The Yazoo Mystery Part 6

For a moment I thought he might have been indulging in some of the mixtures for which the Southern Metropolis is noted, but it was only the wine of youthful credulity that did the talking.

"That's good," I a.s.sented quickly. "When do you commence?"

"Oh, I have already started in. I took my first lesson this afternoon.

How did you make out? Can you get a job here?" There could be no doubt of his keen desire to have me stay near him.

"Yes--two or three things turned up to-day."

"And any one of them better than going to sea, I'll bet?"

"Yes, as far as the money goes," I replied, reservedly.

"Bully, old boy!" he shouted, seizing my hand in a vise-like grip. From then on the days were full of interest for both of us. Hiram's intention to master telegraphy became almost an obsession with him. From the moment he started in he seemed to forget everything else, and he worked as though his welfare in this world and the world to come depended upon his learning telegraphy in the shortest possible time. He ate, drank, inhaled, and absorbed the Morse system during every waking moment, and in less than three weeks he was subst.i.tuting for a sick operator on the Yazoo & Mississippi Railroad.

Strong's was undoubtedly an intensive nature; the height and especially the width of his forehead clearly indicated power of concentration, which, apparently, he had done nothing to build up. It was the same way when he met the girl, Anna Bell Morgan, and when an intensive man meets a comprehensive girl there is apt to be trouble, or a wedding, or something equally interesting. If he had spent money with the same tenacity of purpose that he set about learning telegraphy I do not wonder that Hiram Strong, Sr., became tired to the bone of his folly and would have no more of it.

After working a week as a subst.i.tute he blew into quarters one evening like a cyclone and gave me a thump on the back that made me grunt.

"I've got it!--I've got it!--I've got it!" he shouted, his face aglow and his eyes snapping.

This time I was sure he had broken over into old habits, especially when I well knew the lure of that celebrated New Orleans gin fizz to which all newcomers seemed to succ.u.mb. But again I was wrong. Strong had simply boiled over with exuberant spirits and he certainly had a jag on board. His ardor not in the least dampened by my hesitation, he grabbed my hand and shook it vigorously, then capered about in front of me as a boy in his teens might do.

"Congratulate me, Old Man, I've got it!" he roared. "The Yazoo Railroad has offered me a station. Quarrytown, Ben--Quarrytown, Louisiana, is my address after to-morrow!"

Of course, that was pleasant news to me and naturally I became as excited as he, so much so that I became fearful we would jeopardize our joint reputations for sobriety.

"There's only one thing, and you've got to fix that--eh? I don't know just how: I must have a surety bond for a thousand dollars and also three first-cla.s.s references--can we do it, Ben? Can you do it?" he repeated.

I hesitated a moment, wondering how I was going to get three first-cla.s.s references for a man who had spent a big part of his twenty-four years in riotous living, even to the point of being disowned. But there was no such thing as resisting him now.

"Oh, I don't have to wait for it; that can be done any time. But we can fix it some way, can't we, Ben?--I've got to," he added with emphasis.

"Yes, if we have a little time I think it can be arranged," said I, soberly, wondering somewhat over the details of the job. But he hardly waited for my a.s.surance before he seized me by the hand and began dragging me about the room.

"Come on, let's get out--out in the air--let's go out and have a good time," he commanded as he got my hat and jammed it down over my head.

"It's up the river, only about a hundred miles. You can come up Sunday.

It's big enough to have a day and night man, and I get the day job!" he added, loud enough for the whole house to hear him as we pa.s.sed downstairs to the street.

The following Sunday I went to see him. His station was delightfully located. There was enough level s.p.a.ce between the river and its very high bluffs for two long sidetracks convenient for the meeting of freight trains, which made a night and day operator necessary.

Hiram was expecting me and waved his arms wildly as I stepped off the train, but as he was busy rushing mail, express, and trunks into the baggage car, there was no chance for a handshake for the time being.

The depot looked like the cabin in which De Soto died from malaria and disappointment in 1539, although somewhat modernized and adapted to the needs of railroading.

Quarrytown was a rambling village around D. R. Morgan's General Store, and he was Anna Bell's father. Near the ancient depot was a considerable stone quarry, high clay bluffs, and the Mississippi River. Pickaninnies, starved dogs, mules, razorback hogs and malaria seemed to thrive along with the willow and pepper trees. The question of moment was how long would Hiram Strong, Jr., late of Broadway, Sherry's, and Delmonico's, be satisfied here? In the place of porterhouse steaks there would be sow-belly and corn bread, and a very dry section to live in.

As soon as the train was out of the way Hiram came rushing over to me.

"Ben, old man, you look good to me!" he exclaimed. "I'm getting away with it; haven't made a bull yet. Excuse me a little bit until I take this mail over, then I'm through." Thus he greeted me, enthusiastic and confident, then rushed away with the small mail bag to Morgan's store and the post office.

While awaiting his return I examined a two-wheeled baggage truck he had left standing after being loaded from the train. This contained an old trunk fastened with a clothes line, a bunch of bananas, some castings for a cotton gin, three boxes of chill-and-fever remedy, and five cases of dynamite.

As Strong hurried across the street his eyes shone with antic.i.p.ation from under the visor of a cheap cap that had replaced the jaunty derby.

"Say, how do you like my new station? All the white people here are mighty nice," said he, pushing the truck toward the depot.

I nodded approval and helped him to push the load up a steep incline into the freight house adjoining the ticket office.

"Do you get much of that stuff?" I asked, pointing to the dynamite.

"Yes--the quarry uses quite a bit, but it usually comes by freight and I don't have to handle it," he said, locking the door and leading the way to the ticket and telegraph office, located in a small bay-windowed room facing the track. We walked through a dingy waiting-room, in the center of which stood a wooden box, half filled with sand, which stood permanent duty as a cuspidor.

"You see, there is no hotel here, and Mr. Morgan has kindly taken me to board with him. The night man stays there also. Sunday is such a busy day, especially for freights, that I can't leave for my dinner, so they send it over to me. They'll send enough for two to-day. You won't mind, will you?"

Before I could reply the dispatcher called him and he began taking a train order while I sat down upon the one remaining sixty-nine-cent chair.

Opposite the bay-window was the regulation standing-counter, a ticket-cabinet, and little window opening out to the waiting-room, aged and dingy, especially the floor.

"That chair will go down with you some time," I suggested, when he turned about after copying the order,--and setting a red signal for the train.

"It looks as though it had served its full time," he replied, laughing, as he arose in answer to a tap on the waiting-room door. A darky boy with a market basket and a white pitcher stood grinning outside with our dinner.

"Ben, this dinner is not like some we've had, but it's better than the soup and mutton stew we got on the boat. Do you know, I would rather be dead and in torment than fire again on that boat, but I would have stayed, though, if you had," said he, opening the basket and setting out a liberal portion of fried chicken and hot biscuit on the small instrument table.

"We can tell only by comparison when we are well off," I replied.

"That's beginning to dawn on me, also," said he, dryly.

We had hardly begun eating when a big panting Mogul stopped with her nose opposite the window and the conductor came trotting up and signed for the orders. He gave one copy to the engineer and scuttled away.

"I was telling you about the white people here," he began, as we resumed eating. "Old Mr. Morgan, who runs the store and post office, is about the biggest man here, and his daughter, Anna Bell! Say, boy, she is as pretty as any woman I ever saw." Then, for some reason, he checked himself on the "Anna Bell" subject and became absorbed in the well-cooked dainties spread before us.

CHAPTER VIII

IT was not what Hiram Strong said about Anna Bell Morgan, but the tone in which he said it, that raised the big interrogation point in my mind.

Matters as they stood suggested the possibility that the youngster had plans in mind to "face the Governor" and that Quarrytown was a place quite good enough to settle down in if Anna Bell said the right word.

A chicken leg in one hand and a hot biscuit piled with jam in the other, he stood facing me, with an excited glitter in his eyes. Continuing, he said in a tense undertone:

"The night man is half gone on her, but he is a German--at least has a German name--and this place is intensely patriotic. As I told you, he boards there and when he is not sleeping he hangs----"

At this moment a north-bound freight rushed by, and with the noise of the locomotive and banging of the trucks over a poor railroad joint opposite the wide-open window, together with the slapping of brake beams, made further conversation impossible. He turned, watching it as though expecting something, and as the way car pa.s.sed something did happen. I heard a metallic thud on the floor, at which Hiram dropped his food and began to hunt for the thing that caused the noise. Finally, by getting down on all fours, he brought out from between the old iron safe and the letter press a rail spike to which was fastened by a rubber band a piece of white paper which he carefully unfolded. It was a train order reporting train No. 192 pa.s.sing at that time with two cars picked up at a siding below where there was no telegraph office. Strong sprang to his instrument and dispatched the message forthwith. I wondered if he realized the danger to himself from messages thrown in upon him that way. A railroad spike weighs about a pound, and while he was telegraphing I speculated on what would happen if one struck him, or if by any chance it struck one of the fifty-pound cases of dynamite that had come by express.

"The conductor drops his reports that way to save time," he said, calmly resuming his seat.