Munroe Kirk
Under Orders: The story of a young reporter

“Good-bye! Ta-ta! Must be off to the other side, don’t you know!”

An angry yell, a howl of derision, and finally a hearty cheer, burst from the reporters on the press-boat as they realized the abominable hoax of which they were the victims. On the float, from which Ben Watkins and his men also witnessed and fully comprehended the whole scene, a dead silence reigned. Their mortification was too great to find a fitting expression just at that moment, and it was probably on account of it that they lost the race the next day – for lose it they did by a boat’s length.

As for Myles, his astonishment was only equalled by his admiration for Billings’ genius and the admirable self-possession with which he acted his part. He heartily congratulated his companion as they sped down the placid river, followed by the clumsy press-boat and its shouting passengers.

“Lord Steerem,” as he was called for many days, had no difficulty in obtaining the forgiveness of his fellow-reporters, for they were only too glad that one of their number had thus got even with the ungentlemanly captain of the X – College crew.

CHAPTER IX
AN ACT OF FOLLY AND A CRUEL DISPATCH

THE ridicule that he had to endure on account of “Lord Steerem,” combined with the mortification of losing the boat-race, was more than Ben Watkins could endure. He was heard to declare at the beginning of the long vacation that he should never return to X – College again; and as for boat-racing, he had had enough of it to last the rest of his life. Then he disappeared, but where he went or what became of him none of his recent companions either knew or cared. They had had quite enough of Ben Watkins, with his mean disposition and overbearing ways, and were quite willing to lose sight of him.

As the summer wore on Myles Manning steadily increased his list of friends. His fellow-reporters on the Phonograph liked him because he was good-natured, obliging, and of a happy disposition. Those on the other papers liked him because, while he was keen in pursuit of news and would use every honest method to obtain a “beat” on them, he never forgot that he was a gentleman or descended to dishonorable means to accomplish his purpose. Mr. Haxall liked him because he did not shirk his work nor show the slightest disinclination to accept any assignment, no matter how unpleasant its nature.

When Van Cleef was given the enviable summer job of visiting the principal watering-places and resorts of the country, for the purpose of writing letters from them to the paper, Myles was assigned to his night station-work. He particularly hated this, but he attended to it as well and thoroughly as though he had chosen it, and only Mr. Haxall suspected, from a chance remark, how distasteful it was to him.

He studied the best models of newspaper-writing carefully, and before the summer was over developed an easy and pleasant style of his own. He was becoming recognized on the paper as a valuable man, but his salary still continued to be what it was at the first, and there was no intimation that it would ever be raised. The boy tried to send five dollars of it home every week, for family affairs were becoming worse and more discouraging with each day, but he found it very hard to keep up his neat personal appearance and also pay his weekly board-bills with the small sum that remained.

It would seem from all this that our hero must be a paragon of virtue; and, as some of those who have followed his fortunes thus far would say, “Altogether too good to live.” If this were the case this story might as well end right here, leaving the reader to imagine how Myles rose from one position to another until he finally became proprietor of the great paper on which he was now but one of the humblest workers. That it does not thus end was because the young reporter was possessed of two grave faults, either one of which, if unchecked, would eventually lead him to disgrace and ruin. He was in danger of becoming both a drunkard and a gambler.

Myles would have been terribly shocked if any one had said this to him, and would have indignantly denied it. At the same time he could not have denied that he was fond of all sorts of games of chance, nor that he rarely refused an offered glass of wine. He had fallen into the habit of drinking, now and then, while in college, because he was too good-natured to refuse an offered “treat,” and too generous not to “stand treat” in turn. Now, as a reporter, he found the temptation to do these same things increased a hundred-fold. It seemed as though almost every assignment on which he was sent led to accepting or offering drinks of some kind of liquor. He began to think that the gaining of interesting items of news depended largely upon his willingness to “stand treat” for, or be “treated” by, those from whom he sought it. Several times he had returned to the office flushed and noisy with wine, and once or twice Mr. Haxall’s keen eye had detected him in this condition. It was for this reason that the city editor had decided to wait a little longer and test him a little further before advancing his salary. He liked the young fellow and was watching him anxiously. He even went so far as to warn him of the dangers and temptations that beset a reporter’s path, though he did not make his allusions personal.

Thus matters stood with Myles Manning when one day, toward the end of September, Mr. Haxall called him to his desk and said,

“Mr. Manning, it now looks as though the most general and serious railroad strike this country has ever seen were about to break out. If it does it will be a very different thing from the horse-car strike in which you received your first lessons at reporting. That was only a local affair, while this will be of interest to the whole country. Of course the Phonograph wants the earliest news of it, and I am sending out half a dozen of our best reporters to important railroad points that seem likely to become centres from which the strikers will operate. At these points we must have our steadiest and most reliable men, of whom I count you as one. You will, therefore, start at once for Mountain Junction, the terminus of the Central and Western Divisions of the A. & B. Road. Send us full dispatches of all that happens, and remain there until relieved or recalled. Here is an order on the cashier for your expenses, and if you find yourself in need of more money you can telegraph for it. Remember that the Phonograph expects to receive the news – and all the news – from its reporters, but that it has no use for their individual opinions. Those are formed for it by its editors.”

With the promptness that Mr. Haxall liked so well Myles answered, “All right, sir. I think I understand,” left the office at once, and the next train westward bound over the A. & B. Road carried him as a passenger.

As Mr. Haxall turned again to his desk, after having started Myles on this important and perhaps dangerous mission, he said to himself:

“I hope I have done right to trust him with this job. He is entitled to at least one fair trial on big work and a chance for himself outside the city. At any rate we can’t get badly beaten whatever happens, for Rolfe, in Chicago, is certain to get hold of any thing important from the Junction and send it in on chance.”

Mountain Junction was a railroad town in every sense of the word. Here the main line of the A. & B. Road was met by an important branch, and here were located its car-shops, locomotive-works, and general repair-shops. It was in a coal and iron region, and several large mines were in operation not far from it. Its entire population, therefore, consisted of the families of railroad employés and miners. During the daytime it was a scene of busy industry and the air was filled with the crash of steam-hammers, the shriek of locomotive-whistles, and the rattle of trains. At night the noise was hardly diminished, while the sky was reddened by the glow from hundreds of furnaces, foundries, and coke-ovens.

The place did not look attractive to Myles, as, late in the afternoon, he surveyed what he could of it from the platform of the railway station at which the New York train had just dropped him, and he hoped he should not be kept there long.

He found a more comfortable hotel than he expected, and in it, after thoroughly cleansing himself from the dust and cinders of his long ride, he went down to supper. The seats at two long tables, extending the whole length of the room, were filled with the bosses and heads of departments of the many shops, mills, and foundries of the place. A chair had been reserved for him at a small table placed by a window, at which two persons were already busily eating. One of these uttered an exclamation of surprise as Myles entered the room, and, looking at him, the reporter saw his old rival, Ben Watkins.

“Well, of all things!” cried Ben. “What brings you here, Myles Manning?”

“Business,” answered Myles. “But I suppose you are here for health and pleasure.”

“Not much I ain’t,” growled Ben. “I am here to make my living. My uncle is superintendent of the Western Division A. & B. Road, and I am his valuable assistant.”

Although Myles had no love for Ben Watkins, especially as he recalled the nature of their last interview, he did not wholly dislike him, and, after all, it was pleasant to meet an acquaintance in a place where he expected to find only strangers.

Ben introduced the other occupant of the table, a supercilious-looking, pale-faced little man in uniform, as Lieutenant Easter. He belonged to a company of country militia, sent to this point from a neighboring town to be on hand in case of any serious emergency, and to his own intense satisfaction found himself, owing to the enforced absence of his captain, in command of the troops.

Ben Watkins ridiculed the precaution thus taken, and in answer to a question from Myles declared that he did not believe there would be any strike, in spite of all the talk. The lieutenant agreed with him, and, caressing his silky little mustache, said, with an absurdly pompous tone, that the mere presence of himself and his men was sufficient to prevent any such thing.

After supper Ben, who had displayed an unusual friendliness toward Myles ever since their meeting, asked him how he intended to spend the evening.

“I must go out and find the telegraph office,” replied Myles, “and make arrangements to have my dispatches sent through promptly. Then I thought I would look about the town a little.”

“Oh, well,” said Ben, “that won’t take you long, and when you come back you’d better drop into my room, No. 16. There isn’t any thing to do of an evening in this beastly place, but a few of us generally manage to put in the time somehow, and perhaps we can make it pleasant for you. Come and see, at any rate.”

Myles promised he would, and after receiving directions how to reach the telegraph office he went out.

A wickedly cruel expression swept over Ben Watkins’ face as he watched his recent rival out of sight.

“I’ll fix you, my young man. See if I don’t! I haven’t forgotten ‘Lord Steerem’ and the trick you played on me. If I don’t get even with you this very night I will before long. Oh, yes, Ben Watkins doesn’t forget in a hurry.”

Myles, on the other hand, as he walked down the street, was thinking.

“Ben doesn’t seem half a bad fellow, after all. He has decidedly changed for the better since last June, and I shouldn’t wonder if he proved a great help to me in this place.”

He found the telegraph operator to be a brisk, wide-awake young man, who said he was ready to handle any amount of press matter, and who also promised to send word to Myles if any thing important took place during the night.

Leaving the office Myles started toward the railway station, which was only a block farther on, to assure himself that every thing about it was still quiet. As he reached its broad platform he noticed there a child four or five years old, and wondered what such a little thing could be doing all alone in such a place at that hour, for it was now about eight o’clock. Stepping up to the child he asked:

“Well, little one, what is your name?”

“My name Bobby,” replied the child, gravely, lifting a roguish but self-possessed little face to look at the tall young fellow bending over him.

As the light from a reflector hung outside the station fell on it, Myles thought he had never seen a sweeter or more winning face on a child, and he at once became greatly interested in the little fellow.

“Well, Bobby, where do you live?” he asked.

“Over there.” And the child pointed vaguely into the darkness behind them.

“But what are you doing out here so late, and all alone? Don’t you know it is high time for all good little boys to be in bed?”

“I’s waiting for my papa.”

“Who is your papa?”

“Why, my papa is my papa,” answered the child, with an air of surprise that any one should ask such a question.

“Well, where is your papa, then?” asked Myles, looking about with the expectation of seeing a papa at no great distance.

“My papa is on the chu-chu cars.”

“The chu-chu cars?”

“Yes, over there.”

Here the child pointed to a freight train that had just hauled in on a siding beyond the tracks of the main line. Then crying out, “I see my papa,” the child jumped from the platform, and, before Myles could stop him, was running across the tracks toward a twinkling lantern that was approaching from the direction of the freight train.

All at once, with a cry of pain, the child fell directly across one of the glistening lines of steel.

Myles sprang toward him. As he did so the eastbound night express dashed, with a shriek and a roar, out from behind a round-house that had, until that moment, concealed it, and rushed with fiery breath and gleaming head-light toward where the child lay.

Myles’ heart ceased its beating, but he did not hesitate nor flinch, though it seemed impossible that he could get there before the iron monster. He did, though, with a second to spare, and snatched the child as he ran. The little foot was caught in the angle of a switch and the child uttered a sharp scream of pain as the strong young arms tore it away, leaving a tiny shoe behind. Both rolled together in the cinders, barely beyond reach of the cruel wheels that ground over the quivering rails. With a long wild howl, as of baffled rage, the night express swept on, leaving Myles and the child almost suffocated in its dust, and breathless with the rush of wind that followed it.

As Myles staggered to his feet, and lifted the limp form of the child whom he had saved at so imminent a risk of his own life, a man with a lantern on his arm sprang forward, and snatching the child from him, cried, in a tone of agony:

“It’s my boy! My only boy! My little Bob – and he’s killed! The last one; and he had to be taken too! Oh, it’s too hard, too hard!”

While Myles was trying to soothe him, the child, who was more frightened than hurt, put up a little hand, and, patting its father’s face, said:

“Bobby was coming to you, papa, but he fell down and got hurted. His foot hurts now.”

The father was Jacob Allen, one of the best-known men on the A. & B. road. He had just come in, as he did every other night at the same hour, in charge of a through freight train. At this point he was relieved, and could spend every other night in his home near the station. His wife and little Bob were in the habit of coming as far as the platform to meet him. But this evening Mrs. Allen was detained at home, and the child had slipped away alone unnoticed.

Great tears rolled down the man’s begrimed and weather-beaten cheeks as he tried to thank Myles for what he had done, and to tell him how dark and cheerless his home would be without its bit of golden-haired sunlight.

Myles made light of his service and escaped from the other’s overpowering gratitude as soon as possible, promising to call and see the child, and find out how he was getting along, on the morrow. Before he left the man had learned his name, and the last words he heard were:

“If ever the time comes when Jake Allen can lift a hand for you, or say a word that will in any way serve you, Mr. Manning, you may count on his doing it, so long as he has breath left in his body. And who knows but the time may come sooner than you think!” he added significantly.

As Myles, hot, bruised, and covered with dust and cinders, re-entered the hotel almost the first person he met was Ben Watkins, who exclaimed in astonishment at his appearance. Myles told him in a few words what had happened, and, pushing him into a chair, Ben said:

“Wait there a minute, old man, and I’ll fix you all right.”

He returned quickly, bringing a great tumbler of something that foamed and sparkled and tinkled with cool bits of ice. Without asking or caring what it was Myles thirstily drained the glass saying:

“That’s the very thing I wanted, and it was awfully good of you to think of it, Ben.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” replied Watkins. “Come up to my room and have another as soon as you get dusted off.”

Myles went to No. 16, where he found that Ben and Lieutenant Easter were playing cards. There he drank another glass of the cool, pleasant mixture that was “just the thing he wanted.” It made him feel so good that he was easily persuaded to take a third. “It is as mild as milk,” Ben said, “and wouldn’t upset a baby.”

Then he winked at his companion, who looked at Myles and winked back at Ben.

Myles now began to talk loud and boastfully. Then he joined in a game of cards and began to lose money and say that it was no matter, for there was plenty more where that came from. All the while Ben Watkins, with an evil smile on his face, kept urging him to take a sip of this or a taste of that; and after a time, when his money was nearly gone and he could no longer keep awake, they carried him to his own room and put him to bed.

The breathless messenger who came at midnight from the telegraph office to tell Myles that the great strike had begun failed to arouse him. The young reporter knew nothing of the exciting scenes taking place in the streets of the lawless town. Of all the important events, for news of which his paper depended upon him, he sent no dispatch.

Somebody, however, did send a dispatch that night to the Phonograph, and it was:

“Your reporter at Mountain Junction too drunk to send any news. Better replace him with a sober man.”

CHAPTER X.
MYLES MAKES A STARTLING DISCOVERY

THE cruel dispatch to the Phonograph, written for the express purpose of ruining Myles Manning, was the last one to go eastward that night. When the operator – much against his will, for he had taken a fancy to Myles, but compelled by the rules of his office to do so – had sent it flashing over the wires and received an “O. K.” in answer, his hand lay listlessly on the key for a full minute. He was thinking what a mean, contemptible thing had just been done, and was wondering if in any way he could undo it or avert its consequences. Yes, he believed something could be done! At any rate, he would try. The frank, pleasant face of the young reporter rose up before him. A fellow with such a face as that must be all right. He would at least take the responsibility of telling the Phonograph people that he was, and that that last dispatch was false. The key began to click beneath his nimble fingers, but its sound was faint and lifeless. The New York wire would not work. Quickly changing the connections on his switch-board the operator tried again, but with the same result. None of the eastern wires would work. Within that minute of hesitation they had all been cut.

Then a rush of business came in that had to be sent west to Chicago. The Associated Press agent got off a few hundred hurriedly written words announcing the beginning of the great strike. Two or three important private messages were put through, and then the western wires also ceased to work. Mountain Junction was cut off from telegraphic communication with the world.

Outside the office crowds of railroad men filled the streets. Some of them were noisy, others quiet and determined. Some of them uttered loud boasts and threats, others worked with the silent energy of those who have decided upon their plans and mean to carry them through. All trains arriving after midnight were side-tracked. Their locomotives were run into the round-house, where their fires were drawn. Heavy barricades were placed across the main line, the signal-lights were extinguished, and all traffic was effectually stopped.

When, late the next morning, Myles Manning awoke, it was with an aching head and a confused idea of where he was and what had happened to him. The town seemed strangely silent as compared with its noise and bustle of the day before. Could it be Sunday? No, Myles was certain that the preceding day had been Tuesday. What time was it? He pulled out his watch, and as he did so made the discovery that the roll of bills with which he was to have paid his expenses had disappeared. For a moment he thought he had been robbed. Then a dim memory of playing cards and losing money the evening before struggled into his mind, and the cruel nature of his situation began to dawn upon him. What had he done? What had he left undone? In his despair the poor boy sat down on the edge of his bed, and, burying his face in his hands, groaned aloud.

He was aroused by a knock, but before he could reply to it the door opened and Ben Watkins walked in.

“Hello, Manning!” he exclaimed. “What’s the matter? Why aren’t you out gathering in the items of interest that you reporters are always hunting for? There are dead loads of them floating round this place at present, I can tell you.”

“Oh, Ben,” groaned Myles, hoping for a bit of sympathy in his distress, “my money is all gone except a dollar or two in change. I must have lost it at cards in your room last night; but I can’t exactly remember. What shall I do?”

“Do? Why, brace up! You’ll get it all back again next time. I got pretty well cleaned out myself last night, but we’ll get even with that fellow yet. He’s got to stay here until the strike is over, and we’ll have no end of chances at him.”

“The strike!” echoed Myles, to whose thoughts the words gave a new direction. “Has the strike begun?”

“Well, I should say it had, and is well under way by this time. Why, it began at twelve o’clock last night. We had a big riot, but things are quieting down now, and both sides are awaiting developments.”

“And I haven’t sent a word of it to the paper!” exclaimed Myles, aghast at the thought of his neglected duty.

“Of course not. How could you, when all the telegraph wires were cut the first thing?”

“Were they, really?” asked Myles, in a slightly relieved tone. “So that I couldn’t have sent any thing, any way?”

“To be sure they were. Nobody was able to send off even a whisper. So you may rest easy on that score.”

This news lightened poor Myles’ burden of anxiety somewhat, though it did not lessen the force of his self-reproach. Perhaps this, his first serious neglect of duty, would never be known in the office, after all. At the same time Myles vowed that such a thing should never happen again.

After bathing his face in cold water he started out with Ben to study the situation. As they passed the hotel bar-room the latter suggested that they step in and take a “bracer.”

“No, I thank you,” said Myles, resolutely. “No more ‘bracers’ for me. After last night I am willing to pledge myself never to touch another drop so long as I live.”

“Oh, pshaw!” replied Ben. “Last night was nothing.”

“Perhaps not, as you look at it, but if my last night’s condition and its results were known in the Phonograph office it would prove a very important something to me. They have no use there for a fellow who lets liquor get the best of him.”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Ben. “Don’t try to make out that your own office is any better than any other. All newspaper men get drunk every now and then; everybody knows that.”

“Look here, Ben Watkins!” cried Myles, stopping short and turning upon his companion, while an angry flush mounted to his face, “you may be speaking from ignorance, and I hope you are. At any rate, I want you to understand that what you have just said is not true. I know a good deal more about newspaper men than you do. As a rule, they are gentlemen, from editors-in-chief down to reporters, and no drunkard can ever lay rightful claim to that title.”

“Oh, they can’t, can’t they?” remarked Ben, sneeringly. “Yet I suppose you consider yourself a gentleman.”

“I try to be one,” answered Myles, hot with indignation at the other’s significant tone and words.

“And hereafter I mean to associate only with those who are.”

So saying he turned and walked rapidly away, leaving Ben to stare after him with such an expression of intense hatred on his face as startled the passers-by who chanced to notice it.

Ben Watkins was a bad fellow. There was no doubt of that. Some people, and Myles Manning among them, suspected it, but nobody knew how bad he really was nor what evil he was capable of. As has already been shown, he could cherish a spirit of petty revenge, and would descend to any means to gratify it. In addition to this he was dishonest and recklessly extravagant. Although he had occupied his present position but a few months, he had managed to run into debt for one thing or another to a good many people. Some of these debts he had been obliged to pay, and, as his salary was not sufficient to meet them, he had appropriated to his own use several small sums of railroad money with which he had been intrusted, and altered the figures of his accounts to conceal the thefts. He hoped to win enough at cards to make good these sums before their loss should be discovered; but of late luck had been against him, and he had only succeeded in plunging more deeply than ever into debt. At the outbreak of the great strike his situation was so desperate that he had almost made up his mind to disappear from that part of the country and make a new start where he was unknown.

He dared not confide in or ask aid of his uncle, for the division superintendent was a stern man, with no sympathy or pity for evil-doers, especially those whose sin was that of dishonesty. He was absent from Mountain Junction when the strike broke out, attending a meeting of officers of the road, held in a distant city, and, as his assistant, Ben Watkins was left in charge of the office.

On the day of his uncle’s departure, Ben had received, and receipted for, an express package containing a thousand dollars of railroad money, which he placed in the office safe to await the superintendent’s return. As he put this package away he looked longingly at it and wished it were for him. How nicely it would help him out of his troubles! Still he dared not even open it, and with a reluctant sigh he laid it down and closed the heavy safe door upon it.

He had thought of this package more than once since, then, and even opened the safe several times to see if it were really there. Now, as, after parting from Myles, he sat at his uncle’s desk in the inner office, wondering if there was any way by which he could turn this strike to his own advantage, something happened that suited him exactly.

As his uncle’s representative he was visited by a committee of four from the strikers – a conductor, an engineer, a stoker, and a brakeman. Of this committee conductor Jacob Allen was spokesman. He stated the cause of the strike very clearly, and promised that the men should use no violence so long as none was used against them. They were willing to await quietly the action of the company, but there was one matter that ought to be seen to at once lest it lead to trouble. Many of the strikers in Mountain Junction occupied houses near the shops and works belonging to the railroad. They were obliged to pass close by these buildings in going to and from their houses. Several of them had been ordered to keep at a greater distance by the soldiers guarding the works. It would put them to great inconvenience to be obliged to take other roads, and this committee hoped Mr. Watkins would issue orders that they should pass unmolested, even close to the buildings, so long as they did so quietly and peaceably.

The assistant division superintendent listened impatiently to all the committee had to say, and then with an air intended to impress them with the importance of his position, he answered,

“I have already issued orders that no striker is to be allowed within a hundred feet of any works or shop belonging to this company and under my charge. If you do not want to be inconvenienced come in and report for duty. Until you do so the order will be enforced.”

“I am afraid it will make trouble, Mr. Watkins,” said Allen.

“That is your affair and not mine,” was the reply. “You must take the consequences of your own acts.”

Disgusted with the manner and words of the self-important young man the committee withdrew, and the bitterness of feeling on both sides was from that moment greatly increased. As a result of Ben’s refusal to grant this modest and reasonable request several slight encounters took place between the soldiers and strikers during the day, and by nightfall a sense of uneasiness and fears of more serious trouble overspread the whole town.

Ben Watkins watched all this with great satisfaction. It was exactly what he had hoped for, and he neglected no opportunity of making matters worse by word or action.

It was after ten o’clock that night when he stood before the safe in his uncle’s private office, prepared to commit an act at once bold and wicked. He had entered the building as stealthily as a burglar, taking many precautions to avoid being seen. Now, with trembling hands, he unlocked the great safe, and, securing the coveted express package, thrust it into a breast-pocket of his coat. He next pulled the books and papers from the safe and scattered them about the floor. Then, pouring the contents of a can of kerosene over a pile of newspapers and other inflammable matter in one corner of the room, he struck a match. As he was stooping to set fire to the ready fuel the sound of his own name, uttered in a loud voice from the door-way, caused him to drop the match and spring to his feet, trembling with the terror of detected guilt. He had been working by the dim light of a single lamp, and was so intent upon what he was about that he had not heard a step on the stair-way nor the door of the outer office open. Now, as he turned a face bloodless with fear in the direction of the voice and saw Myles Manning standing in the door-way, he uttered an inarticulate cry of rage and sprang toward him.