Bound To Succeed Part 14

"You will?" exclaimed Frank, doubly delighted. "I will gladly meet the trial for ten per cent."

"No," insisted Mr. Morton, "there's some expense and trouble, you not living in Riverton. You'll have to hire a rig to visit some of my former debtors. I've stated the proposition. Here, I'll write you out an authority to act as my agent."

Frank arose to leave the office half-an-hour later a satisfied and grateful boy. Mr. Morton had quizzed him considerably as to his future plans. He was down on the mail order business, for he had made a failure of it himself, but he said a good many enlightening things that at least warned Frank of the pitfalls in his business course.

"Please, one more word, Mr. Morton," said Frank, taking up his repacked suit case--"about those apple corers of yours?"

"Whew!" cried his host with a wry grimace, "have I got to think of that grand flare-up again?"

"There's a lot of them, you know, among the salvage?" suggested Frank.

"Yes, and there would have been a lot more if the fire hadn't stopped returns," declared Mr. Morton. "That was a bad investment."

"Did you patent the apple corer Mr. Morton?" asked Frank.

"No--yes--my attorney filed the caveat, I believe. I don't think we ever completed the patent transaction, and of course I shan't throw away any more good money on it."

"I was thinking," said Frank, "that with a little modification--improvement, you know? maybe it might be made to work satisfactorily."

Mr. Morton made such an excited jump straight towards his young visitor that Frank was rather startled.

"Young man," he said, very solemnly, "if you want me to lose all the really profound admiration I feel towards you for the business-like way in which you have managed things, don't, for mercy's sake, tell me that you have been bitten, too, with the fatal, crazy, irrational dream that you want to invent something!"

"Why," said Frank, with a smile, "is it as bad as that?"

"Worse!" declared Mr. Morton, with a comical groan. "Get the patent bee in your bonnet, and you're lost, doomed!" in a mock-hollow tone observed Mr. Morton, shaking Frank by the arm. "Drop it, drop it, or you're on the rocks."

"Then," suggested Frank, "you won't mind if I experiment with the corer?"

"Mind? I wish you'd sink it. I wish I could forget the money I lost in it. It's yours, though, if you want it, only never mention that an old dreamer of my name ever got dazzled with a toy like that. Stick to the straight business line, lad--mail order, if you must, but cut off the frills. Don't wreck your ship on gewgaws that are a delusion and a snare."

Frank left the office of the book concern in a happy, hopeful mood.

Everything had come out beyond his fondest antic.i.p.ations. He was glad he had been truthful and honest in the broadest sense of the word.

He went back to the railroad depot and left his suit case in the check room. A return train for Greenville left at two o'clock, but Frank wanted to see the city. Outside of that, he wished to visit one or two large mail order houses.

Frank employed six hours to grand advantage. He came to the depot feeling that the money he had spent was a good investment.

After a light lunch he sat down on a bench in the waiting room. He counted over the little pile of bank notes in his pocketbook with a pleased smile.

"Just think," he reflected, "I expected to pay Mr. Morton twenty, maybe thirty dollars for those lists and the routing outfit, and here I am going back home with practically all my original capital. Then, too, the collection of those bills at Riverton: why, it just seems as if fortune has picked me out as a special favorite."

Frank found the train he was to take would not leave for over an hour.

It was already made up and standing on its track, but still locked up and unlighted. Frank went outside and strolled up and down the dark platform alongside the train.

He was full of pleasing, engrossing thoughts, and did not notice a large, shrewd-eyed man who had followed him from the waiting room.

Frank was just returning to promenade back from the front end of the train, when a sharp rustle made him turn half around.

Instantly a pair of brawny arms were stretched out towards him. Both of his hands were imprisoned in the grasp of a sprawling fist.

"Hey, keep quiet, or I'll smash you," spoke a harsh voice. "Now then, young man, I want that money you've got in your pocket."

CHAPTER XI

A FRIEND IN NEED

"Hands off!" cried Frank.

His a.s.sailant laughed coa.r.s.ely. He had Frank firmly in his grasp.

Pushing him against the steps of one of the coaches, still gripping his two wrists in one hand he bent him back flat.

No one was in sight down the long, poorly-illuminated pa.s.senger platform. Frank at once guessed that the fellow had seen him counting over his money in the waiting room and had followed him to this spot.

Frank twisted his lower limbs to one side. His a.s.sailant was trying with his free hand to reach the pocket in which he had seen Frank place his little cash capital. Frank's movement disconcerted the would-be thief.

He grew angry as his captive wriggled onto one side, holding his pocket pinned up against the car step.

"Hi, you, turn over," growled the fellow.

He gave Frank a jerk and then slapped him hard against the side of the head. He managed to thrust his hand into his pocket containing the money.

"Ouch!" he yelled, just as his eager fingers touched the roll of bank notes. "Zounds! who did that?"

Whack--Frank caught this sound, preceded by the air-cutting whistle of some swiftly-directed object.

Whack--whack! the sound was repeated. Frank was free. His a.s.sailant had relaxed his grasp. His hands were now busy warding off mysterious blows in the face.

Frank darted to one side, his precious savings clasped by one hand. He stared in wonder.

Some one on the roof of the front pa.s.senger coach was leaning over its rounding edge. He was armed with a jointed piece of iron. This he plied whip-fashion. Twice its end had struck the robber's face, leaving two great red welts.

Then a spry, nimble form dropped from the car roof to the platform.

Frank made out a boy about his own age. He was dressed wretchedly, and was thin and weak-looking, and his face was grimed, but he must have had pluck, for, running straight up to the would-be thief, he plied the weapon in his grasp like a flail.

A sharp blow made the ruffian roar with pain. Holding a hand to his eye, he retreated down the platform, fairly beaten off.

"There's a police officer," said Frank suddenly, noticing a man wearing a uniform come running down the platform from the direction of the waiting room.

"Oh, pshaw!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed his rescuer, springing nimbly to the platform of the nearest coach.

"Hold on, hold on," cried Frank--"I want to thank you, I--"

But his mysterious friend had sprung across the car platform in a jiffy.

He was swallowed up in the darkness beyond.