Munroe Kirk
Cab and Caboose: The Story of a Railroad Boy
CHAPTER XXV.
THE TRAIN ROBBER LEARNS OF ROD’S ARREST
“I tell you the man who did it all is lying back there in the road!” screamed Rod, furious with indignation at this outrage and almost sobbing with the bitterness of his distress. “He is a train robber, and I’m a passenger brakeman on the New York and Western road. He made an escape and I was chasing him.”
“Just listen to that now,” said one of the men jeeringly. “It’s more than likely you are the train robber yourself.”
“Looks like a brakeman, doesn’t he?” sneered another, “especially as they are all obliged to wear a uniform when on duty.”
“He’s a nice big party of men, he is. Just such a one as the railroad folks would collect and send in pursuit of a train robber,” remarked the leader ironically. “Oh, no, my lad, that’s too thin. If you must tell lies I’d advise you to invent some that folks might have a living chance of believing.”
“It’s not a lie!” declared Rod earnestly and almost calmly; for though his face was quite pale with suppressed excitement, he was regaining control of his voice. “It’s the solemn truth and I’m willing to swear to it.”
“Oh, hush, sonny, don’t swear. That would be naughty,” remonstrated one of the men, mockingly.
Without noticing him, Rod continued: “If you will only take me back about a mile on the road I will show you the real train robber, and so prove that part of my story. Then at Millbank I can prove the rest.”
“Look here, young fellow,” said the leader, harshly, “why will you persist in such nonsense? We have just came over that part of the road and we didn’t see anything of any man lying in it.”
“Because I dragged him to one side,” explained Rod.
“Oh, well, you’ll have a chance to show us your man if you can find him, for we are going to take you back that way anyhow. Come on, fellows, let’s be moving. The sooner we get this young horse-thief behind bolts and bars the sooner we’ll be rid of an awkward responsibility.”
So poor Rod, still bound, was placed on Juniper’s back, and, with one man on each side of him, two in front and two behind, rode unhappily back over the road that he had traversed on an errand of mercy but a short time before.
As the little group disappeared, the woman in whose front yard this exciting arrest had been made turned to hasten the preparations for her children’s breakfast that she might the sooner visit her nearest neighbors and tell them of these wonderful happenings. She was filled with the belief that she had had a most remarkable escape, and was eager to have her theory confirmed.
When she finally reached her neighbor’s house and burst in upon them breathless and unannounced, she was somewhat taken aback to see a strange young man, wearing a pair of smoked glasses and having a very pale face, sitting at breakfast with them. The woman of the house informed her in a whisper, that he was a poor theological student making his way on foot back to college in order to save travelling expenses, and though he had only stopped to ask for a glass of water they had insisted upon his taking breakfast with them.
Then the visitor unburdened herself of her budget of startling news, ending up with: “An’ I knew he was a desp’rate character the minit I set eyes onto him, for I’m a master-hand at reading faces, I am. Why, sir,” here she turned to the pale student by whose evident interest in her story she was greatly flattered, “I could no more take him for the honest lad he claimed to be than I would take you for a train robber. No, indeed. A face is like a printed page to me every time and I’m not likely to be fooled, I can tell you.”
“It is truly a wonderful gift,” murmured the young man as he rose from the table and started to leave the house, excusing his haste on the plea of having a long distance still to travel.
“What a saintly expression that young man has!” exclaimed the visitor, watching him out of sight, “and what a preacher he will make!”
At the same moment he of the smoked glasses was saying to himself: “So that is what happened while I lay there like a log by the roadside, is it? Well, it’s hard luck; but certainly I ought to be able to turn the information furnished by that silly woman to some good account.”
In the meantime poor Rod was far from enjoying a morning ride that under other circumstances would have proved delightful. The sun shone from an unclouded sky, the air was deliciously cool and bracing, and the crisp autumn leaves of the forest-road rustled pleasantly beneath the horses’ feet. But the boy was thinking too intently, and his thoughts were of too unpleasant a nature for him to take note of these things. He was wondering what would happen in case the train robber should not be found where he had left him.
He was not left long in suspense, for when they reached the place that he was certain was the right one there was no man, unconscious or otherwise, to be seen on either side or in any direction. He had simply regained his senses soon after Rod left him, staggered to his feet, and, with ever increasing strength, walked slowly along the road. He finally discovered a side path through the woods that led him to the farm-house where, on account of his readily concocted tale, he received and accepted a cordial invitation to breakfast.
As for Rod, his disappointment at not finding the proof of which he had been so confident was so great that he hardly uttered a protest, when instead of carrying him to Millbank or any other station on the line where he might have found friends, his captors turned into a cross-road from the left and journeyed directly away from the railroad.
In about an hour they reached the village of Center where the young brakeman, escorted by half the population of the place, was conducted through the main street to the county jail. Here he was delivered to the custody of the sheriff with such an account of his terrible deeds, and strict injunctions as to his safe keeping, that the official locked him into the very strongest of all his cells. As the heavy door clanged in his face, and Rod realized that he was actually a prisoner, he vaguely wondered if railroad men often got into such scrapes while attempting the faithful discharge of their duties.
CHAPTER XXVI.
A WELCOME VISITOR
To be cast into jail and locked up in a cell is not a pleasant experience even for one who deserves such a fate; while to an honest lad like Rodman Blake who had only tried to perform what he considered his duty to the best of his ability, it was terrible. In vain did he assure himself that his friends would soon discover his predicament and release him from it. He could not shake off the depressing influence of that narrow room, of the forbidding white walls, and the grim grating of the massive door. He was too sensible to feel any sense of disgrace in being thus wrongfully imprisoned; but the horror of the situation remained, and it seemed as though he should suffocate behind those bars if not speedily released.
In the meantime the sheriff, whose breakfast had been interrupted by the arrival of the self-appointed constables and their prisoner, returned to his own pleasant dining-room to finish that meal. He was a bachelor, and the only other occupant of the room was his mother, who kept house for him, and was one of the dearest old ladies in the world. She was a Quakeress, and did not at all approve of her son’s occupation. As she could not change it, however, she made the best use of the opportunities for doing good afforded by his position, and many a prisoner in that jail found occasion to bless the sheriff’s mother. She visited them all, did what she could for their comfort, and talked with them so earnestly, at the same time so kindly and with such ready sympathy, that several cases of complete reformation could be traced directly to her influence. Now her interest was quickly aroused by her son’s account of the youthful prisoner just delivered into his keeping, and she sighed deeply over the story of his wickedness.
“Is it certain that he did all these things, Robert?” she asked at length.
“Oh, I guess there is no doubt of it. He was caught almost in the very act,” answered the sheriff, carelessly.
“And thee says he is young?”
“Yes, hardly more than a boy.”
“Does thee think he has had any breakfast?”
“Probably not; but I’ll carry him some after I’ve been out and fed the cattle,” answered her son, who was a farmer as well as a sheriff.
“Is thee willing I should take it to him?”
“Certainly, if you want to, only be very careful about locking everything securely after you,” replied the sheriff, who was accustomed to requests of this kind. “I don’t know why you should trouble yourself about him though, I’ll feed him directly.”
“Why should we ever trouble ourselves, Robert, about those who are strangers, or sick, or in prison? Besides, perhaps the poor lad has no mother, while just now he must sorely feel the need of one.”
Thus it happened that a few minutes later Rod Blake was startled from his unhappy reverie by the appearance of an old lady in a dove-colored dress, a snowy cap and kerchief, in front of his door. As she unlocked it and stepped inside, he saw that she bore in her hands a tray on which a substantial breakfast was neatly arranged. The lad sprang to his feet, but faint from hunger and exhaustion as he was, he cast only one glance at the tempting tray. Then he gazed earnestly into the face of his visitor.
Setting the tray down on a stool, for there was no table in the cell, the old lady said: “I thought thee might be hungry my poor lad, and so have brought thee a bit of breakfast.”
“Oh, madam! Don’t you know me? Don’t you remember me?” cried Rod eagerly.
Although startled by the boy’s vehemence, the old lady adjusted her spectacles and regarded him carefully. “I can’t say that I do,” she said at length, in a troubled tone. “And yet thy face bears a certain look of familiarity. Where have I ever seen thee before?”
“Don’t you remember one morning a few weeks ago when you were in a railroad station, and dropped your purse, and I picked it up, and you gave me a quarter for seeing you safely on the train? Don’t you? I’m sure you must remember.”
The old lady was nervously wiping her spectacles. As she again adjusted them and gazed keenly at the boy, a flash of recognition lighted her face and she exclaimed, “Of course I do! Of course I do! Thee is that same honest lad who restored every cent of the money that but for thee I might have lost! But what does it all mean? And how came thee here in this terrible place?”
Rod was only too thankful to have a listener at once so interested and sympathetic as this one. Forgetful of his hunger and the waiting breakfast beside him, he at once began the relating of his adventures, from the time of first meeting with the dear old lady down to the present moment. It was a long story and was so frequently interrupted by questions that its telling occupied nearly an hour.
At its conclusion the old lady, who was at once smiling and tearful, bent over and kissed the boy on his forehead, saying:
“Bless thee, lad! I believe every word of thy tale, for thee has an honest face, and an honest tongue, as well as a brave heart. Thee has certainly been cruelly rewarded for doing thy duty. Never mind, thy troubles are now ended, for my son shall quickly summons the friends who will not only prove thy innocence and release thee from this place, but must reward thy honest bravery. First, though, thee must eat thy breakfast and I must go to fetch a cup of hot coffee, for this has become cold while we talked.”
So saying the old lady bustled away with a reassuring little nod and a cheery smile that to poor Rod was like a gleam of sunlight shining into a dark place. As she went, the old lady not only left his cell door unlocked but wide open for she had privately decided that the young prisoner should not be locked in again if she could prevent it.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE SHERIFF IS INTERVIEWED
While this pleasant recognition of old acquaintances was taking place in the jail, the sheriff was sitting in his office and submitting to be interviewed by a young man who had introduced himself as a reporter from one of the great New York dailies. He was a pleasant young man, very fluent of speech, and he treated the sheriff with a flattering deference. He explained that while in the village on other business he had incidentally heard of the important arrest made that morning and thought that if the sheriff would kindly give him a few particulars he might collect material for a good story. Pleased with the idea of having his name appear in a New York paper the sheriff readily acceded to this request and gave his visitor all the information he possessed. The young man was so interested, and took such copious notes of everything the sheriff said, that the latter was finally induced to relax somewhat of his customary caution, and take from his safe the leather bag that had been captured on the person of the alleged horse-thief. The sheriff had opened this bag when he first received it, and had glanced at its contents, of which he intended to make a careful inventory at his first leisure moment. As this had not yet arrived, he was still ignorant of what the bag really contained. He knew, however, that its contents must be of great value and produced it to prove to the reporter that the young prisoner whom they were discussing was something more than a mere horse-thief.
While the sheriff was still fumbling with the spring-catch of the bag, and before he had opened it, there came the sounds of a fall just outside the door, a crash of breaking china, and a cry in his mother’s voice. Forgetful of all else, the man dropped the bag, sprang to the door, and disappeared in the hall beyond, leaving his visitor alone. In less than two minutes he returned, saying that his mother had slipped and fallen on the lowest step of the stairway she was descending. She had broken a cup and saucer, but was herself unhurt, for which he was deeply grateful. As the sheriff made this brief explanation, he cast a relieved glance at the leather bag that still lay on the floor where he had dropped it, and at some distance from the chair in which the young man was sitting.
Again he took up the bag to open it, and again he was interrupted. This time the interruption came in the shape of a messenger from the telegraph office, bringing the startling news of the recent train robbery and the daring escape of its perpetrator. The sheriff first read this despatch through to himself, and then handed it to his visitor, who had watched his face with eager interest while he read it. The moment he had glanced through the despatch, the young man started to his feet, exclaiming that such an important bit of news as that would materially alter his plans. Then he begged the sheriff to excuse him while he ran down to the telegraph office, and asked his paper for permission to remain there a few days longer. He said that he should like nothing better than a chance to assist in the capture of this desperate train robber, which he had no doubt would be speedily effected by the sheriff. He also promised to call again very shortly for further information, provided his paper gave him permission to remain.
The sheriff was not at all sorry to have his visitor depart, as the despatch just received had given new direction to his thoughts, and he was wondering if there could be any connection between the train robber, the young horse-thief, and the bag of valuables that lay unopened on his desk. He glanced curiously at it, and determined to make a thorough examination of its contents as soon as he had written and sent off several despatches containing his suspicions, asking for further information and requesting the presence at the jail of such persons as would be able to identify the train robber.
As he finished these, his mother, who had been preparing a fresh cup of coffee for Rod, entered the office full of her discovery in connection with the young prisoner and of the startling information he had given her. She would have come sooner but for the presence of her son’s visitor, before whom she did not care to divulge her news.
Although the sheriff listened with interest to all she had to say, he expressed a belief that the young prisoner had taken advantage of her kindly nature, to work upon her sympathies with a plausible but easily concocted story.
“But I tell thee, Robert, I recognize the lad as the same who helped me on the train the last time I went to York.”
“That may be, and still he may be a bad one.”
“Never, with such a face! It is as honest as thine, Robert. Of that I am certain, and if thee will only talk with him, I am convinced thee will think as I do. Nor will thee relock the door that I left open?”
“What!” exclaimed the sheriff; “you haven’t left his cell-door unlocked, mother, after the strict charges I gave you concerning that very thing?”
“Yes, I have, Robert,” answered the old lady, calmly; “and but for the others I would have left the corridor-door unlocked also. I was mindful of them, though, and of thy reputation.”
“I’m thankful you had that much common-sense,” muttered her son; “and now, with your permission, I will take that cup of coffee, which I suppose you intend for your young protegé, up to him myself.”
“And thee’ll speak gently with him?”
“Oh, yes. I’ll talk to him like a Dutch uncle.”
Thus it happened that when the door at the end of the jail corridor was swung heavily back on its massive hinges, and Rod Blake, who had been gazing from one of the corridor windows, looked eagerly toward it, he was confronted by the stern face of the sheriff instead of the placidly sweet one of the old lady, whom he expected to see.
“What are you doing out here, sir? Get back into your cell at once!” commanded the sheriff in an angry tone.
“Oh, sir! please don’t lock me in there again. It doesn’t seem as though I could stand it,” pleaded Rod.
The sheriff looked searchingly at the lad. His face was certainly a very honest one, and to one old lady at least he had been kindly considerate. At the thought of the ready help extended by this lad to his own dearly-loved mother in the time of her perplexity, the harsh words that the sheriff had meditated faded from his mind, and instead of uttering them he said:
“Very well; I will leave your cell-door open, if you will give me your promise not to attempt an escape.”
And Rod promised.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
LIGHT DAWNS UPON THE SITUATION
On leaving Rodman the sheriff was decidedly perplexed. His prisoner’s honest face had made a decided impression upon him, and he had great confidence in his mother’s judgment concerning such cases, though he was careful never to admit this to her. At the same time all the circumstances pointed so strongly to the lad’s guilt that, as he reviewed them there hardly seemed a doubt of it. It is a peculiarity of sheriffs and jailers to regard a prisoner as guilty until he has been proved innocent. Nevertheless this sheriff gave his mother permission to visit Rod as often as she liked; only charging her to lock the corridor-door both upon entering and leaving the jail. So the dear old lady again toiled up the steep stairway, this time laden with books and papers. She found the tired lad stretched on his hard pallet and fast asleep, so she tiptoed softly away again without wakening him.
While the young prisoner was thus forgetting his troubles, and storing up new strength with which to meet them, the sheriff was scouring the village and its vicinity for traces of any stranger who might be the train robber. But strangers were scarce in Center that day and the only one he could hear of was the reporter who had interviewed him that morning. He had gone directly to the telegraph office where he had sent off the despatch of which he had spoken, to the New York paper he claimed to represent. In it he had requested an answer to be sent to Millbank, and he had subsequently engaged a livery team with which he declared his intention of driving to that place.
Center, though not on the New York and Western railway, was on another that approached the former more closely at this point than at any other. To facilitate an exchange of freight a short connecting link had been built by both roads between Center and Millbank. Over this no regular trains were run, but all the transfer business was conducted by specials controlled by operators at either end of the branch. Consequently the few travellers between the two places waited until a train happened along or, if they were in a hurry, engaged a team as the reporter had done.
Soon after noon the owner of Juniper, the stolen horse, accompanied by the thick-headed young farm hand from whom the animal had been taken, appeared at the jail in answer to the sheriff’s request for his presence. These visitors were at once taken to Rod’s cell, where the young prisoner greatly refreshed by his nap, sat reading one of the books left by the dear old lady. His face lighted with a glad recognition at sight of Juniper’s owner, and at the same moment that gentleman exclaimed:
“Why, sheriff, this can’t be the horse-thief! I know this lad. That is I engaged him not long since to bring that very horse up here to my brother’s place where I am now visiting. You remember me, don’t you, young man?”
“Of course I do so, sir, and I am ever so glad to see some one who knew me before all these horrid happenings. Now if you will only make that fellow explain why he said I was the one who threatened to shoot him, and stole Juniper from him, when he knows he never set eyes on me before I was arrested, I shall be ever so much obliged.”
“How is this, sir?” inquired the gentleman, turning sharply upon the young farm hand behind him. “Didn’t you tell me you were willing to take oath that the lad whom you caused to be arrested and the horse-thief were one and the same person?”
“Y-e-e-s, s-i-r,” hesitated the thick head.
“Are you willing to swear to the same thing now?”
“N-n-o, your honor,—that is, not hexactly. Someway he don’t look the same now as he did then.”
“Then you don’t think he is the person who took the horse from you?”
“No, sir, I can’t rightly say as I do now, seeing as the man with the pistols was bigger every way than this one. If ’e ’adn’t been ’e wouldn’t got the ’orse so heasy, I can tell you, sir. Besides it was so hearly that the light was dim an’ I didn’t see ’is face good anyway. But when we caught him ’e ’ad the ’orse an’ the bag an’ the pistols.”
“When you caught who?”
“The ’orse-thief. I mean this young man.”
“And you recognized him then?”
“Yes, sir, I knowed ’im by the bag, an’ the ’orse.”
“But you say he was a much larger man than this one.”
“Oh, yes, sir! He was more ’n six foot an’ as big across the shoulders as two of ’im.”
Rod could not help smiling at this, as he recalled the slight figure of the train robber who had appropriated Juniper to his own use.
“This is evidently a badly-mixed case of mistaken identity,” said the gentleman, turning to the sheriff, “and I most certainly shall not prefer any charge against this lad. Why, in connection with that same horse he recently performed one of the pluckiest actions I ever heard of.” Here the speaker narrated the story of Rod’s struggle with Juniper in utter darkness and within the narrow limits of a closed box-car.
At its conclusion, the sheriff who was a great admirer of personal bravery, extended his hand to Rod, saying: “I believe you to be the honest lad you claim to be, and an almighty plucky one as well. As such I want to shake hands with you. I must also state that as this gentleman refuses to enter a complaint against you I can no longer hold you prisoner. In fact I am somewhat doubtful whether I have done right in detaining you as long as I have without a warrant. Still, I want you to remain with us a few hours more, or until the arrival of certain parties for whom I have sent to come and identify the train robber.”
“Meaning me?” asked Rod, with a smile. He could afford to smile now. In fact he was inclined to laugh and shout for joy over the favorable turn his fortunes appeared to be taking.
“Yes, meaning you,” replied the sheriff good-humoredly. “And to show how fully persuaded I am that you are the train robber, I hereby invite you to accompany us down-stairs in the full exercise of your freedom and become the honored guest of my dear mother for whom you recently performed so kindly a service. She told me of that at the time, and I am aware now, that I have not really doubted that you were what you claimed to be, since she recognized you as the one who then befriended her. I tell you, lad, it always pays in one way or another, to extend a helping hand to grandfathers and grandmothers, and to remember that we shall probably be in need of like assistance ourselves some day.”
