THE DERELICT
DRIFTING along the ocean currents of the world are scores of abandoned,
water-logged ships, washed by the waves and buffeted by the winds, yet
still, by some miracle, keeping afloat. Every one of them tells of some
tragedy of the sea—of some supreme moment of peril, when, thinking the
end at hand, the crew has taken to the boats and left their ship to its
fate. And there is no peril of the deep more dreaded by mariners, for it
is one that can not be foreseen nor guarded against. Lying low in the
waves, heavy and water-logged, these hulks drift down upon a ship unseen
in the watches of the night; there is a crash, a rush of water—and
another tragedy has been enacted.
Another tragedy which, only a few short years ago, too frequently meant
the loss of the ship and every soul on board. How often has some stately
vessel, thronged with happy people, set sail from a crowded harbour over
a fair summer sea, upon a voyage seemingly certain to prove prosperous
and pleasant—never to be seen again! How agonized those first days of
uncertainty when the ship did not appear at the port for which it had
set sail. Days passed, and still no word from it; days and days, during
which hope changed to doubt and doubt to despair; days and days, until
finally men knew that it would never appear—that it had vanished into
the deep—that it had struck an iceberg or a derelict and sunk with all
on board.
But science, with its giant strides, has changed all that. The ship may
go down, but at least she can give warning of her danger. For in a
little cubby-hole on the upper deck, his hand upon his instrument, sits
the wireless operator, flashing to the four winds of heaven the “C. Q.
D., C. Q. D.,” which tells of deadly peril and the need of instant aid.
And every ship within a hundred miles, catching that signal, turns in
her tracks and speeds, full steam ahead, to render what aid she can.
Truly, a fearful and wonderful thing, this wireless, with its slender
filaments and lofty masts and bursts of ether-compelling flame, yoking
to man’s service something more impalpable than the air itself, binding
ocean to ocean around the whole face of the earth. An accident may
happen—that ship may go down—the derelict may do its deadly work—but at
least the world will know. And if there is any vessel within reaching
distance, the passengers will be saved! Ill-fated _Bourgogne_, slowly
settling beneath the icy waters off the Grand Banks, with aid just
beyond the horizon, but all unconscious of her desperate need; ill-fated
_Naronic_, lost with all on board, how or where for all time unsolved
and unsolvable; ill-fated _Republic_, sending forth her cry for aid
through the night and through the fog, lost, indeed, but with every
living soul saved uninjured—a new tale and a new wonder on history’s
page!
* * * * *
But here was a derelict of a new kind—a derelict on land—no less deadly
than the derelict on sea; standing four-square in the way of traffic, a
threat and a mystery.
Some such thought as this ran through Allan’s mind, as he stood for an
instant staring in astonishment at the deserted train. Why was it here?
Why had it been abandoned? What stress of peril was it had compelled its
crew to leave it? What peril could there be to drive them not only from
the train, but from the neighbourhood? The question staggered the
reason. Above all, why had its headlight been extinguished? That seemed
to argue design—seemed to argue malicious intent—seemed to argue that
the missing crew were deserters, traitors—as much a traitor as the
soldier who deserts in the face of the enemy.
And then, as the steam popped off from the abandoned locomotive, he
awoke with a start to the necessity for instant action.
“We’ve got to get that train in on a siding,” he said to the brakeman.
“We’ll have to back up to Schooley’s. It’s only a mile. Ask Leaveland
and his engineer to come here right away.”
As the fireman hurried away, Allan ran forward and swung himself up into
the cab of the deserted engine. He glanced at the water gauge and saw
that there was plenty of water in the boiler, but he opened the door of
the fire-box as an extra precaution. Evidently the engine had been
abandoned only a short time before, for the fire was burning briskly. He
saw that the brakes had been applied and the throttle closed—
“What’s the matter?” asked Leaveland’s voice. “Is this the train?”
“Yes, this is the train, all right,” Allan answered, “but I don’t see
anything of the crew.”
“Well, I’ll be hanged!” and Leaveland scratched his head in perplexity.
“What do you suppose happened?”
“I don’t know. Let’s take a look at the caboose,” and jumping to the
ground, he started back along the train.
The door of the caboose was swinging open, and a glare of yellow light
came through it from the oil lamp, with polished tin reflector back of
it, which was attached to the front wall. Allan sprang up the steps,
with Leaveland after him, and both of them stopped in astonishment at
the open door. The caboose was empty, but two stools stood on the floor
before the stove, and between them a box on which was a checker-board
and checkers. Evidently the conductor and rear brakeman had been playing
together, but had been interrupted in their game and had left the board
just as it was, expecting to return to it. They had not returned,
however, but had vanished as completely as though the earth had opened
and swallowed them.
“Well, I’ll be hanged!” said Leaveland again. “There’s something mighty
queer about this. If I believed in ghosts, now—”
“No, I don’t think it’s ghosts,” laughed Allan. “But we can’t stop to
investigate. We’d better couple the two engines together, and let Number
Two push this train back to Schooley’s. You go ahead and have that done,
and I’ll stay here. I’ll burn a fusee if I want you to stop, but I don’t
think there’s any danger, because nothing will get past Schooley’s till
this train has been accounted for.”
“All right, sir,” assented Leaveland, and hurried back toward the
engine.
Allan, left to himself, made a careful inspection of the caboose, but
search as he might, he could find nothing that shed the slightest light
upon the disappearance of the train crew. It was evident that there had
been no struggle of any kind. He found the conductor’s report made up
ready to turn in at the end of the trip, and his lantern and dinner-pail
on the floor near the door. The more he examined the surroundings the
plainer it was that when the conductor and brakeman left the caboose,
they had expected to return to it in a minute or two. And that they had
left it only a short time before was evident from the fact that the fire
in their stove had just been renewed and was burning briskly.
He gave up the problem, at last, and getting a fusee out of the box
where they were kept, he stepped out upon the rear platform. As he did
so, he heard the cars of the train buckling toward him, and an instant
later the caboose caught the motion and started slowly up the track
toward Schooley’s. The mile was soon covered, and the train, coming to a
stop just outside the little town, was run in on a siding, while the
flyer proceeded on to the station. There Allan reported it, secured
orders for it, and sent it on its way. Then he proceeded to try to solve
the mystery of the abandoned freight train.
But there was little or nothing to be learned concerning it more than he
already knew. It had passed through Schooley’s without stopping, and the
operator there had observed nothing wrong with it. After half an hour’s
inquiry, Allan gave it up, ordered another crew sent out from Wadsworth,
and finally, after reporting the occurrence to Stanley, turned in at his
own gate about midnight, very tired and not a little worried.
As he entered the house, he was surprised to see a light burning in the
dining-room, and he opened the door softly and looked in. For a moment,
he saw no one, and thinking that the room was empty and that the light
had simply been left burning for him, he was about to turn it out, when
his eyes fell upon a figure curled up on the lounge which stood against
the wall under the windows.
“Why, it’s Mamie!” he said, half to himself, and took a step toward her.
“I wonder—”
And then he stopped suddenly, for, awakened by the noise of his entrance
or by the consciousness of his presence, she opened her eyes and looked
at him.
For a moment, she lay so, looking up, her lips parted in a smile. Then,
with a quick movement, she brushed her hand over her eyes and sat
upright, her cheeks crimson with a strange confusion.
“Why, Allan!” she cried. “Do you know, I—I must have been asleep!”
“Yes,” he agreed, laughing. “I don’t think there’s any doubt of it.
Since when have you taken to sleeping on this lounge?”
“I wasn’t at all sleepy to-night,” Mamie explained, “and I knew it
wasn’t any use to go to bed, so I thought I’d read awhile till I got
sleepy or till you—till you—”
“Or till I got home,” said Allan, finishing the sentence for her.
“Admit, Mamie, that you were sitting up for me!”
“Yes, I was!” confessed the girl, raising her eyes for one swift glance
at him. “Dad came home and told about that horrid man trying to kill
you, and I—I just couldn’t stand it to go to bed without seeing you.”
Allan took a quick turn up and down the room. That shy and timorous
glance had moved him strangely, as did the faltering words which
followed it.
“Suppose he had killed you!” she added, with a little gasp of horror at
the thought.
“But he didn’t,” said Allan, coming back to her. “So what’s the use of
supposing anything of the sort?”
“Dad says he’ll be sure to try it again. Dad says—”
“Dad says altogether too much,” broke in Allan. “Now, see here, Mamie,
I’m not going to have you worried like this. Wait till I see your
father!”
“Oh, but I want him to tell me! If you’re in danger, I want to know it!”
“But I’m not in any danger—as for that affair with Hummel, it happened
so long ago that I’d nearly forgotten it.”
“So long ago!” cried Mamie. “Why, it was only this evening!”
“Well, so much has happened since. Mamie, I’m worried to death,” he
added, with sudden weakness. “The queerest thing happened to-night you
ever heard of.”
“Tell me about it,” said Mamie, her face glowing with pleasure at this
call for sympathy and help; and she patted the lounge invitingly. I fear
there was some instinct of the coquette in Mamie, or she would not have
done that! Some true womanly instinct, too, or she would not have so
welcomed this chance to be of help.
Allan sat down, his pulses not wholly steady, and told of the strange
disappearance of the crew of the extra west, while Mamie listened
spell-bound.
“Well, if that doesn’t beat anything I ever heard!” she cried, when he
had finished. “What do you suppose happened?”
“I haven’t any idea. Only I’m sure the strikers must have had something
to do with it. I’m going to take Stanley out to look the place over in
the morning. Maybe we’ll discover something. Stanley is pretty shrewd,
you know.”
“But if the strikers had something to do with it,” Mamie protested,
“maybe they will be there yet! And you will walk right into them!”
“Well?” laughed Allan. “What if I do? Indeed, I hope I will!”
“Oh, but think what they will do to you!”
“They won’t do anything very bad! We’re not living in the Middle Ages,
Mamie. I believe you think we’re going to find the bloody corpses of
that train crew out there in a ditch, somewhere!”
“But if they aren’t dead, where are they?”
“Kidnapped. The strikers are taking that method of getting our men away
from us.”
Mamie thought it over a minute, and then shook her head.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said, “but it seems to me that the strikers
would be pretty foolish to do anything like that. Suppose they do take a
crew, that won’t matter much, will it?”
“No; not one crew; but suppose they keep on taking them?”
Mamie stared at him with wide-open eyes.
“Do you mean that’s what you think they’ll do?” she questioned.
“I don’t know—it’s a thought that came to me. But it seems foolish, too.
Well, we’ll find out in the morning. And now you must be getting to bed.
How about the beauty sleep?”
“Beauty sleep, indeed!” cried Mamie, tossing her head. “I don’t need any
beauty sleep!”
“No, you don’t!” agreed Allan, gazing at the piquant face. “Do you know,
Mamie, you’re growing up into the prettiest girl imaginable!”
“Growing up!” echoed Mamie. “I’ve grown up! Why, I’m nearly seventeen!”
“A tremendous age!”
“Old enough to know you’re talking nonsense!” she retorted, but with the
colour coming and going in her cheeks.
“I’m not!” he protested. “It’s true! If I was younger, Mamie, I’d be
falling in love with you!”
“Younger!”
“I’m twenty-seven.”
“A tremendous age!” she echoed, glancing up at him.
“Ten years older than you!”
“Pooh! What’s ten years?”
“Well, it’s a good deal,” said Allan, rising with an effort. “And I feel
considerably older than twenty-seven to-night—more like forty! You can
keep on sitting up, if you want to, but I’m going to bed. Good-night.”
Mamie had risen too, a strange light in her eyes. She watched him as he
turned away, and then, when his hand was on the knob of the door, she
called him.
“Allan.”
“Yes?” he said, turning and looking at her.
The lamplight sent little mocking shadows across her face and brought
out the glint of gold in her hair. He held on to the door-knob to keep
from going back to her.
“Promise me you’ll not run into any danger,” she said, softly.
“Of course I won’t—not unless I have to.”
“Not even if you have to!”
“What—run away?” he demanded, staring at her in astonishment. “You
wouldn’t have me do that, Mamie?”
“No,” she said, “I wouldn’t have you do that! Good-night, Allan.”
“Good-night,” he repeated, and opened the door and went resolutely up
the stair to his room.
And Mamie, standing listening until the sound of his steps died away, at
last flung herself down upon the lounge and buried her face in her arms.
Her eyes were wet with tears—but they were tears of joy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------