CHAPTER XIII

A SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER

With a further grinding of the brake shoes on the wheels, and many bumps, the train came to an abrupt stop. But there followed no terrifying crash, no overturning of the coaches, no splintering of woodwork, no bending of steel trusses, and no explosion of the locomotive boiler.

The passengers who had been tossed from their seats slowly arose, little the worse for the adventure save bruises. Then came a silence, to be broken by Bob, who asked:

“What happened?”

“Lots of things, I guess,” replied Ned, rubbing his elbow where it had come in contact with the edge of a seat.

“We may have just escaped a collision,” said Jerry, starting toward the door. “That was the emergency air brake that went on so suddenly.”

“It’s a hold-up--that’s what it is!” declared Jim Nestor. “I’ve been through ’em before and I know. Get your guns ready, boys. You’re heeled, aren’t you, Harvey?”

“I sure am, and I’m ready to fight at the drop of the hat. I haven’t much with me, but what I have I’m going to keep.”

“Same here,” declared Jim, getting behind one of the chair seats, after he had picked himself up out of a corner where he had been tossed by the sudden, jolting stop of the train. “Get behind one of these chairs, Harvey,” advised the mine foreman, “and when the rascals come in cover ’em before they get a chance to get the drop on us.”

“I’m wise, partner!”

The door at the end of the car opened and a man rushed in.

“Hands up!” yelled Jim and Harvey, in the same breath, and from behind the backs of their respective chairs two shining weapons covered the intruder. “Hands up! You can’t come any game like that!” went on Harvey Brill.

“What--what’s that? Train robbers! How did they get in here! I see! That’s why the brake cord was pulled! I--I----”

“Put up your guns!” cried Jerry, with a laugh. “This is the Pullman conductor, Jim. Put away those pistols! It’s all right, I tell you!”

Slowly Jim and his friend peered over the tops of the seats, and, as they saw the uniform of the train official, sheepish smiles spread over their countenances.

“Well, I’ll be horn-swoggled!” exclaimed Jim.

“And I’ll be grub-staked!” added Harvey, that seeming to be a favorite expression of his.

“Oh, you took me for a hold-up man!” exclaimed the conductor, a note of relief in his voice. “And I did the same by you. But something happened. Someone pulled the emergency air brake cord, and stopped the train almost within a length. Did any one here do it? And what for?”

“No one that we saw,” replied Jerry. “But something has evidently happened. One of our party--the head of it I may say,” he added, thinking to carry out the plan they had adopted--“Professor Snodgrass--is missing. I just discovered that he was gone when the train was pulled up. We fear he may have fallen off in going from one car to another.”

“That is hardly possible,” said the conductor. “This is a vestibuled train, and it is as safe to go from one car to another as it is to walk the length of a coach. He could not have fallen off.”

“Then where is he?” asked Ned, and the boys looked at one another in alarm. At that moment, from the rear end of the car they were in, came a voice crying:

“I have it! Oh, I have you my little beauty! You tried to get away from me, but I have you!”

“The professor!” cried Ned, Bob and Jerry, in a chorus.

They made a rush in the direction of the voice, and, a moment later, they saw their eccentric friend perched high up in a corner of the outer vestibule of the parlor car. He was supporting himself by standing on some small iron projection, his head was well up under the “hood” of the car, and, while clinging with one hand to the emergency air brake cord, with the other he clutched his prize.

“Is--is that you, Professor?” asked Jerry, hardly knowing what he was saying.

“Certainly it is, my boy,” was the calm answer, as the scientist surveyed the little group of astonished ones on the car platform below him. “Certainly I am here.”

“And--and did you----?” faltered Jerry.

“I certainly did. I captured it, the little beauty!” interrupted the scientist. “It is a most perfect specimen of the jumping Buffalo moth I have ever seen. I was passing from one car to the other when here, in the vestibule, I saw the moth. I tried to get it, but it jumped higher and higher, and I was forced to climb up. Then I got it, when it could go no farther.”

“No, what I meant,” explained Jerry, “was, did you pull the emergency air brake cord?”

“Oh, do you mean this thing?” innocently asked the professor, indicating the cord to which he was clinging with one hand. “Well, perhaps I did give it a yank. I had to hold on to it, you know, or else lose the jumping moth, and I did not want to do that. Perhaps I may have jerked the cord--this way----” and he was about to pull it again, when the conductor yelled:

“Don’t do that! Great Scott! The engineer has nervous prostration now, and we don’t want to scare him any more. Don’t pull that cord again!”

“Oh, very well,” agreed the professor, gently. “Will some one kindly give me a hand down? I don’t want to lose the moth. But why did the train stop so suddenly? Did we hit anything?”

“You stopped it,” explained Jerry, as he helped his friend down. “You put on the brakes when you pulled that cord.”

“Did I?” asked the scientist, innocently. “How odd! Well, I won’t do it again. Now to take care of my prize.”

“Well, I’ll be grub-staked!” ejaculated Harvey Brill, and as the conductor gave the engineer the signal to go ahead again, our party of friends returned to their seats, while trainmen went about explaining to the other passengers the cause of the emergency stop.

For that was what is was. On most trains there is a red cord, in addition to the one that communicates with an air whistle in the engineer’s cab. The pulling of this red cord automatically sets the air brakes, and, in supporting himself under the “hood,” or overhanging part of the vestibule of the coach, the professor had, by accident, pulled this cord. Of course the brakes went on quickly, and confusion resulted.

But no great harm was done, save to delay the train somewhat, and when the cause was explained no one blamed the innocent and absent-minded scientist. As for himself, he thought no more of the occurrence, being so busy putting the jumping moth in a box, and making notes concerning his prize. Then he began reading something about the luminous snakes from a book he carried.

Another day’s travel, during which they ate on the train, sleeping at night in comfortable berths, brought them to where they changed to the Great Northern Railroad.

“And now we’re beginning the last stage of our trip,” explained Jerry, who had been studying the route and timetables. “We’ll soon be in Kabspell.”

“And nothing has happened--that is, nothing much,” said Ned.

“The meals were pretty good,” observed Bob, patting the region beneath his belt.

“Say, is that all you think of?” demanded Ned. “I meant that nothing troublesome had happened. We haven’t been followed, and no suspicious characters seem to be spying on us.”

“Not since I got rid of that distant aunt of mine,” added Mr. Brill, with a sigh of relief. “Say, if she ever finds out I’ve got money I’ll never have any peace. She’ll tell all the rest of my poor relations, who seem to dislike work, and it will be all up with me. So, even if we find the sixty--I mean what we are after,” he hurriedly corrected himself, “don’t let on that any of it is mine--at least not while she’s around,” and he glanced nervously about as though fearful that the stout lady might somehow have followed him. But she was not present.

The journey on the Great Northern was pleasant traveling, and the boys went through a wonderful bit of country. It seemed that their journey was to be almost an uneventful one until, near the very end of it, something occurred that set them all on edge, and made the two Westerners very uneasy.

In accordance with their plan, Professor Snodgrass was spoken of as the ostensible head of the expedition, and to all who engaged our friends in conversation the impression was given that the capture of some rare snakes, as well as other specimens, was the object. The professor’s character naturally bore out this, especially after his stopping of the train.

“Let’s get out here and stretch our legs,” suggested Ned, when they reached the junction of the Great Northern line with the Great Falls and Canada Railroad.

“Yes, we haven’t far to travel now,” observed Mr. Brill. “We’ve been in Montana for some time. We’re not far from the Canadian border, and in a little while we’ll be at the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. From here it’s only about seventy-five miles to Kabspell, but the grades are rather steep. We won’t make very good time.”

“I only hope our airship is there,” said Jerry. “Once we get that together, and in working order, we’ll be independent of grades and railroads.”

As their train was to stop some little time they walked about to vary the monotony of riding in the cars. The professor, of course, no sooner found himself on “_terra-cotta_,” as Bob expressed it, than he began hunting for specimens.

As the boys entered the station, to look about, they saw sitting in the corner a roughly dressed man, evidently a miner. He had a scar on his face. And Jerry, who was always on the lookout for anyone who might be regarded as an enemy, saw the fellow start as he caught a glimpse of Harvey Brill.

Without seeming to do so, the tall lad whispered to the prospector, calling his attention to the suspicious character, and asking Mr. Brill if he had ever seen him before.

Stealing a casual glance at the stranger, Mr. Brill whispered back:

“Never saw him before, so far as I know. If he’s one of the grub-stakers I don’t know him.”

“Maybe I’m mistaken,” agreed Jerry; “but he seemed some excited when he first got a glimpse of you. I guess it’s all right, though. Anyhow, I hope so.”

He and the others went out of the station, and the man, after a glance at the retreating forms, slid up to the ticket window.

“I guess I’ll change my destination, partner,” he said to the man behind the wicket. “I’ll travel on the Great Northern instead of on the Great Falls. Can you swap tickets for me?”

“Oh, I suppose so,” grumbled the agent. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, only some friends of mine are going that way, and I guess I’ll trail along. I’ve been waiting some time for them to show up, and, now that they’re here I don’t like to lose ’em. Just switch tickets for me.”

And so it came about that, as Jerry and his friends boarded their train again, they were unaware of the fact that the suspicious character--the man with the scar--was riding in the smoking car behind them.

“I guess I’m on the right trail,” murmured the man who had changed his tickets. “It’s him all right, from the description, though I don’t know what he’s doing with them boys, and the little man with the bald head, who seems to be after mosquitoes all the while. And that other chap, too. He’s a Westerner, or I miss my guess. Well, we’ll see what happens,” and he settled himself comfortably back in the seat, and looked at his ticket, which read “Kabspell.”