Bart Stirling's Road to Success; Or, The Young Express AgentChapman, Allen
General
Bart Stirling's Road to Success; Or, The Young Express Agent
Chapman, Allen
Boys -- Juvenile fiction; Express service -- Juvenile fiction; Railroads -- Juvenile fiction
The young express agent did not have to search for the stolen money
package. It protruded from Wacker's side pocket. As he glanced it over,
he saw that it was practically intact. Wacker had torn open only one
corner, sufficient to observe its contents. Bart placed the envelope in
his own pocket.
"I'm fainting!" declared Wacker.
Bart crossed under the bumpers to the other side of the freights. He
swept the scene with a searching glance, finally detected the shifting
glow of a night watchman's lantern, and ran over to its source.
He knew the watchman, and asked the man to accompany him, explaining as
they went along that Lem Wacker had got caught between two freights, was
held a prisoner in the bumpers with his foot crushed, and pointed the
sufferer out as they neared the freights.
Wacker by this time had sunk flat on the bumpers, his limbs twisted up
under him, but he managed to hold on to the brake rod. He only moaned
and writhed when the horrified watchman spoke to him.
"I'll have to get help," said the latter. "They will have to switch off
the front freights to get him loose."
The watchman took out his whistle and blew a kind of a call on the
telegraphic system. Two minutes later Bart saw McCarthy hurriedly
rounding a corner of the freight depot, and advanced towards him.
The young express agent briefly and confidentially imparted to his old
friend the fact that Lem Wacker had tried to steal some money from the
express office, and had got his deserts at last.
"Get him clear of the bumpers," said Bart, "carry him to the express
office, call for a surgeon, and don't let him be taken away from there
till I show up."
"What's moving, Stirling?" inquired McCarthy.
"Something very important. Wacker seems to be punished enough already,
and I do not know that I want him placed under arrest, but he knows
something he must tell me before he gets out of my reach."
"Then you had better wait."
"I can't do that," said Bart. "I have a special to deliver, on personal
orders from Mr. Leslie, the express superintendent."
Bart consulted his watch. It was five minutes of eleven.
"Only a little over an hour," he reflected. "I want to hustle!"
He saw to it that the recovered package was safely stowed in an inner
pocket, and started by the shortest cut he knew from the yards.
Bart did not even pause at the express office, where he had left Colonel
Harrington. He ran all the way half across the silent, sleeping town,
and never halted until he reached the Haven homestead.
He did not go to the front door, but, well acquainted with the
disposition of the household, paused under a rear window, picked up a
handful of gravel, threw it against the upper panes, and gave three low
but distinct whistling trills.
He could hear a prompt rustling. In less than forty seconds Darry Haven
stuck his head out of the window.
"Hello!" he hailed, rubbing his eyes.
"Come down, quick," directed Bart. "Bring Bob, too."
"What's the lark, Bart?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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