"Million dollar robbery!" exclaimed Tim and the engineer. "What do you
mean?"
"Just this," explained Colonel Searle. "There's a million in cold cash
back in one of those mail cars. We got a tip after you were out of
Raleigh that there might be trouble and there isn't any question but
that the timber was set afire in an attempt to stop the train. Whoever
planned the robbery figured that the train crew would leave the train
and go up for a closer view of the fire. When you decided to back up and
run for it, you threw a monkey wrench into their plans. It must have
been a small gang or they would have attempted to have stopped you even
then."
"Our fireman is missing," put in Tim. "When we got the cinders out of
our eyes after dashing through the fire we found Harry Benson gone."
"Maybe he was in with the gang," suggested Colonel Searle.
"Not Benson," said the engineer firmly. "He's one of the most loyal men
on the line. Only one thing could have happened to him. He lost his
balance and fell out the gangway." Tears were in the engineman's eyes
and they were silent for a moment.
Gray streaks of dawn were making their appearance on the eastern sky
when Tim and the head of the state police left the mail train.
Railroad officials had indicated that they would start an investigation
of the cause of the fire, but Colonel Searle informed Tim that he
intended to make his own inquiry.
They were leaving the station when the fresh engine which had been
coupled on the mail sounded the "high ball" and another engineer took up
the race for the coast.
They went to a hotel were Ralph, who had just dressed, greeted them. He
wanted to know all about the events of the night and Tim painted a vivid
word picture of what had happened.
"We'll get something to eat," said Colonel Searle, "and then fly down
the line and take a look at that timber patch."
"Do you think this may have something to do with the old Sky Hawk gang?"
asked Tim, giving voice to a thought that he had harbored for some time.
"Looks like one of their fiendishly clever jobs," admitted the colonel,
"and it's just about time for them to start something."
Half an hour later they were at the Vinton airport, warming up the motor
of the _Good News_. The sun was just turning the eastern sky into a
warm, rosy dawn when Tim gave the motor a heavy throttle and sent the
_Good News_ winging off the field.
He swung the plane over Vinton, picked up the twin tracks of the
Southwestern and headed back toward Atkinson. His hands, sore and
bruised from handling the heavy scoop, ached as he held the controls of
the plane. Unconsciously he compared the massive, brute power of the
locomotive with the graceful, birdlike machine he was flying. Riding the
cab of the mail had been an experience he would never forget but he was
happy to be back in the clouds on the trail of what promised to be
another sensational story.
The rails twisted and turned through the foothills and Tim marveled as
he thought of the speed they had made with the mail, wondered how they
had ever stayed on the steel at the dizzying pace with which they had
split the night.
The hills broadened out, wider valleys appeared and it was in one of
these that they found the smouldering patch of timber which had been an
inferno of flame and smoke only a few hours before.
Railroad section men had already gathered at the scene and Tim could see
other gasoline handcars speeding down the rails. Ties would have to be
replaced, new ballast put in and the rails tested to make sure that the
heat had not warped them. Traffic on the system must not be held up a
minute longer than necessary and the railroad men were rallying to the
emergency.
Tim found a small meadow which was large enough for a landing. He
fish-tailed the _Good News_ into the field and set the plane down
lightly. They lashed it with spare ropes which Tim carried in his own
cockpit and then started for the railroad, a quarter of a mile away.
Blackened stumps of trees reared their heads into the gay sunlight of
the spring morning, grim reminders of the near tragedy. Perhaps they
were the only headstones Harry Benson would ever have, thought Tim, as
he wondered if they would find any trace of the fireman.
A husky section boss told them to get out and stay out but Colonel
Searle displayed his badge, which gave them access to anything they
wanted to see.
The entire timber lot was not more than four or five acres in extent. It
had been covered with a heavy growth of underbrush and with the drought
of the year before it had been tender for any careless or intentional
match.
Small patches of timber were still burning but along the railroad
right-of-way the flames had either died down or had been smothered by
section men beating at them with wet sacks.
"Find anything of the fireman?" Tim asked one of the workers.
"Sure," replied the railroad man, "he's up the line a couple hundred
feet."
"Alive?"
"You bet. Got a broken leg but all right outside of that," grinned the
man as he continued beating a sack at a stubborn blaze at the base of a
stump.
Tim waited for no further question but ran toward the far side of the
timber lot where a group of railroad men had gathered. They were in a
circle around someone on the ground. The flying reporter pushed them
aside and looked down on the scorched, smoke-blackened features of Harry
Benson. The fireman was in great pain from his broken leg, but he was
making a brave attempt to smile.
"Hello, reporter," he said. The words were close clipped and came from
lips tense with pain.
"Hello yourself," said Tim. "We thought you must have been thrown out
into the fire after we missed you last night." "Not me," said the
fireman. "It was a close call but I didn't get anything more than a bad
scorching. Who fired for the rest of the run?"
Tim held out his sore, cramped hands and the railroad men joined in the
fireman's laugh.
"Laugh all you want to," smiled Tim, "but I kept that kettle of yours
hot and Henshaw took her in on time."
"How did you happen to fall out of the cab?" asked Colonel Searle, who
had joined the group around the fireman.
"I was trying to get one more shovel of coal into the old pot," said
Benson. "I misjudged the distance and speed and was caught half way
between cab and tender when we hit the fire. Figured I knew my way back
to my side of the cab and made a jump for it. Instead of going where I
intended I dove out the gangway. Good thing for me it only took us about
five seconds to run that fire or I'd have plunged right into the center
of it. I landed rolling, hit a rock and broke my leg and have been here
ever since. Now we're waiting for a special that is coming down from
Vinton with a doctor."
"Notice anything peculiar about the fire while you were lying here?"
asked the officer.
"Only one thing," admitted the fireman. "It smelled kind of oily and the
smoke was mighty dark but my leg was hurting so much I didn't pay a lot
of attention to the fire except to worry for fear it might spread and I
wouldn't be able to get out of the way."
"Did you hear any strange sounds?" asked Tim.
"Only once," replied the fireman. "Sounded sort of like a high-powered
car but when I didn't hear it again I thought I must have been going
batty."
"Didn't see anyone?" asked the colonel.
"Not until some of these section hunkies came chugging down the line,"
said the fireman.
Satisfied that they could gain no additional information from
questioning the fireman, Tim and Colonel Searle turned away and joined
Ralph to start a systematic search of the blackened timber.
The two reporters and the head of the state police moved back and forth
across the timber, searching for something that might indicate how the
fire had started. They covered the section of timber on the right side
of the railroad without result and then crossed over the rails and
resumed their search on the left side.
For half an hour they combed the charred underbrush but without success
and they met on the far side of the timber lot to discuss further plans.
"Slim pickings," commented the colonel. "I haven't found enough to hang
on a toothpick."
"About all I've got is an idea," said Tim as he started toward an old
stream bed which cut through the valley. The colonel and Ralph, their
curiosity aroused, followed the flying reporter.
The creek which ran through the valley had changed its channel a number
of times and its old courses were filled with rubbish which the wind had
deposited. It was in these old creek beds that Tim resumed his search.
He had not been hunting five minutes when his cry brought the colonel
and Ralph to his side.
Below them, hidden in the underbrush of the old channel, they saw half a
dozen large tin containers.
"That's how your fire was started," said Tim. "Someone doused the timber
with a generous supply of crude oil and how that stuff does burn."
They slid down the bank of the old creek bed and Tim and Ralph pulled
one of the containers out where they could get a better view.
"Careful how you handle those," warned Colonel Searle, "and don't move
more than one or two. I'll have a fingerprint expert out here to look
them over. We may find a valuable story in the fingerprints if the chaps
who started the fire got careless."
"They're not the type to overlook any clues," said Tim.
"Not as a rule," conceded the colonel, "but you must remember they
wouldn't have figured in the state police being in on this so soon.
Believe me, it was a clever stunt of theirs setting fire to the woods
and using that as a ruse to stop the mail. If it hadn't been for the
determination of engineer Henshaw to get his train through on the new
schedule on time, we'd have had something to really worry about this
morning. If it had been a large gang they would have attempted to stop
you anyway so it must have been a small, brainy outfit. Just the type of
fellows the Sky Hawk used to have in his outfit."
There were no identifying marks on the containers and Tim and Ralph were
careful not to disturb more than the one they had pulled into view.
The whistle of the special from Vinton sounded and when they climbed
back to the level floor of the valley, they saw the stubby three car
train grinding to a halt.
Behind the engine were two cars loaded with construction material, new
rails and ties and fresh ballast. The last car was a passenger coach
which was disgorging half a hundred workmen. A doctor, nurse and several
railroad officials also got off the rear car and hastened toward the
injured fireman.
"Benson will soon be out of his agony," said Tim. "What a night he must
have had, lying there with the flames all around and practically
helpless because of his broken leg."
A telegraph operator who had come down on the special was busy shinning
up a telegraph pole to cut in his instrument and place the scene of the
fire in communication with the dispatcher and other points on the
division.
"I'm going to have that fellow telegraph for our fingerprint expert to
meet you at Atkinson," said the colonel. "You boys fly back home, write
your stories, and bring him back. It will save hours over the best train
connections he could make, and he may be able to read a surprising story
if there are any fingerprints on these empty oil cans."