THE RUNAWAY ORE CAR.
Colonel Hawtrey got the better of Mr. Bradlaugh on the golf links that
Monday forenoon. This event, no doubt, pleased the colonel mightily, and
yet there was something at the back of the colonel’s consciousness which
disturbed him.
Young Merriwell had come to him and had spoken a good word for the
colonel’s cast-off nephew. Rather brusquely the colonel had refused to
meet Merriwell’s advances on Lenning’s behalf. This, as Hawtrey fondly
assured himself, was because the Lenning matter was less an affair of
pride than of principle. Yet, for all that, the colonel was sorry that
he had been so unyielding.
After Merriwell had left the golf links with Burke and Clancy, Professor
Borrodaile had appeared excitedly and announced the robbery of the
stage. Instantly, Colonel Hawtrey had thought of Lenning’s mysterious
absence from the mine, and, almost as quickly, he had settled it to his
own satisfaction that Lenning must have had a hand in the robbery.
So far from making the colonel contented on the score of turning a deaf
ear to Merriwell’s plea for Lenning, the information about the robbery
and the colonel’s deductions merely disquieted him the more.
In the afternoon Colonel Hawtrey went back to his home in Gold Hill.
Here he came directly under the influence of his other nephew, Ellis
Darrel.
Darrel, at one time, had occupied a position almost identical with
Lenning’s at that moment. There was this difference, however, that
Darrel’s hands were clean of any crooked work. He had been plotted
against, and the colonel had cast him off unjustly.
Merriwell, believing in Darrel, had helped him to regain his place in
his uncle’s regard. And now Darrel, perhaps influenced by Merriwell’s
example, was trying to befriend his half brother, Lenning.
The colonel and Darrel had had many talks regarding Lenning. In these
interviews Darrel had tried to patch up the differences between the
colonel and Jode. In this he had no success whatever. The colonel had
finally forbidden Darrel to mention Lenning’s name.
Back from his game with Mr. Bradlaugh, and thoroughly ill-humored
because of his disturbing thoughts about Lenning, the colonel repaired
to his study. Here Darrel met him and attempted to broach the forbidden
subject of his half brother.
“That will do, Ellis!” cried the colonel sharply. “I want no more of
your views on the subject of Jode. He has proved himself a crook and a
coward--two classes of people I have no use for whatever.”
“I am only asking you to give him a chance, Uncle Alvah,” pleaded
Darrel.
“Merriwell seems to be taking good care of Jode. As for a chance, why,
the young scoundrel will have to make his own chances for himself. If he
could only prove that he had a little courage, a little honesty. I might
feel differently toward him. But he’s a coward, he has a yellow
streak--and that makes him a disgrace to the family.”
“Then you won’t----”
“I’ll not discuss this any longer with you,” snapped the colonel, and
flung himself into a chair and picked up a paper.
Later in the day news came to Gold Hill that the two road agents who
had held up the stage had been seen in Bitter Root Cañon, and one of
them rode a sorrel horse with a white stocking foot and was believed to
be Lenning.
“I don’t doubt it,” growled the colonel. “Is there no depth to Lenning’s
baseness? If he is bound to pile disgrace upon disgrace, I wish, for the
sake of the rest of us, he would migrate to some other part of the
country.”
“I doubt the report, colonel,” said Darrel stoutly. “Jode has turned
over a new leaf and he is trying honestly to live down the past. He had
no hand in that robbery.”
“What means his absence from the mine?” cried the colonel heatedly. “Put
two and two together, Ellis! For Heaven’s sake, don’t try to appear so
dense. Lenning was seen in the cañon, near where the stage was
robbed--and he was riding a horse that answers the description of
Burke’s.”
“Blunt and Ballard _thought_ Lenning was the fellow they saw,” qualified
Darrel. “They weren’t sure of it.”
“Well, I’m sure of it, so we’ll let it go at that.”
The irascible old colonel went to bed that night in a bad temper. He did
not sleep, however, but lay and tossed restlessly. Visions came to
him--visions of Jode and of his only sister, Jode’s mother. In these
midnight fancies the face of Jode was haggard and repentant, and the
face of the mother was pitiful and pleading. Finally, along toward
morning, the colonel could bear his thoughts no longer.
He got up and, for two or three hours, he paced the confines of his
bedroom. Something was urging him to probe the facts in Jode’s case. He
remembered that he had promised Burke he would visit the mine and
settle for the horse and the riding gear. Why not go to the mine that
morning?
When Ellis Darrel came down to breakfast, he discovered that his uncle
had gone away. Blixen, the most spirited driving horse in the stable,
had been put to the road wagon, and Colonel Hawtrey had been last seen
making for the Ophir trail.
“It’s something about Jode that’s taking him in that direction,” thought
Darrel happily. “The old chap isn’t so hard-hearted as he wants me to
think.”
All the way along the trail through Bitter Root Cañon Blixen gave the
colonel a handful. The horse had not been out of the stable for two or
three days, and was even more spirited and hard to manage than usual.
Perhaps it was a good thing for the colonel that Blixen took all his
attention. He had no leisure for disagreeable thoughts about Lenning.
The journey from Gold Hill to Ophir had not absorbed much of Blixen’s
surplus energy, for he tore through the latter town at a tremendous
clip. Hawtrey had to twist the reins around his hands and curb the
plunging roadster with all his strength.
When well out of Ophir and close to the mine, the colonel passed Barzy
Blunt, galloping the other way, with two bags roped behind him to the
back of his horse. The colonel was too busy with Blixen to get a good
look at the bags. Blunt shouted something to him as they rapidly passed
each other, but he could not distinguish the words.
With a grind of wheels the road wagon lurched into the mining camp and
up to the door of the headquarters adobe. A Mexican stood at the door.
“Where is the superintendent?” the colonel inquired.
“Him gone to stamp mill,” was the answer.
The colonel turned and started to drive up the slope toward the head of
the mill. In taking this move it was necessary for him to cross the
narrow railroad track by which loaded ore cars were carried full to the
ore platform and empty away from it. To understand clearly what took
place, a little description of the method of delivering ore to the Ophir
Mill will be necessary.
The ore cars were of iron and supplied with suitable brakes. They were
filled at the various shaft houses and drawn by teams up the incline to
the ore platform. Here the teams were taken away, the brakes on the cars
were set, and the wheels blocked with stones, and the unloading begun.
When the unloading was finished, the blocking was knocked away, and the
cars slid down the sleep slope of their own momentum.
The track at the head of the mill formed a loop. Thus the empty cars,
when released, rolled down the hill and back to the main track before
their momentum was lost.
This morning, in some mysterious manner, a loaded car broke away and
started down the incline. The brakes on the car had not been set--which
was an infringement of the rules--and the teamster who had left the car
in position for unloading had been content merely to block the wheels.
Fate worked out many little details in bringing about the near tragedy
that morning, and this matter of the runaway car was but one of them.
The colonel, just as the car broke loose and began slipping slowly down
the steep grade, was driving across the rails, far below, planning to
come up the slope to the mill by the wagon road.
In some manner a forward wheel caught in one of the rails. Blixen,
impatient of the sudden and unexpected pull on the traces, stopped and
began to back. A shout from somewhere, booming clearly above the roar of
the stamps, apprised the colonel of his danger from the ore car.
Snatching the whip from its socket, he struck Blixen sharply. The horse
plunged ahead, breaking away from the carriage. The colonel, by the pull
on the lines, was dragged over the dashboard and flung across the
tracks. His limp hand released the reins, and Blixen raced on among the
buildings and ore dumps of the camp.
But the colonel, stunned by his rough contact with the iron rail, lay
unconscious across the track. He was in deadly peril. There was no one
near enough to drag him out of his dangerous predicament, and the heavy
ore car was plunging toward him at frightful speed.
Burke, coming suddenly out upon the ore platform at the head of the
mill, gasped as he stared downward and took in the tragic scene. The
next moment, he groaned and staggered back.
“Nothing can save him!” he cried huskily. “The runaway car will grind
him to pieces!”
But the superintendent was wrong in his conclusions. At the very moment
the car broke from its moorings, Merriwell was standing beside the
track, halfway down the hill. He was waiting for Lenning to climb to his
side from the laboratory building.
Lenning, having seen Burke come to the ore platform, changed his course.
Instead of making straight toward Merriwell, who was part way down the
hillside, he started for the crest of the hill at the place where Burke
had appeared.
He was close to the track, a little below the ore platform, when the
runaway car came charging down the grade. Merriwell was perhaps three
hundred feet below him. Far below Merriwell, lying unconscious across
the rails, was Colonel Hawtrey. Lenning, his ears accustomed to the roar
of the stamps, heard and distinguished the stricken, hopeless cry of the
super from the platform above. And then, in a flash, the outcast nephew
planned a move which might save his uncle.
“The switch!” he yelled, motioning with his hands. “The switch,
Merriwell! _Throw it!_”
Merriwell, although frantically alive to the colonel’s danger, yet
managed to keep his wits about him. Ten feet below him was a switch by
which cars were sometimes placed upon a short spur track. If Merry could
throw the switch before the car reached it, the car would be hurled to
the siding and the colonel would be saved.
But, as Merry quickly realized, the car was coming so rapidly that the
switch could not be thrown before the leaping ore carrier was past the
spur. Then Merry realized something else.
Utterly oblivious of danger to himself, Jode Lenning had crouched beside
the rails and then leaped recklessly at the flying car. Fortune favored
him. Although cruelly buffeted by his landing on the loaded ore, Lenning
gained the car and laid hands on the brake. Then, to Merriwell, Jode’s
purpose became clear. Jode would put on the brakes, thus slackening the
car’s speed and giving Merriwell time to throw the switch.
The next moment Merry had flung himself at the target and twisted the
hand lever.