Chapter 21

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 valley disappeared in among other hills and the timber.

It was a rickety concern, was unballasted, and looked as if, loosely thrown together, it had never filled its original mission and had been practically abandoned.

"I don't know of any branch of the B. & M. hereabouts," ruminated the young express agent--"certainly none corresponding to this is on the map. It is not in regular use, but that hand car looks as if it was doing service right along."

No one was in sight about the place, yet lying in plain view on the hand car were three or four coats and jumpers and as many dinner pails.

"I have no time to figure it out," breathed Bart quickly. "The first thing to do is to get the trunk down there."

Bart ran back to the wagon. He hurriedly pulled away the grass covering and then the canvas.

The trunk was revealed. He had his first full glance at it since it had been delivered to him at the express office at Pleasantville, the afternoon previous.

"It's all right," he said with satisfaction, after a critical inspection. "There is the paster I slapped over the front. The trunk could 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, perspiring and breathing hard, held it at the sheer edge of the decline and let it slide.

The hand car was a light-running affair, well-greased, in pretty good order, 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 with a chain running from wheel to wheel.

This was unfortunate. Turning a heap of slate, he came suddenly and with delight 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 to twist and snap the chain resulted in final success. With a thrill of satisfaction he sprang upon the car. The handles moved easily and responsively to the touch.

A grumbling roar caused him to survey the sky, which had been dull and lowering since noon.

"Storm coming," he murmured--"now for action!"

Bart started up the car. It ran as smooth as a bicycle. He was anxious to get away from the face of the hill, not knowing how near the enemy might be.

They were nearer than he fancied, for a sudden shout rang out, then a chorus of them.

A piece of rock, hurled down from the crest of the hill, struck his wrist, nearly numbing it. Glancing up, Bart saw the two Tollivers and Lem Wacker getting ready to descend.

There was a sharp incline and a short curve not ten feet ahead. Bart let 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 the pumping standard, and the hand car spun out on the tracks crossing the valley, 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 the tracks led into the timber, Bart took a last glance backwards, but rain and mist shut out all sight of the hill and his enemies.

He had no idea as to the terminus or connections of the railroad, but never relaxed his efforts as long as clear tracks showed beyond.

Bart must have gone six or seven miles, when he saw ahead some scattered houses, then a church steeple and a water tower, and he caught the echo of a locomotive whistle.

"It's the B. & M., and that is Lisle Station!" he soliloquized with unbounded satisfaction.

Fifteen minutes later, wringing wet with rain and perspiration, Bart drove 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 him through an open window.

Bart nodded calmly, consulting his watch and calculating mentally in a rapid 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 in twelve minutes."

"You seem to be well-posted."

"I ought to be," answered Bart--"I am the express agent at Pleasantville."

"What!" ejaculated the man incredulously.

"Yes," nodded Bart, smiling. "Won't you help me get this trunk to the platform?"

The station agent came outside and lent a hand as suggested, but he remarked:

"The express doesn't stop here."

"Flag it."

"My orders--"

"Won't interfere, in this case," insisted Bart. "That trunk has got two thousand 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 Number 18."

"Well! well! well!" muttered the station agent in a daze, but hastening to place the stop signal.

Bart went inside and unceremoniously approached the office desk. He wrote on a slip of paper, placed it in his pocket, shifted the trunk to the head end of the platform, and stationed himself beside it.

"Is all that you're telling me true?" propounded the bewildered station agent, 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 that railroad; what is it, what excuse has it got for existing?"

"Oh, that?" said the station agent "It's the old quarry spur. A company built it five years ago with grand plans for shipping mottled tiling slate all over the country. Their money gave out and the scheme was never put through."

"And the hand car?"

"There's four men who live here who got the privilege of digging out slate for a big plumbers' supply house in the city. They go to the quarry 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 without permission."

"They'll have a fine walk back here in this storm!"

"I was going to suggest," said Bart, taking half a dollar from his pocket, "that you might hire some boy to run the hand car back to the quarry."

"I can do that," answered the station agent.

Number 18 came sailing down the rails. As she slowed up, everyone on duty from the fireman to the brakeman was on the lookout for the cause of the unusual stop.

The conductor jumped off and ran up to the station agent, and while the latter was busy explaining the situation Bart hammered on the door of the express car.

"Why it's Stirling!" cried old Ben Travers, the veteran express messenger, sliding back the door.

"You're right, Mr. Travers," assented Bart. "Here's a special and urgent. Get it aboard before the conductor comes up and jumps all over me for stopping the train."

Travers popped down in a lively fashion. They hoisted the trunk together and 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 of paper he had written on in the depot from his pocket.

The conductor, a pompous, self-contained old fellow, started towards Bart to haul him over the coals, but Bart wisely walked farther down the platform, the conductor gave the go-ahead signal and shook his fist sternly at Bart, while the latter with a gay, relieved laugh waved him back a cheery, courteous good-by.

Bart told the station agent a very little about the history of the trunk. He left a dollar to pay for the broken hand car lock. He was in high spirits as he caught the east bound train. The whistles were blowing for a quarter of six as he reached Pleasantville and leaped from the engine, where a friendly engineer had given him a free ride, and in three minutes was at the door of the little express office.

Animated voices reached him from the inside. Bart peered beyond the threshold.

McCarthy, the night watchman, sat asleep in a chair in a corner. Darry Haven 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 young employer 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 this gentleman? 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 the office of Judge Monroe, the principal attorney of Pleasantville.

Stuart was a butt for even the well-meaning boys of the town. He was only nineteen, but he affected the dignity of a sage of sixty, seeming to have the idea that nothing but a severe and forbidding manner could represent the high and lofty calling he had condescended to follow.

"Ah," he observed, turning upon Bart and critically adjusting a single eyeglass, "is this the express agent?"

"That's me," assented Bart bluntly.

"I represent Monroe, Purcell & Abernethy, Attorneys," grandly announced Stuart. "We are employed by Mrs. Harrington to prosecute an inquiry as to a missing trunk."

Darry looked very serious, Bart smiled serenely in the face of his imperturbable visitor.

"What is there to prosecute, Mr. Stuart?" he inquired.

"We have come to demand certified copies of all entries and receipts of this office covering the trunk in question," announced the young sprig of the law.

"Well?" interrogated Bart.

"Your employee--assistant? here, declined to act without your authority."

"Quite right. I give it, though. Darry, make out transcripts of the records. That is all clear and regular."

Bart turned on his heel, ran his eye over the office books, and bored young 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 to Stuart.

"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 distressing to the responsibility burdened personality of the accredited representative of Monroe, Purcell & Abernethy.

He dashed off an O.K. on the two documents, tendered them with exaggerated courtesy to his visitor, who he was well aware knew his name perfectly, and said, with the faintest suggestion of mimicry:

"Ah, Mr.--Representative, would you kindly inform me for what purpose you want these transcripts?"

"They form the basis of a criminal prosecution," announced young Stuart in a tone positively sepulchral.

"So?" murmured the young express agent smoothly. "In that case, let me suggest that you also take a copy of this document to submit to your--superiors."

Bart Stirling drew from his pocket the receipt signed by old Ben Travers on 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 on its way to its destination."

"Hurrah!" irresistibly shouted Darry Haven.