Top-Notch Magazine/Volume 14/Number 3/Signals Against Him/Chapter 6

ARDING'S plans for the night involved a ride to Crook City and a talk with the county sheriff in that town. The sheriff's name was Fordney, and Harding was well acquainted with him. He could turn over the money and the bullion receipt to Fordney, explain how they had come into his hands, and then leave the machinery of the law to work out the ultimate solution. If Chris Davy happened to be caught in the web, it would mean nothing to Harding one way or the other.

The station lights threw but a feeble glow over the spot where Harding climbed to the platform. He stumbled over something at the edge of the planks, and found it to be a velocipede car. The speeder had been taken from the tracks, and carelessly left where some railroad man stood a very good chance of tripping over it and doing himself an injury. Harding pushed the speeder to the other side of the platform and went into the station building.

O'Grady, a wizened little chap who had been three years on the night trick at Divide, was humped over his table, taking an order from the dispatcher. O'Grady was forty-three, and a bachelor. Some said that a certain maiden lady in Divide was the secret reason for O'Grady's sticking so long to that particular post and turning his back on better places and more pay. But that was O'Grady's business, and no one had the hardihood to take him to task for it.

Harding entered the operator's room and quietly took a chair. The dispatcher was telling O'Grady that there were no orders for Extra East, No. 56, Conductor Davy. The extra had a clear track to Crook City and would go through Divide without stop. All O'Grady had to do was to pull in his stop signal and report the freight out when it passed his window.

He cast a glance at the clock, manipulated his signal lever, and then whirled around in his chair. The presence of Harding seemed to surprise him.

“Billy, if it ain't!” he exclaimed. “Was it you got off the extra last night?”

“I was the fellow, Larry,” Harding answered. “It was late, and I made tracks for home.”

“Faith, lad, and I'm glad to see you.” O'Grady chuckled. “It's all over the division how you slipped up to Crook from Sweetbriar on a punctuation point that the Morse didn't take care of. Very humorous. How's the luck?”

“You ought to know by that, Larry, that the luck's changing.”

“Sure, I never thought of it in that light; but I guess you might call it taking a fall out of luck with a stuffed club. I suppose you ain't particular how it changes, just so it really changes, eh?”

“Any turn would be for the better.”

“Begorry, that's right. It's about time calamity quit doggin' your heels. You've had more than your share of it, boy. It's queer, though, how some railroaders are born with, the trouble sign and never get over it. Away back in the early days, there was Ortie McGraw, one of the best hands with an engine you'd ever find jn a month's travel. Hard luck hounded him from pillar to post. Niver a bit of blame could ye lay on him for any of the cussedness that came his way; but it was his fate to be always in the limelight when the jinx got busy. The company hung on to him, and only got ready to let him go when the rest of trainmen threatened to strike if he wasn't ditched. Poor divil! His engine went head on into a stock train on a misreading of orders, and he was dead when they got him out of the smash. He had got his discharge, you see, before the company had a chance to hand it to him.”

“Don't you think it's in a man to live down such a hard run of luck?” inquired Harding quietly.

“It's in you, lad, if it's in anybody; but”—and O'Grady shook his head ominously—“it's far and away too deep a subject for a mere night man to discuss.”

There came, at that moment, a distant rattle of the rails, and the operator leaned over his table to get a look along the track.

“Here's the extra now,” said he, “and she'll go through here like a singed cat. Davy's going down to Crook after more iron for the construction gang.”

He began calling the dispatcher to report, and Harding, heeding a sudden impulse, left the station and got out on the platform. Why did he go? Why did he lean back in the shadows as the empty flats sailed past and bend keen eyes on the lighted waycar? He could have given no logical reason for this move. He simply had a curiosity to watch Davy's waycar as it flung past.

A man was standing on the rear platform in the crimson glow of the tail lights. Behind him, the white of the oil lamps threw his form into bold relief. Harding had a good look at the fellow, although a fleeting one, and he was not Davy. He was a man in a leather cap and a reefer jacket—the one Davy had referred to as Dan.

Harding gave a start, and then he stood staring until the tail lights vanished and the rush and roar of the freight died away in his ears. What sort of a continuous engagement was that man in the leather cap playing with Chris Davy? Why was the conductor, dead against orders, hauling the fellow up and down the division?

As soon as Harding could get a grip on his faculties, he bolted into the operator's room. Grabbing a pad of telegraph blanks from a shelf, he began writing a message.

“What's the matter with you, Billy?” queried the night man. “You look as though you'd seen a ghost!”

“Never mind about that, Larry,” answered Harding, shoving the telegram at him. “Get that on the wires as soon as the Old Harry will let you, and rush it collect.”

O'Grady took the telegram, stared at it, and gave vent to a low whistle. “Distinctly hostile, or I'm a Fenian. For the love of Mike, Billy, what's doing?”

“You'll know all about it later—I can't tell you anything now.”

O'Grady had to bottle up his curiosity, although it required an effort, and once more dropped a hand on the key and began pounding the call for Crook City. Then, having secured the operator, he clicked off the following:

Having finished with the message, O'Grady leaned back in his chair and stared hard at William Horace Harding. “Gone into the gumshoe business, Billy?” he inquired.

“No,” answered Harding, and grinned; “it's only the way the luck is breaking. I ought to have an answer to that in an hour or two—after Fordney gets his man.”

“When are you going down?”

“I was thinking of going with Kent. Milly told me he takes the fast mail and express into Crook to-night.”

“I was' reading about that holdup,” pursued O'Grady. “It happened last night, and you have been here in Divide all day. How in the fiend's name do you happen to know who bowled Prebble over? Was you expecting him to pass in the caboose of the Extra East? Is that why you went out to watch?”

“I wasn't expecting a thing,” maintained Harding stoutly, “and I can't tell you why I went out to watch. It's the luck, I'm telling you, Larry. It has turned squarely around, and is coming my way. Fortune has grabbed me by the elbow, and whichever way I'm pulled, that's the way I go.”

“You've got 'em, I guess, me boy,” muttered the night man, wagging his head. “Twenty-eight, this night, is a real treasure train. There's one shipment alone of sixty thousand in bullion coming from Herkimer and the mines there. The clean-up was a few days ago, and Kent never hauled so much treasure as he's doing this run. Billy, don't ride with him! If ye do, lad, something might happen!”

“So you've got a little of that foolishness tucked away under your own hide, have you?” queried Harding grimly. “Maybe you think Kent won't let me ride with him?”

“Sure, he'll let you—there are family reasons, Billy,” and O'Grady winked; “but is it right to lay him open to trouble by hoodooing his run?”

“Look here,” returned Harding, with a sudden thought, “why can't I go down the mountain on that speeder out on the platform? Who uses it?”

“The section boss takes the speeder out, now and then. He used it this evening, but he may not be using it again for a month.”

“May I take it?”

“Better ride with Kent and hoodoo him; if you don't, more than likely you'll be afther hoodooing yourself. Say, Billy, I wouldn't go over those ugly curves and trestles on that thing, in a night as black as this, for all the money on Twenty-eight. That's right.”

“May I take the speeder?”

“Why, if ye insist on breaking your neck, sorry a bit will I stand in your way. But you're crowding your luck too far. You'll have the side of the hill to yourself for several hours, if that's any satisfaction to you.”

“I've got to get to Crook as soon as possible. If it wasn't for waiting to hear from Fordney, I'd start now.”

Harding lighted his pipe and impatiently walked the floor. The hands of the clock touched eleven, and then eleven-thirty, before Crook City called Divide. Then Harding listened while this came over the wire':

This was signed by Fordney; Harding was at once thrown into a quandary.

“Your eyes played you false, Billy,” hazarded O'Grady. “You only thought you saw the man in the leather cap and reefer jacket.”

“I'll take my oath he was standing on the rear platform of the waycar!” declared Harding emphatically,

“But Davy says”

“No matter what Davy says, I know I'm right.”

“Say, but ye're hot on the trail, anyhow. What answer are you going to send Fordney?”

“Wire him that I'm coming with the explanation—that it's too long for the wire, and too complicated. Just so he'll know I'm not fooling with him, say that when I come I'll bring Prebble's money. And, Larry,” added Harding earnestly, “keep all this to yourself, mind. It's Western Union business, and the railroad has nothing to do with it.”

“Sure, I'll keep it under my hat, Billy,” sighed O'Grady, “but you've got me going, for fair. Before I send the message I'll just help you get the speeder on the rails. And I'll loan ye a lantern. It's a poor light for those twenty twisting miles, but maybe it'll help you to save your fool neck. Just a minute, lad.”

The night man took a spare lantern down from a hook, shook it to make sure there was oil in it, then lifted the globe and touched a match to the wick. After that, he led the way to the platform.

“Now to get ye started, Billy,” he said ominously, “and if trouble comes of this foolishness, don't never say ye wasn't warned beforehand.”

The velocipede was pushed across the planks and straightened on the rails. Harding bound the lantern to the front of the little car with a piece of rope, then settled himself in the seat, feet and hands on the propelling levers. O'Grady gave him a push, shouted a lusty “Good-by and good luck!”—and Harding was off.