A LIMB OF THE LAW
The single track which Bart had discovered lined the bottom of the hill,
followed it for a distance, and then running across the valley
disappeared in among other hills and the timber.
It was a rickety concern, was unballasted, and looked as if, loosely
thrown together, it had never filled its original mission and had been
practically abandoned.
"I don't know of any branch of the B. & M. hereabouts," ruminated the
young express agent--"certainly none corresponding to this is on the
map. It is not in regular use, but that hand car looks as if it was
doing service right along."
No one was in sight about the place, yet lying in plain view on the hand
car were three or four coats and jumpers and as many dinner pails.
"I have no time to figure it out," breathed Bart quickly. "The first
thing to do is to get the trunk down there."
Bart ran back to the wagon. He hurriedly pulled away the grass covering
and then the canvas.
The trunk was revealed. He had his first full glance at it since it had
been delivered to him at the express office at Pleasantville, the
afternoon previous.
"It's all right," he said with satisfaction, after a critical
inspection. "There is the paster I slapped over the front. The trunk
could not have been opened without tearing that."
He got a good purchase on a handle and landed the trunk in the road.
Then he dragged it up to the barrier, removed a board, and, perspiring
and breathing hard, held it at the sheer edge of the decline and let it
slide.
The hand car was a light-running affair, well-greased, in pretty good
order, and he could readily observe was in constant use.
Upon it lay the clothing and dinner pails he had noticed from overhead.
They evidently belonged to workmen--but where were they?
"I can hardly wait to find out," declared Bart.
He pushed off the clothing and dinner pails and lifted on the trunk.
Then Bart made a depressing discovery--the hind gearing was locked with
a chain running from wheel to wheel.
This was unfortunate. Turning a heap of slate, he came suddenly and with
delight upon an open tool box.
It was a regular construction case, and full of shovels, crowbars,
pickaxes, sledges and drills. Bart selected a crowbar and his efforts to
twist and snap the chain resulted in final success. With a thrill of
satisfaction he sprang upon the car. The handles moved easily and
responsively to the touch.
A grumbling roar caused him to survey the sky, which had been dull and
lowering since noon.
"Storm coming," he murmured--"now for action!"
Bart started up the car. It ran as smooth as a bicycle. He was anxious
to get away from the face of the hill, not knowing how near the enemy
might be.
They were nearer than he fancied, for a sudden shout rang out, then a
chorus of them.
A piece of rock, hurled down from the crest of the hill, struck his
wrist, nearly numbing it. Glancing up, Bart saw the two Tollivers and
Lem Wacker getting ready to descend.
There was a sharp incline and a short curve not ten feet ahead. Bart
let the hand car drive at its own impetus.
"Stop!" yelled Buck Tolliver.
He held some object in his hand. Bart crouched by the side of the
pumping standard, and the hand car spun out on the tracks crossing the
valley, just as the thunder-storm broke forth in all its fury.
Bart's back was to the wind, and the wind helped his progress. As the
tracks led into the timber, Bart took a last glance backwards, but rain
and mist shut out all sight of the hill and his enemies.
He had no idea as to the terminus or connections of the railroad, but
never relaxed his efforts as long as clear tracks showed beyond.
Bart must have gone six or seven miles, when he saw ahead some scattered
houses, then a church steeple and a water tower, and he caught the echo
of a locomotive whistle.
"It's the B. & M., and that is Lisle Station!" he soliloquized with
unbounded satisfaction.
Fifteen minutes later, wringing wet with rain and perspiration, Bart
drove the hand car up to a bumper just behind a little country depot,
and leaped to the ground.
"Hello!" hailed a man inside, the station agent, staring hard at him
through an open window.
Bart nodded calmly, consulting his watch and calculating mentally in a
rapid way.
"See here," he said briskly, "this is Lisle Station?"
"Sure."
"On the B. & M. Then the afternoon express is due here from the east in
twelve minutes."
"You seem to be well-posted."
"I ought to be," answered Bart--"I am the express agent at
Pleasantville."
"What!" ejaculated the man incredulously.
"Yes," nodded Bart, smiling. "Won't you help me get this trunk to the
platform?"
The station agent came outside and lent a hand as suggested, but he
remarked:
"The express doesn't stop here."
"Flag it."
"My orders--"
"Won't interfere, in this case," insisted Bart. "That trunk has got two
thousand dollars worth of stuff in it, and was stolen. I recovered it,
the thieves are after me, and it has got to go to Cedar Lake on Number
18."
"Well! well! well!" muttered the station agent in a daze, but hastening
to place the stop signal.
Bart went inside and unceremoniously approached the office desk. He
wrote on a slip of paper, placed it in his pocket, shifted the trunk to
the head end of the platform, and stationed himself beside it.
"Is all that you're telling me true?" propounded the bewildered station
agent, sidling up to Bart's side.
"Every word of it."
"Where did you get the hand car?"
"I found it. Oh, by the way! I wish you would explain to me about that
railroad; what is it, what excuse has it got for existing?"
"Oh, that?" said the station agent "It's the old quarry spur. A company
built it five years ago with grand plans for shipping mottled tiling
slate all over the country. Their money gave out and the scheme was
never put through."
"And the hand car?"
"There's four men who live here who got the privilege of digging out
slate for a big plumbers' supply house in the city. They go to the
quarry and back on the hand car daily. Did they loan it to you?"
"No," said Bart, "I was in a hurry, and had to borrow it without
permission."
"They'll have a fine walk back here in this storm!"
"I was going to suggest," said Bart, taking half a dollar from his
pocket, "that you might hire some boy to run the hand car back to the
quarry."
"I can do that," answered the station agent.
Number 18 came sailing down the rails. As she slowed up, everyone on
duty from the fireman to the brakeman was on the lookout for the cause
of the unusual stop.
The conductor jumped off and ran up to the station agent, and while the
latter was busy explaining the situation Bart hammered on the door of
the express car.
"Why it's Stirling!" cried old Ben Travers, the veteran express
messenger, sliding back the door.
"You're right, Mr. Travers," assented Bart. "Here's a special and
urgent. Get it aboard before the conductor comes up and jumps all over
me for stopping the train."
Travers popped down in a lively fashion. They hoisted the trunk together
and sent it spinning into the car.
"Cedar Lake, make a sure delivery, Mr. Travers," directed Bart. "Here,
put your manifesto on that receipt, will you?" and Bart drew the slip of
paper he had written on in the depot from his pocket.
The conductor, a pompous, self-contained old fellow, started towards
Bart to haul him over the coals, but Bart wisely walked farther down the
platform, the conductor gave the go-ahead signal and shook his fist
sternly at Bart, while the latter with a gay, relieved laugh waved him
back a cheery, courteous good-by.
Bart told the station agent a very little about the history of the
trunk. He left a dollar to pay for the broken hand car lock. He was in
high spirits as he caught the east bound train. The whistles were
blowing for a quarter of six as he reached Pleasantville and leaped from
the engine, where a friendly engineer had given him a free ride, and in
three minutes was at the door of the little express office.
Animated voices reached him from the inside. Bart peered beyond the
threshold.
McCarthy, the night watchman, sat asleep in a chair in a corner. Darry
Haven was at the desk, a spruce, solemn-faced young man beside him.
"I'm here, Darry," announced Bart.
Darry turned with a joyful face. It fell as he glanced beyond his young
employer to the empty platform.
"No trunk!" he murmured in a low, disappointed tone.
"Too heavy to carry around, you see!" smiled Bart lightly. "Who is this
gentleman? Oh, I see--good afternoon, Mr. Stuart."
"Afternoon," crisply answered the stranger.
He was a young limb of the law, employed since the previous year in the
office of Judge Monroe, the principal attorney of Pleasantville.
Stuart was a butt for even the well-meaning boys of the town. He was
only nineteen, but he affected the dignity of a sage of sixty, seeming
to have the idea that nothing but a severe and forbidding manner could
represent the high and lofty calling he had condescended to follow.
"Ah," he observed, turning upon Bart and critically adjusting a single
eyeglass, "is this the express agent?"
"That's me," assented Bart bluntly.
"I represent Monroe, Purcell & Abernethy, Attorneys," grandly announced
Stuart. "We are employed by Mrs. Harrington to prosecute an inquiry as
to a missing trunk."
Darry looked very serious, Bart smiled serenely in the face of his
imperturbable visitor.
"What is there to prosecute, Mr. Stuart?" he inquired.
"We have come to demand certified copies of all entries and receipts of
this office covering the trunk in question," announced the young sprig
of the law.
"Well?" interrogated Bart.
"Your employee--assistant? here, declined to act without your
authority."
"Quite right. I give it, though. Darry, make out transcripts of the
records. That is all clear and regular."
Bart turned on his heel, ran his eye over the office books, and bored
young Mr. Stuart terribly by paying no further attention to him.
The latter stood watching the industrious Darry with owl-like solemnity.
Finally the latter handed a duplicate receipt and a copy of the entry to
Stuart.
"Will you officially attest to the correctness of these, Mr.--Ah, Mr.
Agent?" propounded Stuart.
"Sure," answered Bart with an off-handed alacrity that was distressing
to the responsibility burdened personality of the accredited
representative of Monroe, Purcell & Abernethy.
He dashed off an O.K. on the two documents, tendered them with
exaggerated courtesy to his visitor, who he was well aware knew his name
perfectly, and said, with the faintest suggestion of mimicry:
"Ah, Mr.--Representative, would you kindly inform me for what purpose
you want these transcripts?"
"They form the basis of a criminal prosecution," announced young Stuart
in a tone positively sepulchral.
"So?" murmured the young express agent smoothly. "In that case, let me
suggest that you also take a copy of this document to submit to
your--superiors."
Bart Stirling drew from his pocket the receipt signed by old Ben Travers
on the afternoon express less than two hours previous.
Stuart adjusted his eyeglass and superciliously regarded the document.
Then he turned and gasped:
"What--what is this?" he spluttered.
"A receipt for the delivery of the basis of your criminal prosecution,"
said Bart simply. "Mrs. Colonel Harrington's trunk is safe and sound on
its way to its destination."
"Hurrah!" irresistibly shouted Darry Haven.