CHAPTER XIII
A SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER
With a further grinding of the brake shoes on the wheels, and manybumps, the train came to an abrupt stop. But there followed noterrifying crash, no overturning of the coaches, no splinteringof woodwork, no bending of steel trusses, and no explosion of thelocomotive 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 hadcome in contact with the edge of a seat.
“We may have just escaped a collision,” said Jerry, starting toward thedoor. “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 beenthrough ’em before and I know. Get your guns ready, boys. You’reheeled, aren’t you, Harvey?”
“I sure am, and I’m ready to fight at the drop of the hat. I haven’tmuch with me, but what I have I’m going to keep.”
“Same here,” declared Jim, getting behind one of the chair seats, afterhe had picked himself up out of a corner where he had been tossed bythe 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 behindthe backs of their respective chairs two shining weapons covered theintruder. “Hands up! You can’t come any game like that!” went on HarveyBrill.
“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 Pullmanconductor, 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, asthey saw the uniform of the train official, sheepish smiles spread overtheir countenances.
“Well, I’ll be horn-swoggled!” exclaimed Jim.
“And I’ll be grub-staked!” added Harvey, that seeming to be a favoriteexpression of his.
“Oh, you took me for a hold-up man!” exclaimed the conductor, a noteof relief in his voice. “And I did the same by you. But somethinghappened. Someone pulled the emergency air brake cord, and stopped thetrain almost within a length. Did any one here do it? And what for?”
“No one that we saw,” replied Jerry. “But something has evidentlyhappened. One of our party--the head of it I may say,” he added,thinking to carry out the plan they had adopted--“ProfessorSnodgrass--is missing. I just discovered that he was gone when thetrain was pulled up. We fear he may have fallen off in going from onecar to another.”
“That is hardly possible,” said the conductor. “This is a vestibuledtrain, and it is as safe to go from one car to another as it is to walkthe length of a coach. He could not have fallen off.”
“Then where is he?” asked Ned, and the boys looked at one another inalarm. At that moment, from the rear end of the car they were in, camea voice crying:
“I have it! Oh, I have you my little beauty! You tried to get away fromme, 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 theouter vestibule of the parlor car. He was supporting himself bystanding on some small iron projection, his head was well up under the“hood” of the car, and, while clinging with one hand to the emergencyair brake cord, with the other he clutched his prize.
“Is--is that you, Professor?” asked Jerry, hardly knowing what he wassaying.
“Certainly it is, my boy,” was the calm answer, as the scientistsurveyed the little group of astonished ones on the car platform belowhim. “Certainly I am here.”
“And--and did you----?” faltered Jerry.
“I certainly did. I captured it, the little beauty!” interrupted thescientist. “It is a most perfect specimen of the jumping Buffalo moth Ihave ever seen. I was passing from one car to the other when here, inthe vestibule, I saw the moth. I tried to get it, but it jumped higherand higher, and I was forced to climb up. Then I got it, when it couldgo no farther.”
“No, what I meant,” explained Jerry, “was, did you pull the emergencyair 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 elselose the jumping moth, and I did not want to do that. Perhaps I mayhave 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 kindlygive me a hand down? I don’t want to lose the moth. But why did thetrain stop so suddenly? Did we hit anything?”
“You stopped it,” explained Jerry, as he helped his friend down. “Youput on the brakes when you pulled that cord.”
“Did I?” asked the scientist, innocently. “How odd! Well, I won’t do itagain. Now to take care of my prize.”
“Well, I’ll be grub-staked!” ejaculated Harvey Brill, and as theconductor gave the engineer the signal to go ahead again, our party offriends returned to their seats, while trainmen went about explainingto the other passengers the cause of the emergency stop.
For that was what is was. On most trains there is a red cord, inaddition to the one that communicates with an air whistle in theengineer’s cab. The pulling of this red cord automatically sets the airbrakes, and, in supporting himself under the “hood,” or overhangingpart of the vestibule of the coach, the professor had, by accident,pulled this cord. Of course the brakes went on quickly, and confusionresulted.
But no great harm was done, save to delay the train somewhat, and whenthe cause was explained no one blamed the innocent and absent-mindedscientist. As for himself, he thought no more of the occurrence, beingso busy putting the jumping moth in a box, and making notes concerninghis prize. Then he began reading something about the luminous snakesfrom a book he carried.
Another day’s travel, during which they ate on the train, sleeping atnight in comfortable berths, brought them to where they changed to theGreat 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 inKabspell.”
“And nothing has happened--that is, nothing much,” said Ned.
“The meals were pretty good,” observed Bob, patting the region beneathhis belt.
“Say, is that all you think of?” demanded Ned. “I meant that nothingtroublesome had happened. We haven’t been followed, and no suspiciouscharacters 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’llnever 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 ifwe find the sixty--I mean what we are after,” he hurriedly correctedhimself, “don’t let on that any of it is mine--at least not while she’saround,” and he glanced nervously about as though fearful that thestout lady might somehow have followed him. But she was not present.
The journey on the Great Northern was pleasant traveling, and theboys went through a wonderful bit of country. It seemed that theirjourney was to be almost an uneventful one until, near the very endof it, something occurred that set them all on edge, and made the twoWesterners very uneasy.
&nb
sp; In accordance with their plan, Professor Snodgrass was spoken of as theostensible head of the expedition, and to all who engaged our friendsin conversation the impression was given that the capture of some raresnakes, as well as other specimens, was the object. The professor’scharacter naturally bore out this, especially after his stopping of thetrain.
“Let’s get out here and stretch our legs,” suggested Ned, when theyreached the junction of the Great Northern line with the Great Fallsand Canada Railroad.
“Yes, we haven’t far to travel now,” observed Mr. Brill. “We’ve beenin Montana for some time. We’re not far from the Canadian border, andin a little while we’ll be at the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Fromhere it’s only about seventy-five miles to Kabspell, but the grades arerather steep. We won’t make very good time.”
“I only hope our airship is there,” said Jerry. “Once we get thattogether, and in working order, we’ll be independent of grades andrailroads.”
As their train was to stop some little time they walked about to varythe monotony of riding in the cars. The professor, of course, no soonerfound himself on “_terra-cotta_,” as Bob expressed it, than he beganhunting for specimens.
As the boys entered the station, to look about, they saw sitting in thecorner a roughly dressed man, evidently a miner. He had a scar on hisface. And Jerry, who was always on the lookout for anyone who might beregarded as an enemy, saw the fellow start as he caught a glimpse ofHarvey 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-stakersI don’t know him.”
“Maybe I’m mistaken,” agreed Jerry; “but he seemed some excited when hefirst got a glimpse of you. I guess it’s all right, though. Anyhow, Ihope so.”
He and the others went out of the station, and the man, after a glanceat the retreating forms, slid up to the ticket window.
“I guess I’ll change my destination, partner,” he said to the manbehind the wicket. “I’ll travel on the Great Northern instead of on theGreat 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 guessI’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 forme.”
And so it came about that, as Jerry and his friends boarded their trainagain, they were unaware of the fact that the suspicious character--theman 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 histickets. “It’s him all right, from the description, though I don’tknow what he’s doing with them boys, and the little man with the baldhead, who seems to be after mosquitoes all the while. And that otherchap, too. He’s a Westerner, or I miss my guess. Well, we’ll see whathappens,” and he settled himself comfortably back in the seat, andlooked at his ticket, which read “Kabspell.”
The Motor Boys on the Border; Or, Sixty Nuggets of Gold Page 14