and read of men
being shanghaied and taken to sea against their will," said Roy, with a
wink at Arthur; "but I do now."
"I don't blame you," answered Arthur, "and we may be quite as willing
to swallow all we have heard about that Buster band before we are a
week older. I don't think that conductor meant to fool us, but he
certainly did exaggerate things and make mountains out of mole-hills."
I had hoped so all along, and now I began to be sure of it. You can
imagine, then, how astounded and frightened I was when I heard the
miller say to his wife, after Joe and his friends had gone up-stairs to
bed:
"I really wish those boys would keep away from Glen's Falls, for I am
afraid they will get into trouble if they do not. I suppose I ought to
tell them about the Buster band, who make targets of the officers of
the law, and destroy the houses of those who complain of them, but,
Mollie, I am afraid to do it. Every dollar I have in the world is
invested right here beside this little stream of water, and if I tried
to put the boys on their guard, and they should go up to the Falls and
repeat what I said to them, how long do you think my buildings would
stand? They're strangers to me, and I don't know how far to trust them."
"And don't you remember that the detective who arrested that friend of
Dave Daily's came up here on a wheel?" said Mrs. Hudson. "And haven't
the band said that every man who comes into the country on a wheel can
make up his mind to go out of it on foot? I think myself that your
safest plan is to keep still. If you knew the boys could be depended
on, the case would be different. I'm almost sorry you agreed to keep
them all night."
"So am I," said the miller. "I don't believe I shall ever do the like
again."
I shivered all over as I leaned against the side of the house and
listened to this conversation. If my master had heard it, I am sure he
would have turned back and given Glen's Falls a wide berth.