Signal in the Dark Part 34

Inside the box car, the two men were rolling over and over, each fighting desperately to gain the advantage. Penny could not see what was happening. Forced by the speed of the train, she let go her hold. Her feet were swept from beneath her, and she stumbled and fell along the right of way.

Before she could scramble to her feet, her father had caught up with her.

"Are you hurt?" he asked anxiously.

Penny's knees were skinned but the injury was so trifling she did not speak of it. Her one concern was for Salt.

"Oh, Dad," she said, grasping his arm nervously. "What are we going to do? That brute may kill him!"

Mr. Parker shared Penny's concern, but he said calmly: "There's only one thing we can do now. We'll have the station agent send a wire to the next station. Police will meet the train and take Webb into custody."

"He may not be on the train by the time it reaches the next town! Oh, Dad, Salt may be half killed before then!"

Penny and her father stared after the departing freight. The engineer whistled for a high trestle spanning a narrow river, and the train began to rumble over it.

Suddenly Penny stiffened into alert attention. In the doorway of the open boxcar, she could see the two struggling men. Mr. Parker, too, became tense.

As they watched fearfully, one of the men was pushed from the car. He rolled over and over down a steep embankment toward the creek bed.

The other man, poised in the doorway an instant, then just before the car reached the trestle, leaped.

CHAPTER 23 _ESCAPE BY NIGHT_

Fearful for Salt, Penny and her father ran down the tracks toward the railroad trestle. Scrambling and sliding down the slippery embankment, they saw Salt lying in a heap near the edge of the creek.

Webb, his ankle injured, was trying to hobble toward a corn field just beyond the railroad right of way.

"Get him! Don't let him escape!" Salt cried, raising himself to his knees.

Although alarmed for the photographer who appeared to have been injured by his leap, Penny and her father pursued Webb. Handicapped as he was with an injured ankle, they overtook him by the barbed wire fence.

Already badly battered from the fight, and bruised as a result of his fall from the train, the man put up only a brief struggle as Mr. Parker pinned him to the ground.

"Quick!" the publisher directed Penny. "See what you can do for Salt. He may be badly injured."

The photographer, however, had struggled to his feet. He stood unsteadily, staring down at his torn clothing.

"Are you all right?" Penny asked anxiously, running to his side.

"Yes, I'm okay," he said, gingerly touching a bruised jaw. "Boy! Is that lad a sc.r.a.pper? Did you see me push him out of the boxcar?"

"We certainly did, and we were frightened half to death! We thought you would be killed."

Hobbling over to the fence, Salt confronted his a.s.sailant. Webb's face was a sorry sight. His nose was crimson, both eyes were blackened and his lip was bleeding.

"You may as well come along without making any more trouble," Mr. Parker told him grimly. "Professor Bettenridge has been taken into custody, and the entire fraud has been exposed."

"I figured that out when I heard the mine go off," the man returned sullenly. "Okay, you got me, but I was only carrying out orders. I worked for Professor Bettenridge, but any deals he made were his business, not mine."

"That remains to be seen," replied Mr. Parker. "We'll let you talk to the sheriff. Move along, and no monkey business."

Having no weapon, Salt and the publisher walked on either side of the prisoner, while Penny brought up the rear.

"You don't need to hang onto me," he complained bitterly. "I ain't going to try to escape."

"We're sure you won't," returned Salt, "because we'll be watching you every step of the way."

At first, as the four tramped down the tracks toward the station, the prisoner showed no disposition to talk. But gradually his curiosity gained the better of him. He sought information about Professor Bettenridge's arrest, and then tried to build up a story that would convince his captors he had only been an employee hired on a weekly basis.

"I suppose you know nothing about the _Snark_ either," Penny observed bitterly. "After Ben Bartell and I pulled you out of the river, you repaid us by stealing his watch."

To her astonishment, the man reached in his pocket and gave her the timepiece.

"Here," he said gruffly, "give it back to him. I won't need it where I'm going."

"Why did you take the watch when it didn't belong to you?" Penny pursued the subject. "Especially after Ben risked his life to pull you out of the river."

"Oh, I don't know," the man answered impatiently. "I needed a watch, so I took it. Quit askin' so many questions."

"Why were you pushed off the _Snark_?" Penny demanded, refusing to abandon the subject.

She did not expect Webb to answer the question as he had refused to explain at the time of his rescue. To her surprise, he replied grimly:

"They tried to get rid of me. We had a disagreement over a job they wanted me to pull."

"What job was that?" Mr. Parker interposed.

"Dynamiting the Conway Steel Plant."

The words produced a powerful effect upon the publisher, Salt, and Penny.

At their stunned silence, Webb added hastily:

"You understand, I didn't do it. They got sore because I refused to pull the job."

"Why, that doesn't make sense," Penny protested. "Evidently, you are mixed up on your dates, because the Conway Plant explosion took place before the night we rescued you from the water."

"Sure, I know," the man muttered, trying to cover his slip of tongue.

"They were afraid I'd squawk to the police and that was why they pitched me overboard."

"Who pulled the job?" Salt asked.

"I don't know. Someone was hired to set off the explosion."

Webb's story was accepted but not believed. Penny knew from previous experience that the man was more inclined to tell a lie than the truth.

Convinced that he might have been implicated in the explosion, she suddenly recalled his visit to the office of Jason Cordell. Could his call there have any hidden significance?