CHAPTER XXI
A LIMB OF THE LAW
The single track which Bart had discovered lined the bottom of the hill,followed it for a distance, and then running across the valleydisappeared in among other hills and the timber.
It was a rickety concern, was unballasted, and looked as if, looselythrown together, it had never filled its original mission and had beenpractically abandoned.
"I don't know of any branch of the B. & M. hereabouts," ruminated theyoung express agent--"certainly none corresponding to this is on themap. It is not in regular use, but that hand car looks as if it wasdoing service right along."
No one was in sight about the place, yet lying in plain view on the handcar were three or four coats and jumpers and as many dinner pails.
"I have no time to figure it out," breathed Bart quickly. "The firstthing to do is to get the trunk down there."
Bart ran back to the wagon. He hurriedly pulled away the grass coveringand then the canvas.
The trunk was revealed. He had his first full glance at it since it hadbeen delivered to him at the express office at Pleasantville, theafternoon previous.
"It's all right," he said with satisfaction, after a criticalinspection. "There is the paster I slapped over the front. The trunkcould not have been opened without tearing that."
He got a good purchase on a handle and landed the trunk in the road.Then he dragged it up to the barrier, removed a board, and, perspiringand breathing hard, held it at the sheer edge of the decline and let itslide.
The hand car was a light-running affair, well-greased, in pretty goodorder, and he could readily observe was in constant use.
Upon it lay the clothing and dinner pails he had noticed from overhead.They evidently belonged to workmen--but where were they?
"I can hardly wait to find out," declared Bart.
He pushed off the clothing and dinner pails and lifted on the trunk.
Then Bart made a depressing discovery--the hind gearing was locked witha chain running from wheel to wheel.
This was unfortunate. Turning a heap of slate, he came suddenly and withdelight upon an open tool box.
It was a regular construction case, and full of shovels, crowbars,pickaxes, sledges and drills. Bart selected a crowbar and his efforts totwist and snap the chain resulted in final success. With a thrill ofsatisfaction he sprang upon the car. The handles moved easily andresponsively to the touch.
A grumbling roar caused him to survey the sky, which had been dull andlowering since noon.
"Storm coming," he murmured--"now for action!"
Bart started up the car. It ran as smooth as a bicycle. He was anxiousto get away from the face of the hill, not knowing how near the enemymight be.
They were nearer than he fancied, for a sudden shout rang out, then achorus of them.
A piece of rock, hurled down from the crest of the hill, struck hiswrist, nearly numbing it. Glancing up, Bart saw the two Tollivers andLem Wacker getting ready to descend.
There was a sharp incline and a short curve not ten feet ahead. Bartlet the hand car drive at its own impetus.
"Stop!" yelled Buck Tolliver.
He held some object in his hand. Bart crouched by the side of thepumping standard, and the hand car spun out on the tracks crossing thevalley, just as the thunder-storm broke forth in all its fury.
Bart's back was to the wind, and the wind helped his progress. As thetracks led into the timber, Bart took a last glance backwards, but rainand mist shut out all sight of the hill and his enemies.
He had no idea as to the terminus or connections of the railroad, butnever relaxed his efforts as long as clear tracks showed beyond.
Bart must have gone six or seven miles, when he saw ahead some scatteredhouses, then a church steeple and a water tower, and he caught the echoof a locomotive whistle.
"It's the B. & M., and that is Lisle Station!" he soliloquized withunbounded satisfaction.
Fifteen minutes later, wringing wet with rain and perspiration, Bartdrove the hand car up to a bumper just behind a little country depot,and leaped to the ground.
"Hello!" hailed a man inside, the station agent, staring hard at himthrough an open window.
Bart nodded calmly, consulting his watch and calculating mentally in arapid way.
"See here," he said briskly, "this is Lisle Station?"
"Sure."
"On the B. & M. Then the afternoon express is due here from the east intwelve minutes."
"You seem to be well-posted."
"I ought to be," answered Bart--"I am the express agent atPleasantville."
"What!" ejaculated the man incredulously.
"Yes," nodded Bart, smiling. "Won't you help me get this trunk to theplatform?"
The station agent came outside and lent a hand as suggested, but heremarked:
"The express doesn't stop here."
"Flag it."
"My orders--"
"Won't interfere, in this case," insisted Bart. "That trunk has got twothousand dollars worth of stuff in it, and was stolen. I recovered it,the thieves are after me, and it has got to go to Cedar Lake on Number18."
"Well! well! well!" muttered the station agent in a daze, but hasteningto place the stop signal.
Bart went inside and unceremoniously approached the office desk. Hewrote on a slip of paper, placed it in his pocket, shifted the trunk tothe head end of the platform, and stationed himself beside it.
"Is all that you're telling me true?" propounded the bewildered stationagent, sidling up to Bart's side.
"Every word of it."
"Where did you get the hand car?"
"I found it. Oh, by the way! I wish you would explain to me about thatrailroad; what is it, what excuse has it got for existing?"
"Oh, that?" said the station agent "It's the old quarry spur. A companybuilt it five years ago with grand plans for shipping mottled tilingslate all over the country. Their money gave out and the scheme wasnever put through."
"And the hand car?"
"There's four men who live here who got the privilege of digging outslate for a big plumbers' supply house in the city. They go to thequarry and back on the hand car daily. Did they loan it to you?"
"No," said Bart, "I was in a hurry, and had to borrow it withoutpermission."
"They'll have a fine walk back here in this storm!"
"I was going to suggest," said Bart, taking half a dollar from hispocket, "that you might hire some boy to run the hand car back to thequarry."
"I can do that," answered the station agent.
Number 18 came sailing down the rails. As she slowed up, everyone onduty from the fireman to the brakeman was on the lookout for the causeof the unusual stop.
The conductor jumped off and ran up to the station agent, and while thelatter was busy explaining the situation Bart hammered on the door ofthe express car.
"Why it's Stirling!" cried old Ben Travers, the veteran expressmessenger, sliding back the door.
"You're right, Mr. Travers," assented Bart. "Here's a special andurgent. Get it aboard before the conductor comes up and jumps all overme for stopping the train."
Travers popped down in a lively fashion. They hoisted the trunk togetherand sent it spinning into the car.
"Cedar Lake, make a sure delivery, Mr. Travers," directed Bart. "Here,put your manifesto on that receipt, will you?" and Bart drew the slip ofpaper he had written on in the depot from his pocket.
The conductor, a pompous, self-contained old fellow, started towardsBart to haul him over the coals, but Bart wisely walked farther down theplatform, the conductor gave the go-ahead signal and shook his fiststernly at Bart, while the latter with a gay, relieved laugh waved himback a cheery, courteous good-by.
Bart told the station agent a very little about the history of thetrunk. He left a dollar to pay for the broken hand car lock. He was inhigh spirits as he caught the east bound train. The whistles wereblowing for a quarter of six as he reached Pleasantville and leaped fromthe engine, wh
ere a friendly engineer had given him a free ride, and inthree minutes was at the door of the little express office.
Animated voices reached him from the inside. Bart peered beyond thethreshold.
McCarthy, the night watchman, sat asleep in a chair in a corner. DarryHaven was at the desk, a spruce, solemn-faced young man beside him.
"I'm here, Darry," announced Bart.
Darry turned with a joyful face. It fell as he glanced beyond his youngemployer to the empty platform.
"No trunk!" he murmured in a low, disappointed tone.
"Too heavy to carry around, you see!" smiled Bart lightly. "Who is thisgentleman? Oh, I see--good afternoon, Mr. Stuart."
"Afternoon," crisply answered the stranger.
He was a young limb of the law, employed since the previous year in theoffice of Judge Monroe, the principal attorney of Pleasantville.
Stuart was a butt for even the well-meaning boys of the town. He wasonly nineteen, but he affected the dignity of a sage of sixty, seemingto have the idea that nothing but a severe and forbidding manner couldrepresent the high and lofty calling he had condescended to follow.
"Ah," he observed, turning upon Bart and critically adjusting a singleeyeglass, "is this the express agent?"
"That's me," assented Bart bluntly.
"I represent Monroe, Purcell & Abernethy, Attorneys," grandly announcedStuart. "We are employed by Mrs. Harrington to prosecute an inquiry asto a missing trunk."
Darry looked very serious, Bart smiled serenely in the face of hisimperturbable visitor.
"What is there to prosecute, Mr. Stuart?" he inquired.
"We have come to demand certified copies of all entries and receipts ofthis office covering the trunk in question," announced the young sprigof the law.
"Well?" interrogated Bart.
"Your employee--assistant? here, declined to act without yourauthority."
"Quite right. I give it, though. Darry, make out transcripts of therecords. That is all clear and regular."
Bart turned on his heel, ran his eye over the office books, and boredyoung Mr. Stuart terribly by paying no further attention to him.
The latter stood watching the industrious Darry with owl-like solemnity.Finally the latter handed a duplicate receipt and a copy of the entry toStuart.
"Will you officially attest to the correctness of these, Mr.--Ah, Mr.Agent?" propounded Stuart.
"Sure," answered Bart with an off-handed alacrity that was distressingto the responsibility burdened personality of the accreditedrepresentative of Monroe, Purcell & Abernethy.
He dashed off an O.K. on the two documents, tendered them withexaggerated courtesy to his visitor, who he was well aware knew his nameperfectly, and said, with the faintest suggestion of mimicry:
"Ah, Mr.--Representative, would you kindly inform me for what purposeyou want these transcripts?"
"They form the basis of a criminal prosecution," announced young Stuartin a tone positively sepulchral.
"So?" murmured the young express agent smoothly. "In that case, let mesuggest that you also take a copy of this document to submit toyour--superiors."
Bart Stirling drew from his pocket the receipt signed by old Ben Traverson the afternoon express less than two hours previous.
Stuart adjusted his eyeglass and superciliously regarded the document.Then he turned and gasped:
"What--what is this?" he spluttered.
"A receipt for the delivery of the basis of your criminal prosecution,"said Bart simply. "Mrs. Colonel Harrington's trunk is safe and sound onits way to its destination."
"Hurrah!" irresistibly shouted Darry Haven.
Bart Stirling's Road to Success; Or, The Young Express Agent Page 21
