A MISSION OF PEACE.
I could not exactly see that I was a traitor to the Toppletonian
interest because I believed that a steamer could successfully compete
even with a “lightning express.” I intended to serve my employers
faithfully, and believed that I had done so. Perhaps it was imprudent
for me to express an opinion; but I knew that Colonel Wimpleton was a
man of energy and determination, and that he would not be content to
remain long in the shade.
I observed that Lewis Holgate listened very attentively to all that was
said, though he made no remarks. Since his father had run away with
the money he had stolen, the family were hard pressed to get a living.
Lewis was about my own age, and was regarded as a smart fellow. The
intimacy between our families had brought us together somewhat, and I
knew that he aspired to be a “young engineer.” He had worked with his
father a great deal, and knew an engine very well. It was necessary for
him to go to work, to assist in supporting his mother and his brothers
and sisters. He had told me how sorry he was for what his father had
done, and I pitied him. Through my influence he had obtained the place
to “fire” on the new locomotive, and now received a salary of three
dollars a week.
Lewis worked with me a while on the dummy, and was competent to run it.
The crime of his father had to some extent broken his spirit, and thus
far he had behaved very well, better than his antecedents led me to
expect--for he had been rather noted in Ucayga as a bad boy. My mother
commended me warmly for what I had done to help him, and declared she
was very glad to see me manifest a Christian spirit towards him. My
father said I was foolish to try to serve such a fellow; but I was best
satisfied with the judgment of my mother.
Something had already been said about another locomotive, and an
additional number of freight and passenger cars, which the business of
the road would eventually demand. Lewis Holgate gave me to understand
that the height of his ambition was to be the engineer of the new
locomotive when it came. I assured him that if he did his duty
faithfully, I would do all I could to further his purpose. We were,
therefore, good friends, and I gave him every facility for learning the
business. If I had had any doubts about the propriety of what I had
said to Faxon, for which he had accused me of being a Wimp, I should
not have restrained my speech on account of the presence of Lewis; for,
after all I had done for him, I did not think him capable of injuring
me.
“The tug steamer is not here,” said Faxon, as I shut off the steam when
the train approached Grass Springs.
“It isn’t eight o’clock yet. We have been only half an hour on the
road,” I replied.
“I don’t believe it will be here,” added Faxon, anxiously, as he looked
out upon the waters of the lake. “There is a stiff breeze now, and the
Wimps will be here by nine o’clock.”
I could not see why my partisan friend should manifest any anxiety,
since he and the rest of the Toppletonians, with a few exceptions,
were absolutely spoiling for a fight with their rivals on the other
side of the lake. The train approached the Grass Springs station,
and I whistled to put on the brakes. As soon as we stopped, Faxon
left the engine, and the battalion came out of the cars. The two
companies formed on the wharf, and I heard sharp and imperative orders
of Major Tommy, which led me to conclude that his experience in the
stockholders’ meeting had not been very profitable to him, though
some of the harshness of his tones was doubtless attributable to his
military enthusiasm.
From my place in the cab I could see the end of the lake, with the
steeples of Ucayga in the distance; but the steamer was not on the way;
she had not even started for the Springs. The Horse Shoe was two miles
from the shore. The wind had freshened a little, and was fair for boats
coming down the lake. The battalion from Centreport must arrive in an
hour, or an hour and a half at the farthest, for the boats had had only
ten miles to make half an hour before. Major Tommy had formed his
lines; the quartermaster had placed all the baggage and stores on the
wharf, and everything was in readiness to embark. It was eight o’clock
by this time, and the steamer had not yet appeared. The Toppleton boats
had probably been left at the island, for they were not to be found at
the main shore, and the steamer could have left them with less delay
than at the Grass Springs Wharf.
“What’s to be done?” asked Major Tommy, impatiently, after he had
surveyed the ground over and over again.
“We must get to the island some how or other,” replied Faxon.
“That steamer won’t be here for an hour,” growled the commander of the
battalion. “Father said it might be late; but he didn’t understand
exactly what was up.”
“The Wimps are coming,” shouted an officer in the line.
“They are five miles off,” replied Faxon, as he looked up the lake. “I
want to be on the island when they come.”
“So do I,” replied Tommy, casting an anxious glance at the approaching
enemy.
“Can’t you help us out, Wolf?” asked the major, jumping on the
foot-board of the engine.
Of course I was well pleased to be called upon in the emergency,
for it was manifesting a great deal of confidence to ask advice of
a boy who was not a member of the battalion. The Toppletonians had
the legal right to use the Horse Shoe; and it seemed to me that, if
they had possession of the island when the Wimpletonians arrived, the
anticipated fight, at least as a brutal struggle, might be averted.
Both bodies were armed with small muskets, having bayonets upon them;
and though they were not allowed any ammunition, they might make the
combat more dangerous than they intended. The interests of peace,
therefore, appeared to require that our battalion should be transported
to the island without delay.
“I hope you are not going to get up a fight over there,” I ventured to
say.
“Of course we are not, if the Wimps let us alone,” replied Tommy. “If
they don’t let us alone, it will be the worse for them. I want to get
over there before they do, and that steamer, confound it, won’t be here
this hour.”
“If I were you, Tommy, I would send one company over to the island, and
take possession of it, leaving the baggage and tents to be carried over
when the steamer comes.”
“How can I send one company over?” snapped Tommy. “We haven’t a boat,
or even a mudscow.”
“There comes the ferry-boat,” I replied, pointing to a sloop-rigged
craft which was now approaching the shore from Ruoara, on the other
side and above the island.
“That’s the idea!” exclaimed Tommy, as he leaped down from the cab,
and ran with a speed entirely beneath the dignity of the major of a
battalion to the ferry pier.
In three minutes more he had made a trade with the ferryman to land as
many of the force as his boat would accommodate on the Horse Shoe. The
craft was one peculiar to the lakes in that region. It was an ordinary
sloop, though rather longer than similar vessels are built; but the
stern was open just above the water-line, so that teams could be driven
on board. It depended upon the wind as its propelling agent, though
it was provided with a pair of steamboat wheels, with a horse-power
machine to turn them, which could be used when the wind was not
available.
Major Tommy ordered Captain Briscoe, with Company A, to embark in this
ferry-boat, and to hold the Horse Shoe, at any peril, until the other
company could be sent over. I was sorry to leave the exciting scene;
but I had to run the trip from Middleport at nine o’clock. Satisfied
that the Toppletonians would secure possession of the island before
the arrival of the enemy, I turned the locomotive, and ran back to
the other terminus. The fleet of boats was off the South Shoe, not
more than a mile from the Horse Shoe, when the train went through
Spangleport; but the ferry-boat was within half that distance of its
destination.
We did not yet run the new locomotive and cars on the regular trips,
because the travel was light, and the dummy could be used at half the
expense. We housed the engine and cars, and, firing up the dummy, we
had steam enough to start her at the appointed hour. Just before we
left, Major Toppleton came into the station, and asked me what had
become of the students. I told him I had conveyed them to Grass Springs.
“I did not know they were going so early,” added he.
“They were in a hurry,” I replied, with a smile, when I saw that the
great man did not comprehend the strategy of the battalion, “My orders
from Major Tommy were to start at seven o’clock; and I set them down on
the wharf at the Springs at half past seven.”
“You look wiser than you speak, Wolf,” said the major, gazing earnestly
into my face. “Is there any mischief brewing?”
“I think there is,” I replied, candidly, though I could not help
smiling at the puzzled look of the magnate of Middleport.
“What is it? Why didn’t you tell me about it? They say the students of
the Wimpleton Institute went down the lake this morning.”
“Yes, sir; we passed them on the way, and the students of both
Institutes are bound to the same place.”
“Then there will be a quarrel!” exclaimed the major; but I think he
would not have cared if he had been sure that his side of the lake
would be victorious.
“I am afraid there will; but the Toppletonians have the weather-gage,
both on the rights of the case and in the situation.”
I explained fully what had transpired at the meeting of the battalion
on Saturday, and the state of the affair when I left Grass Springs, an
hour before.
“Why didn’t they tell me what they were doing?” demanded the major. “I
did not know they were in a hurry; if I had, the steamer should have
been at Grass Springs without fail. If our boys have hired the Horse
Shoe, and pay for it, they have a right to use it.”
The great man was unequivocally on the side of the boys, and they might
just as well have taken him into their confidence. I was sorry to see
him so willing to permit a collision, even while our students had the
letter of the law in their favor.
“Wolf, don’t you want a vacation?” said the major, suddenly turning to
me, after musing on the facts I had given him.
“No, sir; I don’t care about any,” I replied.
“But I prefer that you should take one. Your pay shall go on as usual,”
he continued; and of course it was of no use for me to protest. “Can
Lewis run the dummy?”
“Yes, sir; he understands it very well.”
“All right, Wolf; I want you to be with those boys. You have an
influence with them, and they want some help such as you can give them.”
“Am I to fight with them, sir?” I asked, laughing; for I did not
exactly relish the kind of vacation he intended to give me.
“Certainly I don’t want any fighting if it can be avoided. I want you
to help keep the peace. If things don’t work well, or any help is
needed, come to me at once.”
I started the dummy, and then gave it up to Lewis. I did not exactly
like my mission; for, though I was sent to keep the peace, I knew that
the major simply expected me to see that the Toppletonians were not
whipped in the expected encounter.