Cab And Caboose Part 7

"Very well, we will consider it settled, then, and I will send him over to you. I want you to do the best you can by him, and remember that from this time on I take a personal interest in his welfare, though of course you needn't tell him so."

Rod was more than delighted when Mr. Hill returned to the car, and offered him the position of brakeman on Conductor Tobin's train. He promptly and gladly accepted it, and tried to thank the superintendent for giving it to him; but that gentleman said: "Never mind expressing any thanks in words.

Express them by deeds instead, and remember, that you can win a certain success in railroad life, by keeping on as you have begun and by always being on time."

Thus Rod secured a position; a humble one to be sure, but one that he had sought and won wholly by merit. When Snyder Appleby heard of it he was filled with jealous anger. He declared that there was not room for both of them on that road, even if one was only a brakeman, and vowed that if he could manage it, his adopted cousin should find it harder to keep his position than it had been to win it.

CHAPTER XVI.

SNYDER APPLEBY'S JEALOUSY.

Bill Miner, the tramp, underwent some novel mental experiences on the day that Rod obtained his position. In the first place the young fellow, whom he had treated so badly, came to him while the superintendent was interviewing Conductor Tobin, and said:

"Look here, Bill, you and I suffered a good deal together last night, and you know it was mostly your fault that we did so; but I'll forgive you for my share of the suffering if you'll only confess the whole business to the superintendent. He is bound to find out all about it anyway; for he finds out everything; but he'll think a good deal more of you if you own up like a man. I would like to be your friend; but my friends must be honest fellows, who are willing to work for a living, not tramps and thieves. Now shake hands, and make up your mind to do what I have asked you."

Mr. Hill's return interrupted the conversation at this point; but it left Bill in an unusually reflective state of mind. No gentleman, such as his late companion in captivity evidently was, had ever shaken hands with, or asked a favor of him before. In all his hard young life no one had ever proposed that he should try honesty and hard work. Ever since he could remember anything, his a.s.sociates had advised dishonesty, and the shirking of work in every possible way. Yet, now that he thought of it, he had worked hard, all his life, at being dishonest. Now what had he to show for it? Nothing but rags, and poverty, and a bad reputation. He wondered how it would seem to be honest, and do honest work, and a.s.sociate only with honest people. He had half a mind to try it, just out of curiosity. The idea of he, Bill the tramp, being an honest workman, and perhaps, even getting to be called "Honest Bill," struck him as so odd that he chuckled hoa.r.s.ely over it.

"What are you laughing at?" demanded the brakeman who stood on the rear platform of the car to prevent his escape, and who looked suspiciously in at the door to discover the meaning of this novel sound from his prisoner.

"Nothing," replied Bill.

"Well, I wish I could get so much fun out of nothing as you seem able to,"

said the brakeman, who was particularly down on tramps. "I reckon the super'll give you something to laugh about directly that won't seem so funny," he added significantly.

But Bill did not mind this. He was too busy with his own thoughts. Besides he was used to such speeches, and was also listening to something else just at that moment. He was listening to the conversation between Rod and the superintendent. It certainly was a fine thing for a boy to be talked to as the greatest man he had ever known was now talking to his one honest friend, and to be offered such a position too. How he would like to be a brakeman; and, if he were one, how well he would know how to deal with tramps. He wondered what Mr. Hill meant by being "on time." Perhaps it meant being honest.

Then Rod left the car, giving him a nod and a smile as he did so. A moment later it was again whirling away toward New York, and the superintendent, coming to where the young tramp was sitting, said: "Now, sir, I'm ready to attend to your case. Are you willing to tell me what you know about this business of robbing our freight trains? Or do you prefer to stick to your lying story and go to prison for it?"

"I'll tell you all I know, if you'll give me a job for it," answered Bill, with a sudden resolution to try for Rod Blake's friendship, and at the same time to make a good bargain for himself if he could.

Regarding him keenly, the superintendent said: "So you want to be paid for being honest, do you? Well, I don't know but what you are right. Honesty is well worth paying for. So, if you will tell me, truthfully, all you know of this business I promise you a job that will earn you an honest living, and that you can keep just so long as you work faithfully at it."

"Honesty again. How often these gentlemen use the word, and how much they seem to think of it," thought Bill. However, as it seemed to promise something different from anything he had ever known, he determined to try it, and see what it would do for him. So he told, in his awkward fashion, all that he knew of the gang of tramp thieves, who had been for some time systematically robbing freight trains at several points along the road, and Mr. Hill listened to him with the deepest interest.

As a speedy result of this confession a freight clerk in the main office of the company, who had been giving secret information to the thieves, was discharged the very next day. Brown, the chief of the company's detectives, learned where and how he could discover the places where the stolen goods were hidden, and was thus enabled to recover a large portion of them. And Bill Miner, no longer Bill the tramp, found himself doing honest work, as a locomotive wiper and a.s.sistant hostler, in a round house, at a salary of one dollar and twenty-nine cents per day.

Certainly Rod Blake's influence was being felt on the New York and Western railroad.

After his conversation with Bill, the busy superintendent found time to stop his flying car at the station where Brakeman Joe lay suffering from his wounds, to speak a few kindly words to the faithful fellow, praise his bravery, and a.s.sure him that his full pay should be continued until he had entirely recovered from his injuries and was able to resume duty.

Late that afternoon the private car finished its long journey in the station at the terminus of the road, and Mr. Hill hastened to his own office. The moment he opened the door of the inner room a cloud of cigarette smoke issued from it, and a frown settled on his face as he hesitated a moment on the threshold. His private secretary, who had been comfortably tilted back in the superintendent's own easy chair, puffing wreathes of smoke from a cigarette, started to his feet. "We did not expect you to return so soon, sir"--he began.

"Evidently not," interrupted Mr. Hill dryly; "You are the young man recommended to me by President Vanderveer, I believe?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, sir, you will please to remember for the future, that neither in this office, nor in any other belonging to the company, is cigarette smoking among the qualifications required of our employees. If you must smoke during business hours, I will endeavor to fill your position with somebody who is not under that necessity."

For the next half hour Snyder Appleby sat at his own desk, for once in his life hard at work, and feeling that he had been decidedly snubbed if not actually insulted. He was even meditating the handing in of his resignation, when the superintendent again addressed him, but this time in a much more friendly tone.

"You are from Euston, I believe?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you happen to know a young man from there named Rodman Blake?"

"Yes, sir. I have an acquaintance there of that name," replied Snyder hesitatingly, and wondering what possible interest the "super" could have in Rod Blake. "The fact is," he added with an a.s.sumed air of frankness, "the young person in question is a sort of adopted cousin of my own; but circ.u.mstances have arisen that lead me to consider him an undesirable acquaintance."

"What are they?" inquired the superintendent bluntly.

"It would hardly be becoming in me to state them," replied Snyder, wishing he knew why the other was making these inquiries. "I should be very sorry to say anything that might injure the young man's future prospects."

"Had they anything to do with his leaving Euston, and seeking employment on this road?"

"Yes, sir; I think they had," admitted Snyder with apparent reluctance.

"Then I consider it your duty to tell me what they are," said Mr. Hill; "for I have just given young Blake the position of brakeman, and if there is any reason why he is unfit for it I should like to know it."

This aroused all the jealousy in Snyder's nature and he answered: "Well, sir, if you put it in that light, I suppose I must tell you that Blake's uncle, with whom he lived, turned him from the house without a penny in his pocket on account of his connection with a most infamous piece of rascality. But I beg that you will not question me any further on the subject. It is most painful to me to speak of even a distant connection in the terms I should be obliged to use in referring to Rodman Blake.

President Vanderveer knows the whole history of the affair, and can give you full information regarding it."

"The President has gone West on a business trip that will occupy some weeks," replied Mr. Hill, "so I could not ask him even if I were inclined to trouble him with so trifling a matter. I shall certainly investigate it, however, and if I find this young Blake to be a person of such a character as you intimate, I shall as certainly discharge him."

CHAPTER XVII.

ROD AS A BRAKEMAN.

In the meantime Rod, who was happily ignorant of this conversation, had been warmly welcomed in caboose number 18. There Conductor Tobin and the two brakemen listened with intense interest to all he had to tell them of his recent experiences. They in turn informed him of Brakeman Joe's condition, and of how the torpedoes had saved him from being run over by the night express.

He found his M. I. P. bag in the caboose where Conductor Tobin had been keeping it until he should hear from him. The conductor also handed Rod a ten dollar bill, that had been left for him by the brother of Juniper's owner, as a reward for his gallant struggle with the terrified horse in the closed car, and the subsequent care of him.

Feeling very rich and independent with this amount of money, of his own earning, at his disposal, Rod at once bought for himself a blue checkered shirt and pair of overalls, a cap, a pair of buckskin gloves with which to handle brake wheels, one of the great tin lunch-pails such as railroad men carry, and a blanket. Thus equipped he felt he was ready for any emergency. To these purchases he added a supply of provisions, and a basket of fruit that he intended to leave for Brakeman Joe when they should pa.s.s the station at which he was.

The train that they were ordered to take came along shortly before sunset.

When it again pulled out, drawing caboose number 18, and with Rod Blake, brake-stick in hand, standing on the "deck" of one of its rear cars, there was no happier nor prouder lad than he in the country. How he did enjoy the novelty of that first ride on top of a freight train, and what a fine thing it seemed, to be really a railroad man. The night was clear and cold; but the exercise of setting up brakes on down grades, and throwing them off for up grades or level stretches, kept him in a glow of warmth.

Then how bright and cosy the interior of the caboose, that was now his home, seemed during the occasional visits that he paid it.

Before the night grew dark, Conductor Tobin showed him how to place the two red lanterns on its rear platform, and the lights that showed red behind, green in front, and green at the side, on its upper rear corners.

Then he was asked to make a fire in the little round stove, and prepare a huge pot of coffee for the train crew to drink during the night. When there was nothing else to do he might sit up in the cupola, on the side opposite to that occupied by Conductor Tobin; but on this first night he preferred taking his own lantern, and going out on "deck," as the top of the cars is called. Here he was too far from the locomotive to be annoyed by its smoke or cinders, and he loved to feel the cool night air rushing past him. He enjoyed rumbling through the depths of dark forests, and rattling over bridges or long trestles. It was strange to roll heavily through sleeping towns, where the only signs of life were the bright lights of the stations, and the twinkling red, green or white semaph.o.r.e lights at the switches.

Some of the time he amused himself by holding his watch in hand, and counting the clicks of the car wheels over the rail joints; for he remembered having read that the number of rails pa.s.sed in twenty seconds is almost exactly the number of miles run by a train in an hour. If it had been day time he might also have noted the number of telegraph poles pa.s.sed in a minute, and calculated the speed of the train, by allowing thirty-five poles to the mile.