CHAPTER I.

OUT ON THE TRESTLE.

“We’re almost there now,” said Alec Sands as he steered the big touring car around a curve in the road and out upon a long stretch of hard, smooth, well-oiled clay. “Unless I’m mistaken, that white church spire over there beyond the fringe of palm trees marks the end of our journey. I really didn’t know it was going to be such a long run, or I’d have told Bronson to send some lunch with us.”

“Wish you had!” Chester Brownell exclaimed, leaning back in his seat in the tonneau. “I’m almost starved!”

“I reckon we can make up for it to-night,” added Billy Worth, who sat in front beside Alec. “This Santario is quite a place, isn’t it, Alec?”

“I think so,” answered young Sands. “From what I’ve heard, I guess it’s a sizable town now, though only a few years ago it was a mere village inhabited by fishermen. Someone discovered that the soil two miles inland from the village was suited for raising oranges, so he bought up several acres and planted an orange grove. Since then others have followed the leader, and now the village has grown so large that the oldest inhabitant can hardly recognize it.”

The three young tourists who were speeding along at a good thirty miles an hour, were all members of a troop of Boy Scouts whose summer headquarters were located at Pioneer Lake, “up North.” Alec Sands, the captain of the Otter patrol, and Billy Worth, a member of the Wolf patrol, had been prominent in many of the contests held at Pioneer Camp. Chester Brownell of the Otters was less well known to the boys of the troop, but Alec had come to know him at Hilltop School and had found in him a promising athlete.

At this time the boys were far away from the scene of their earlier adventures, being on a visit at the winter residence of Alec’s parents—Palmdune, a splendid mansion near a picturesque old town on the Florida seacoast.

It was early spring and the weather had not yet begun to be oppressively warm. Indeed, the nights were still cold with frequent threats of frost,—that dread enemy of the budding orange groves. Alternating with days and nights of mild stillness were intervals of semi-storm, of rough winds that swept the low-lying shore and menaced coastwise shipping with the danger of being blown landward upon the numerous sandbars and keys.

Like other towns and villages in that part of the country, Santario had thrived all winter on the influx of wealthy Northerners who were accustomed to spend “the worst months of the year” there. And now these pleasant resorts were just beginning to slide back into their usual grooves of inactivity, and to have the quiet, unruffled appearance which was most familiar though not most welcome to their oldest inhabitants. Claynor, the nearest railway station to Santario, was the town where the three boys had spent that day. The place was rich with interesting historical associations, and they had enjoyed visiting it. Its little museum contained many relics not only of the earliest Spanish colonists but also of the later wars with the Seminole Indians under their great chief Osceola. At present the boys were returning, late in the afternoon, to Palmdune, where Alec hoped to have another guest for the Easter vacation.

His expected guest, who had not yet arrived, was Hugh Hardin, formerly leader of the Wolf patrol at Pioneer Camp. After some hesitation on Hugh’s part, owing to the fact that he and Alec had not always been on the best of terms in the past, Hugh had persuaded himself that to decline Alec’s invitation without sufficient reason would be both ungracious and unfriendly, and so he had accepted it in the same spirit with which it was given. As a matter of fact, Hugh had done so gladly, for he had a genuine liking and respect for his rival, Alec Sands, and he had usually been the first to regret and to make amends for their previous unpleasantness. On his journey down South, Hugh was even now eagerly looking forward to the visit, while at the same time his three friends, bowling along the highway in the big touring car, were discussing his arrival.

“If we take the car out again to-morrow to drive over to Claynor to meet Hugh, we’ll take some grub with us,—you can bet on that!” said Alec. “I thought there was some kind of an inn at Claynor, but we found only that clam-and-oyster parlor!”

“Gee, what a joint!” exclaimed Billy in an aggrieved tone. “Bucking broncos wouldn’t have dragged me into it!”

“Me, neither,” Chester added with ungrammatical emphasis.

“I had a letter from camp to-day—from Buck Winter,” he continued. “We left so early I didn’t have time to show it to you fellows before we started. Buck says Tom Sherwood has been elected temporary leader of our patrol, Alec. Hope he’ll be as good a one as you were, old scout.”

“Thanks!” responded Alec, laughing. “How much do you want for handing me that one, Chet? Can you change five cents?”

“At this moment,” replied Chester, “I couldn’t change a—Hello! look at that!”

As he uttered the words, he leaned forward, pointing over Billy’s shoulder. Alec, after one quick glance, threw out the clutch and jammed on the emergency brake with such suddenness that Chester, caught unprepared, tumbled back upon the seat. Before he had recovered from this jolt, he saw Alec and Billy jump out of the auto and run swiftly through the tall grass toward a railway track close to the road. Leaping from the car he followed them at full speed.

The track at this point made a long curve preparatory to crossing a narrow trestle over an inlet of the ocean, scarcely a hundred yards distant from the spot where they had left the car. Not quite halfway across the trestle, a girl, carrying a basket, was advancing, hurrying over the ties, and behind her trotted a big shaggy dog. The three lads had sprinted forward over a sandy embankment toward the track because they heard, in the distance behind the girl, the sudden shrill whistle of a locomotive and the rumble of an approaching train.

The girl also heard it, glanced back over her shoulder, and with a shriek of terror, flung the basket aside and fled onward as fast as she could run.

As the young Scouts dashed to the rescue, the ominous rumbling grew louder and louder; the rails began to hum; then, with another warning blast of the whistle, the freight train appeared around the bend and thundered toward the long bridge.

Billy was the first to reach the end of the trestle toward which the girl was coming rapidly. Running forward, leaping from one tie to another, he realized how precarious was the footing, how easily one misstep might hurl anyone into the depths below. Between the ties underfoot he caught glimpses of the flashing green water swirling around the upright piles as the tide flowed in, and, looking up, he could see the strained, desperate expression on the girl’s white face.

“Don’t lose your nerve!” he called to her. “You’ll get across all right.” He was not so confident as he appeared to be, but he knew instinctively that she needed encouragement. “Come on, come on; but take care!” he shouted. “We’re going to flag that train.”

Alec was close at his heels. Stripping off his coat and waving it frantically, he overtook Billy just as young Worth, bounding forward, almost collided with the girl and caught her outstretched hands in his own. Some little distance behind them, Chester stood at the end of the trestle, gazing with horror-stricken eyes at his friends and wondering what was the best thing he could do at this crisis.

“Oh!” he groaned despairingly. “They’ll never stop it! They’ll all be killed!”

Without waiting to see what progress Billy and the girl were making as they turned and ran, Alec bounded forward for several yards, and stood in the middle of the track until the train was almost upon him. Then, with quick decision, he leaped to one side and flung himself down on the ground.

The train passed him amid a whirl of dust and sand and small stones, and in another minute it was out upon the bridge. Car after car thundered past, with a deafening rumble of wheels. There was a sudden shriek and a jar of the brakes being applied, but before the engine had come to a standstill it had almost crossed the trestle.

Alec sprang to his feet before the train stopped. He looked wildly around and back to the place where he had last seen Billy and the girl. They had disappeared!

“What has happened?” he wondered, in a stupor of dread. “Did the train hit them, or did they jump off the trestle into the water? I must go back and find out! Oh, there’s Chester at the other end of the bridge. He’s waving his arms and shouting.”

Alec wheeled and ran back swiftly down the track and out on the trestle. The train blocked his way, but he climbed up a small iron ladder at the rear of the last car, ran along the roofs of the cars, and dropped to the ground just behind the tender, on the left side of the track. There, stretched out flat on one of the ties, he peered over, and his eyes met those of Billy Worth, full of the strain of waiting, upturned to his face.

With one arm around the girl, whose arms clung about his neck, and the other flung over one of the trestle rods under the track, Billy hung there straight downward over the water fully twenty feet below. Alec saw that Billy’s grip was weakening and that there was no time to lose.

Swiftly he twined his legs around the tie and lowered his body as far as he could. Then he stretched out his arms; but it was not enough; he could not reach the girl.