With a cry Jack was on his feet, and had started for the door. Half way
he pulled up, with a determined effort controlled his panic, and returned
to the key. "I suppose you didn't hear that, Al?" he asked.
"Not a letter."
"Well, good gracious, what--_Oh!_"
A cold chill shot up Jack's back. The cause was a low, long-drawn moan,
apparently from just the other side of the wooden partition, in the
freight room. Again it came, then suddenly ceased to give place to a low,
tense whispering immediately behind him. Jack sprang about, and leaped to
his feet. Within touch of him was a large knot-hole.
And was there not an eye at it? Peering at him?
He sprang toward it.
No! Nothing! The whispering, too, had ceased.
Thoroughly shaken, Jack again turned for his hat--and again faltered
between the chair and the door.
"You there, Jack?" clicked Alex. "Hang on, old boy. Keep your nerve."
Clenching his teeth and gripping his hands Jack regained control of
himself, and returned to the instruments. "Thanks, Al," he sent. "I was
about all in, sure enough. But I am OK again now, and going to stick it
out unless 'they,' or 'it,' or whatever it is, lugs me off bodily."
"That's the talk," said Alex encouragingly. "I knew you'd make good. Just
keep on telling yourself there must be some natural explanation somehow,
and you'll win out OK."
* * * * *
"Yes, that's my cue--'a natural explanation somehow,'" Jack repeated to
himself the following afternoon as he left the big railroad boarding-house,
a half mile from the station, and set out for a walk, to think things over.
"And I believe the starting point is that talk on the wire. That
certainly is the work of an operator.
"Now, why is it heard only at this office?
"Say! Could it be on the loop? A cut-off arrangement on the station loop?
"I'll go down and look into that right now," declared Jack, and turning
about, headed for the station.
The platforms and the big freight shed were alive with the bustle of the
freight handlers, loading and unloading cars, trundling boxes and bales
from one part of the platform to another and in and out of the big shed;
and unnoticed, Jack discovered where the wires from the pole passed in
under the roof. Entering the shed, he proceeded carefully to follow their
course along the beams toward the telegraph room. He had almost reached
the partition, and was beginning to think his conclusion perhaps too
hastily drawn, when a few feet from the wall, where the light from an
opposite window struck the roof, he caught two unmistakable gleams of
copper. With a suppressed cry he made his way directly beneath, and at
once saw that the insulation of both wires of the loop had been cut
through.
"Right! I was right!" exclaimed Jack jubilantly beneath his breath. "And
I can see in a minute how it's done. Whoever it is, simply gets up there
somehow, and ticks one wire against the other--and of course the
instruments inside click as they are alternately cut off and cut on, and
the rest of the line is not affected!
"Good! I'm on the trail.
"But what can be the object of it all?"
Jack turned to look about him, and as in answer the lettering of a nearby
box caught his eye:
"VALUABLE! HANDLE WITH CARE!"
"Freight stealing! Could that be it?"
On reporting for duty that evening Jack called Alex on the wire and asked
if any freight had recently been reported missing from the Midway depot.
"No, but I understand some valuable stuff has been mysteriously
disappearing at Claxton and Eastfield," was the reply.
Jack was considerably disappointed; but before giving up this line of
investigation he determined to study the freight records of the station,
to discover whether any freight for the two places mentioned by Alex had
passed through Midway. A few minutes' search produced the record of a
valuable shipment of silk to Claxton. A moment later he found another.
When presently he found still others, and several to Eastfield, he
hurried back to the wire and calling Alex asked the nature of the goods
lost track of at those stations, and breathlessly awaited the reply.
"I'll ask," said Alex--"Silverware and silk. Mostly silk."
Jack uttered a shout. "Hurrah, Alex," he whirred, "I'm on the track of
our friend the 'ghost.' But keep mum.
"And now the question is," he told himself, leaning back in his chair,
"how do they work it?"
The answer to the query came very unexpectedly as Jack left the station
office at daybreak. Strolling down the front platform, where several men
already were at work unloading a car, he inadvertently got in the way of
a loaded truck. On the sudden cry of the truckman he sprang aside,
tripped, and fell headlong against a large, square packing-case. As he
did so, he distinctly heard from within a sharp "Oh!"
Only with difficulty did Jack avoid crying out, and scrambling to his
feet, hastened away, that his discovery might not be suspected by the man
in the box.
The whole mystery was now clear. The "ghost" was a freight thief, who had
himself shipped, in a box, to some point which would necessitate his
being transferred and held over night at the freight junction. He played
"ghost" either to frighten the operator away, or to lead to the belief
that any noises overheard were caused by "spirits," then overhauled the
valuable freight in the shed, took what he wanted with him into his own
box (which supposedly he could open and close from the inside), and was
shipped away with it the following morning. The rifled packages,
carefully re-sealed, also went on to their several destinations, and the
blame of the theft was laid elsewhere.
Jack was not long in deciding upon his next move. Coming down from the
boarding-house before the sheds had been closed that afternoon, he noted
where the box containing the unsuspected human freight had been placed,
and selecting a window at the far end of the shed, seized a favorable
moment to quietly loosen its catch.
It was near midnight, and Jack was once more the sole guardian of the
station when he took the next step. And despite a certain nervousness,
now that the exciting moment was at hand, he found considerable amusement
in carrying it out.
It was nothing less than making up a dummy imitation of himself asleep on
a cot in a corner of the telegraph room--as a precaution against the
"ghost" peering within to learn the effect of his "haunting."
In making the dummy Jack used a brown fur cap for the head, a glimpse of
which under an old hat looked remarkably like his own brown head. A
collection of old overalls and record books carefully arranged formed the
body, and his own shoes the feet.
When over the whole he threw his overcoat, the deception was complete.
Chuckling at the subterfuge, Jack lost no time in slipping forth for the
next step in his program.
Tiptoeing down the platform to the window whose latch he had loosened, he
softly raised it, listened, and climbing through, dropped noiselessly to
the floor. Feeling his way in the darkness amid the bales and boxes, he
reached a nook behind a piano-case he had previously noted, and settling
down, prepared to await the appearance of the "spectre."
The wait was not long. Scarcely had he made himself comfortable when from
the direction of the big packing-case came the muffled sound of a
screw-driver. Soon there followed a noise as of a board being softly
shoved aside, then a step on the floor. Simultaneously there was the
crackle of a match, and peering forth Jack momentarily made out a thin,
clean-shaven face bending over a dark-lantern. But quickly he drew back
with a start of fright as the man turned and came directly toward him.
A few feet away, however, the intruder halted, and again peering
cautiously forth Jack discovered the lantern, closely muffled, on the
floor, and beside it the dim figure of the man working with his hands at
a plank. As Jack watched, wondering, the plank came up. Laying it aside
carefully, the stranger stepped down into the opening, recovered the
lantern, and disappeared.
"Now what under the sun is he up to?" exclaimed Jack to himself.
From the platform outside came the sound of footsteps. Jack started,
listened a moment, and uttered a low cry of triumph. At last he
understood.
"Well, what a dolt I am," he laughed. "Why didn't I think of that?
"The fellow is simply out beneath the platform, making sounds against the
under side of the planking--probably with a stick!"
[Illustration: JACK MADE OUT A THIN, CLEAN-SHAVEN FACE BENDING OVER
A DARK-LANTERN.]
Jack was still chuckling delightedly over this simple explanation of the
mysterious "walking" when the noise ceased, and the light of the lantern
returned.
On reappearing, the unknown dragged after him a long pole. As Jack
watched, puzzling over its use, the "spectre" hoisted the pole to his
shoulder, cautiously picked his way amid the freight to the telegraph-room
partition, and mounted a large box.
And then, while Jack fairly shook with internal laughter, he laboriously
raised the pole, and began bumping and scraping it up and down the under
side of the roof.
"Natural explanations!" bubbled Jack through his handkerchief. "And
imagine anyone being frightened at it--beating it for home!"
When the man on the box had concluded his second "demonstration," and
descended, Jack had cause to thank himself for his precaution in leaving
the dummy. Evidently puzzled at the silence in the operating-room, the
man placed his eye to the knot-hole in the partition, and peered through.
Muttering something in surprise, he listened closely, and looked again,
while Jack looked on, shaking, and holding his mouth. Apparently at last
satisfied that the "operator" within was asleep at his post, the intruder
turned about and threw a shaft of light up toward the wires of the loop.
Expectantly Jack waited. Had he also guessed right here?
But to his disappointment, after a brief debate with himself, the "ghost"
muttered, "If he's asleep, what's the use?" And catching up the pole, he
returned it to the hole in the floor, and replaced the plank.
Then, in final confirmation of Jack's deductions, the intruder turned his
attention to the packages of merchandise about him, speedily selected a
box, and proceeded to open it.
For several hours the unsuspecting freight robber worked, frequently
returning to the crack in the partition to assure himself that the
negligent "operator" there was still in the land of dreams, each time to
Jack's great amusement. And finally, having secured all the booty he
could handle, and having carefully closed the cases from which it had
been taken, he moved the plunder into his own box, crept in after; again
came the squeak of the screw-driver--and the robbery was complete.
At once Jack crept from his place of concealment, and back to the window;
dropped out, and was off on the run for the boarding-house. And twenty
minutes after he returned with the freight-house foreman and several
freight hands, armed, and with lanterns.
Entering by the door, he led them directly to the robber's box.
Sharply the foreman kicked at it, and called, "Hello, in there! Your
little game is up, my friend! Come out!"
There was no response, and he drew his revolver. "Open up quick, or I'll
shoot!"
"Oh, all right! All right!" cried a muffled voice hurriedly.
The next moment the Midway Junction "ghost" stepped grimly from his box,
and stood before them.
"But look here, youngster," ticked the chief despatcher, who some minutes
later followed Alex Ward on the wire in congratulating Jack on the
solution of the mystery, "don't you talk too much about this business, or
first thing you know they'll be taking you from the telegraph force, and
adding you to the detective department. We want you ourselves."
"No fear," laughed Jack. "I might try a matter like this once in a while,
but I want to work up as an operator, not a detective."
"You'll work up OK," declared the chief.