THE BOY IN THE "EMPTY"
"Didn't I tell you," whispered Will, "that he is there with a product
of his imagination? If you leave it to him, the two boys we're in
search of are somewhere on the Pacific slope!"
"He must think we're a lot of suckers to take in any story he'll
tell!" whispered Tommy. "A person that couldn't get next to his game
ought to be locked up in the foolish house!"
"I've just heard from a railway brakeman," Ventner said, rushing up to
the boys with an air of importance, "that the two lads you are in
search of were seen leaving a box car at a little station in Ohio. I
don't just recall the name of the station now, but I can find it by
looking on the map! It seems the lads left here on the night following
their departure from the breaker, and stole their passage to this little
town I'm telling you about."
"Good thing you came to the depot," declared Will. "We should have
been out of town in ten minutes more."
"Where is this town?" asked George, thinking it best to show great
interest in the statement made by the detective.
"It's a little place on the Lake Erie & Western road!" was the answer.
The detective took a railroad folder from his pocket and consulted a
map. It seemed to take him a long time to decide upon a place, but he
finally spread the map out against the wall of the station and laid
his finger on a point on the Lake Erie & Western railroad.
"Nankin is the name of the place. Strange I should have forgotten the
name of the place. They were put out of the car at Nankin, and are
believed to have started down the railroad right of way on foot."
"But you said they were seen leaving the car at Napkin!" Tommy cut in.
"Now you say they were put out of the car!"
"Well, they were chased out of the car, and that covers both
statements," replied the detective somewhat nervously.
"Thank you very much for the information!" Will exclaimed as the train
the boys were to take came rolling into the station. "The pointer is
undoubtedly a good one, and we'll take a look at the country about
Nankin."
There was a crossing not more than six miles from the station where
the boys had taken the train and they were all ready to jump when the
engineer slowed down and whistled his note of warning. It was quite
dark, although stars were showing in a sky plentifully scattered over
with clouds and, as the boys dropped down out of the illumination of
the windows as soon as they struck the ground, they were not seen to
leave the train by any of the passengers.
In a moment the train rushed on, leaving the four standing on the
roadbed looking disconsolately in the direction of the town.
"Now for a good long hike!" exclaimed Tommy.
"It's for your own good!" laughed Sandy.
"I can always tell when something is for my own good," Tommy
contended.
"You don't look it!" chuckled Sandy.
"When anything's for my own good," the boy continued, "it's always
disagreeable! It makes me think of a story I read once where the man
complained that everything he ever wanted in this world was either
expensive, indigestible or immoral."
"Well, get on the hike!" laughed George. "You can stand here and
moralize till the cows come home, and it won't move you half an inch
in the direction of the mine!"
"And look here," Will exclaimed as the boys started up the grade,
"when we get within sight of the lights of the station, we must
scatter and keep our traps closed! We can all make for the mine by
different routes. Ventner thinks we are out of town now, and the
chances are that he'll be plugging around trying to accomplish some
purpose known only to himself. For my part I don't believe he is
employed on the same case we are! He's working for some outside
parties!"
"That's the way it strikes me!" George agreed. "If the detective had
been honestly trying to assist us, the mine wouldn't have been
flooded, the pumps wouldn't have broken down, and the electric motors
would have been found in excellent working order."
"Did you notice the suit he had on when he stood talking with us at
the station?" asked Will. "That was a blue serge suit, wasn't it?"
"It surely was!" Tommy declared, quick to catch the point. "And there
was a tear down the front of it which looked as if it had been made by
the scraping of a saw! I guess if you'll inspect the shreds we found
on the saw with the breaks in that coat front you'll find where the
saw got in its work, all right!"
"And there was a cut on his, hand, too!" Sandy observed. "Looked
like he had bounced the saw off one of the rungs on top of a finger."
"Oh, he's a clever little boy all right!" Tommy cut in. "But he
forgot to leave his brass band at home when he went out to cut into
that ladder! If he does all his work the way he did that job, he'll
be sitting in some nice, quiet state's prison before he's six months
older."
When the boys came within a quarter of a mile of the station lights,
they parted, Will and George turning off from the right of way and
Sandy and Tommy keeping on for half a dozen rods. When the four boys
were finally clear of the tracks they were walking perhaps twenty rods
apart, and at right angles with the right of way.
"Now, as we approach the mine," Will cautioned his companion, "keep
your eye out for Ventner and this third boy. They are both likely to
be chasing around in the darkness."
The route to the mine, taken by Tommy and his chum crossed a network
of tracks, led up to the weigh-house and so on into the breaker. As
they came to a line of empty cars standing on a spur they heard a
movement in one of the empties and crouched down to listen.
"There's some one in there!" declared Tommy.
"Some old bum, probably!"
This from Sandy who had recently bumped his shins on a pile of ties
and was not in a very pleasant humor.
"It may be the boy we're looking for!" urged Tommy.
Sandy sat down on the end of a tie and rubbed his bruised shin
vigorously, muttering and protesting, against railroad yards in
general and this one in particular as he did so.
Tommy made his way under the empty and sat listening, his ear almost
against the bottom of the car. Presently he heard a movement above
and then it seemed to him that something of considerable weight was
being dragged across the floor. This was followed in a moment by a
slight groan, and then a shadowy figure leaped from the open side door
and started away in the darkness.
Now Sandy had been warned to hang onto the third boy like grim death
if he caught sight of him. He saw this figure bounce out of the car
and start, away. Therefore, he promptly reached out a foot and
tripped the unknown to the ground.
He fell with a grunt of anger and pain and lay rolling on the cinders
which lined the roadbed for a moment without speaking. In the
meantime, Tommy had crawled out from under the car and stood ready to
seize any second person who might make his appearance.
Almost immediately a second body came bouncing out of the empty.
Instead of starting away on a run, however, the second person stopped
where Sandy stood beside the wiggling figure and looked down upon it.
"Hand him one!" he said in a boy's voice.
"Who is it?" asked Sandy.
"Don't know!" was the reply.
"What was he doing to you?"
"He was trying to rob me!"
"I don't think a man would get rich, robbing people who ride in
empties!" laughed Sandy. "I shouldn't think their bank rolls would
make much of a hit with a bold, bad highwayman!"
"There's men riding the rods," was the reply, "who would kill a boy
for a dime! If I wasn't opposed to cruelty to animals, I'd give this
fellow a beating up right now. He tried to drag me from the car by
the leg and nearly broke my ankle!"
"I heard him dragging you across the floor!" Tommy said, coming up to
where the two stood. "Can you see who it is?" he added.
"He's just a tramp!" the other replied. "I saw him sneaking around
the empties just before dark."
"Why were you sleeping in an empty?" asked Sandy.
"Because I like plenty of fresh air!" replied the boy with a chuckle.
While the boys talked the tramp arose and sneaked away, limping over
the ties as if tickled to death to get out of the way of the three
youngsters.
As he disappeared in the darkness Tommy turned to the boy who had
dropped out of the car to ask him a question.
The boy was nowhere to be seen.
"Now we've gone and done it!" cried Sandy.
"I guess we have!" agreed Tommy. "We've let the third boy get away
from us! And we couldn't have done a worse thing!" he went on,
"because the boys in the mine will know that we are still in this
vicinity!"
While the boys stood blaming themselves the sharp call of the Wolf
pack came to them.