RENO
But the Limited had stopped so that Ruth could see along the length of
the train. Lanterns winked and blinked in the dark as the trainmen
carried them forward. Something had happened up front of more
importance than an ordinary halt for permission to run in on the next
block. Besides, the afternoon Limited was a train of the first-class
and was supposed to have the right of way over all other trains. No
signal should have stopped it here.
"How far are we from Cheslow, please?" she asked of the rear brakeman
(whom she knew was called the flagman) as he came down the car with
his lantern.
"Not above a mile, Miss," he replied.
His smile, and his way of speaking, encouraged her to ask:
"Can you tell me why we have stopped?"
"Something on the track, Miss. I have set out my signal lamp and am
going forward to inquire."
Three or four of the male passengers followed him out of the car. Ruth
saw that quite a number had disembarked from the cars ahead, that a
goodly company was moving forward, and that there were ladies among
the curious crowd. If it was perfectly safe for them to satisfy their
curiosity, why not she? She arose and hurried out of the car,
following the swinging lamp of the brakeman as he strode on.
Ruth ran a little, seeing well enough to pick her way over the ends of
the ties, and arrived to find at least half a hundred people grouped
on the track ahead of the locomotive pilot. The great, unblinking,
white eye of the huge machine revealed the group clearly--and the
object around which the curious passengers, as well as the train crew,
had gathered.
It was a dog--a great, handsome, fawn-colored mastiff, sleek of coat
and well fed, but muddied now along his flanks, evidently having waded
through the mire of the wet meadow beside the tracks. He had come
under, or through, a barbed wire fence, too, for there was a long
scratch upon his shoulder and another raw cut upon his muzzle.
To his broad collar was fastened a red lamp. Nobody had taken it off,
for both the train men and the passengers were excitedly discussing
what his presence here might mean; and some of them seemed afraid of
the great fellow.
But Ruth had been used to dogs, and this noble looking fellow had no
terrors for her. He seemed so woebegone, his great brown eyes pleaded
so earnestly, that she could only pity and fondle him.
"Look out, Miss; maybe he bites," warned the anxious conductor. "I
wager this is some boy's trick to stop the train. And yet--"
Ruth bent down, still patting the dog's head, and turned the great
silver plate on his collar so that she could read, in the light of the
lanterns, that which was engraved upon it. She read the words aloud:
"'This is Reno, Tom Cameron's Dog.'"
"Cameron?" repeated some man behind her. "That Tom Cameron lives just
outside of Cheslow. His father is the rich dry-goods merchant, Macy
Cameron. What's his dog doing here?"
"And with a red light tied to his collar?" propounded somebody else.
"It's some boy's trick, I tell you," stormed the conductor. "I'll have
to report this at headquarters."
Just then Ruth made a discovery. Wound about the collar was a bit of
twisted cloth--a strip of linen--part of a white handkerchief. Her
nimble fingers unwound it quickly and she spread out the soiled rag.
"Oh, see here!" she cried, in amazement as well as fear. "See! What
can it mean? See what's drawn on this cloth--"
It was a single word--a word smeared across the rag in shaking,
uneven letters:
"HELP!"
"By George!" exclaimed one of the brakemen. "The little girl's right.
That spells 'Help!' plain enough."
"It--it is written in something red, sir," cried Ruth, her voice
trembling. "See! It is blood!"
"I tell you we've wasted a lot of time here," declared the conductor.
"I am sorry if anybody is hurt, but we cannot stop for him. Get back
to the cars, please, gentlemen. Do you belong aboard?" he added, to
Ruth. "Get aboard, if you do."
"Oh, sir! You will not leave the poor dog here?" Ruth asked.
"Not with that red lamp on his collar--no!" exclaimed the conductor.
"He will be fooling some other engineer--"
He reached to disentangle the wire from the dog's collar; but Reno
uttered a low growl.
"Plague take the dog!" ejaculated the conductor, stepping back
hastily. "Whoever it is that's hurt, or wherever he is, we cannot send
him help from here. We'll report the circumstance at the Cheslow
Station. Put the dog in the baggage car. He can find the place where
his master is hurt, from Cheslow as well as from here, it's likely."
"You try to make him follow you, Miss," added the conductor to Ruth.
"He doesn't like me, it's plain."
"Come here, Reno!" Ruth commanded. "Come here, old fellow."
The big dog hesitated, stepped a yard or two after her, stopped,
looked around and across the track toward the swamp meadow, and
whined.
Ruth went back to him and put both arms about the noble fellow's neck.
"Come, Reno," she said "Come with me. We will go to find your master
by and by."
She started for the cars again, with one hand on the dog's neck. He
trotted meekly beside her with head hanging. At the open baggage-car
door one of the brakemen lifted her in.
"Come, Reno! Come up, sir!" she said, and the great mastiff, crouching
for an instant, sprang into the car.
Even before they were fairly aboard, the train started. They were late
enough, indeed! But the engineer dared not speed up much for that last
mile of the lap to Cheslow. There might be something ahead on the
track.
"You get out at Cheslow; don't you Miss?" asked the conductor.
"Yes, sir," returned Ruth, sitting down with an air of possession upon
her old-fashioned cowhide trunk that had already been put out by the
door ready for discharging at the next station.
"And you were sitting in the last car. Have you a bag there?"
"Yes, sir, a small bag. That is all."
"I'll send it forward to you," he said, not unkindly, and bustled
away.
And so Ruth Fielding was sitting on her own trunk, with her bag in her
lap, and the great mastiff lying on the floor of the baggage car
beside her, when the train slowed down and stopped beside the Cheslow
platform. She had not expected to arrive just in this way at her
journey's end.