The Automobile Girls at Chicago: or, Winning Out Against Heavy Odds

Laura Dent Crane

The Automobile Girls at Chicago; Or, Winning Out Against Heavy Odds

CHAPTER I

THE MAN IN SECTION THIRTEEN

BARBARA THURSTON awakened with a violent start.

"Wha – a-at is it?" she muttered, then opened her eyes wide. In the darkness of the Pullman berth she could see nothing at all save a faint perpendicular line of light at the edges of the curtains that enclosed the section.

"I – I wonder what made me wake up so suddenly?" Barbara put out a groping hand. The hand came in contact with Mollie Thurston's face. Mollie brushed it away, muttering irritably in her sleep. Then all at once Barbara discovered what had awakened her. Close at hand she heard the voices of two men. They were conversing in low, cautious tones.

"I tell you I'll crush him! I'll crush them both. I'll make beggars of them!" declared one of the men in a slightly heightened tone.

The train had stopped, as Barbara realized at that moment. Otherwise she might not have been able to hear the words so plainly. The girl shuddered at the tone of the speaker's voice more than at the words themselves. She drew the curtains aside a little and peered out. It was then that she discovered by the light reflected from the adjoining section that the berths next to her had not been made up. Two men were sitting in the double seat within a few inches of where her head had lain. She was unable to see the men, nor did Barbara recognize either of the voices. Their conversation could be of no possible interest to her, she told herself. Still for some reason that she did not stop to analyze, the girl lay back with half-closed eyes, listening. She listened not because she wanted to hear, but for the reason that she could not well help overhearing the conversation in the adjoining section.

At Barbara's side Mollie Thurston lay sleeping peacefully. As for Barbara, she was now wholly awake, all thought of sleep having left her.

"You mean you will crush them financially?" suggested the second speaker.

"Body and soul!"

"Do you mean to say that you would crush a human being – perhaps drive him to do desperate things – merely to gratify your love of money and power? Is that what you mean, Nat?"

"That is partly my meaning. Yes, I want power. Already they call me the 'Young Napoleon of Finance,' but that is not enough. Those men must be driven to the wall, for in crushing them I shall be increasing my own power as well as taking theirs from them. I'd crush them just the same if I knew it to be my last conscious act on earth."

Barbara Thurston gazed into the darkness wide-eyed. She knew she was listening to the resolve of a desperate man, though she had not the slightest idea what might be his plans for accomplishing his purpose.

"Why do you hate them so?" questioned the second voice. "What have they ever done to you?"

The first speaker paused a few seconds before replying, then in a voice tense with suppressed emotion he answered slowly:

"Hate them? That isn't exactly the word, but it will answer. I hate – because he turned me out when I was making my start. Turned me out into the street, Jim. Do you understand? Turned me out without a dollar in my pocket when I was trying to make something of myself. I hate the other man because he is working with him. They are pulling together and they must go down together. Let them down me if they can. I'll make beggars of both of them!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Barbara Thurston in a tone that plainly must have reached the two men.

The terrible threat had struck her almost with the effect of a blow. A name had been mentioned that stirred her to instant alertness, a name almost as familiar to the girl as her own.

"What was that?" demanded the voice that had uttered the terrible threats.

"Someone dreaming."

"Let them dream. As for me, I never sleep these days. I leave that to others. Jim, you watch me. I'll be a king of finance yet. I'll be the Napoleon in reality before I have done. And what is more, those men will never know where their opposition comes from until after the blow has fallen. I'll see to it that they know then, however. Watch me, but keep silent. Not a word, not a breath of what I have told you. I've said too much, but I had to talk to some one I could trust. Now I'm all right again."

"Never fear, Nat."

"And I'll give you a tip, boy. Buy wheat."

Bab could not catch all of the sentence. She caught the word "wheat," but a word ahead of that she missed.

"Thank you, I never gamble," replied the second man. "I'm sure to lose if I do, so I have always steered clear of speculation. But I'm sorry for the Old Man if you are after him. I'm sorry for anyone that you visit your displeasure upon. I should hate to have you get after my scalp."

"What's – who's talking in this berth?" demanded Mollie, sitting up suddenly.

"Sh-h-h!" warned Barbara, laying a restraining hand on her sister's lips. "It isn't in this berth. It's in the next one. Go to sleep."

"Is – is Grace asleep?"

"Yes. Be quiet."

Grace Carter, the girls' companion, occupied the berth above them. As no sound had been heard from that quarter it was reasonable to suppose that Grace had not been awakened by the conversation of the two men.

Barbara was trembling violently. She was profoundly affected by what she had overheard. Yet while she had heard a name mentioned and a threat made against the owner of that name, she was in the dark as to the meaning of the threat – she did not understand what it was that this man proposed to do. Her ears were now strained to catch every word uttered on the other side of the partition.

"I shall watch the market with interest, Nat," the second speaker was saying. "I don't say that I approve of your way of getting revenge, but that is your own affair. Remember, however, that people who play with fire are sooner or later sure to be singed."

The other man laughed.

"My feathers were singed a long time ago, Jim," he said.

"Well, here's where I get off. Good luck, old man, and good night."

The train had moved forward slowly, halting at a station a short distance from the last stop. The man who had made the threats accompanied his friend to the door of the car, then instead of returning to the seat he had occupied with his friend, he seated himself opposite the section occupied by the girls.

Bab, determined to know who the man was, peered cautiously between the curtains.

"It's the man in section thirteen!" she exclaimed. Then she realized that she had expressed her thought aloud.

The man wheeled sharply, his face hardening, his eyes narrowed to mere slits as he gazed questioningly about him. He saw no one, for Barbara had quickly withdrawn her head, holding the curtains firmly so that he should observe no movement of them. The girl had learned that which she was so curious to know. She now knew the man who had uttered the threats. He had occupied the section opposite to her all during the previous afternoon, though she did not recall having heard him speak nor did she know his name. The man across the aisle reached for his bag, from which he selected a package of papers. These he regarded thoughtfully for a full minute, after which he opened the package, taking several documents, returning the rest to the bag. Then after drawing his cigar case from the bag, he rose and strode rapidly toward the rear of the car, where the smoking compartment was located.

"So that's the man. I'm glad I know what I do, even though I do not know what it is all about. I must ask Mr. Stuart about that man," mused Barbara. Consulting her watch, she found that it was nearly one o'clock in the morning. The girl shivered, snuggled into her blankets and fell asleep. It was December and the air was chill. Barbara had not been asleep long when she was awakened by a violent jolt, then a bumping that shook her until her teeth chattered. The sleeping car swayed giddily from side to side as it moved slowly forward with a grinding, crunching sound. Then the car gave a lurch that hurled Bab violently against her sister.

Mollie uttered a little cry of alarm. Bab threw her arms about her, hugging Mollie in a tight embrace to save her sister from being thrown against the side of the car. As yet Bab had not had time to think of what was occurring outside. But now she began vaguely to realize that the Pullman car had left the rails. An accident had occurred. Shouts and cries of alarm from various parts of the car testified to the terror of other passengers who were being buffeted about by the rocking sleeper. All at once the forward end of the car appeared to plunge down head first, as it were. The two girls were tumbled into one end of their berth where for a few agonizing seconds both were nearly standing on their heads.

Mollie screamed again.

"Don't!" commanded Barbara sharply in a half-smothered voice, holding her sister even more tightly than before.

"We're going over!" cried Mollie.

Barbara had managed to straighten out and was now bracing herself with all her might. She had thus far made no effort to get out into the aisle. She was a girl quick to think and act in an emergency. She had reasoned that they would be safer in their berth than out of it, for they could not be buffeted about so much in the narrow berth as they might be in the aisle where they could hear the thud of bags and other articles falling from the various berths or being hurled from one side to the other of the car.

The lights suddenly went out. Fortunately the train had not been moving very fast when the accident occurred. Now it gave a sudden, sickening lurch and lay over on its side to the accompaniment of crashing glass as the windows were burst in and renewed cries of fear came from the passengers.

The broad windows of the Thurston girls' berth burst in, sending a shower of glass over them. Both received bruises as well as slight cuts from the broken glass that had showered over them, though Barbara had borne the brunt of the shock, managing to keep her own body between Mollie and danger.

"Are we killed? Are we killed?" moaned Mollie.

"No. We are all right," soothed Bab with a confidence that she did not feel. "Quick! Get on your clothes if you can find them. Here, put this on. Don't try to dress completely, but just throw about you whatever you can find."

While urging her sister to action, Bab was hunting feverishly for their belongings. She thrust the first clothing she could find into the hands of the trembling Mollie, then wrapped the younger girl in a blanket.

"I want my shoes," cried Mollie.

Barbara thrust two shoes into the girl's hands. One was Mollie's shoe, the other Barbara's, but she could not be particular under the circumstances.

Now a new danger threatened. Bab was certain that she could smell smoke. She fairly dragged Mollie from the berth into the aisle that was now tilted at an angle.

"Hurry! Get to the upper end of the car as fast as you can. The other passengers are out I do believe."

"Oh, I can't! Help me, Bab."

"Help yourself. I must look after Grace."

"Grace!" groaned Mollie, a sudden and new fit of trembling seizing upon her until her legs threatened to collapse under her.

Barbara gave her a violent push.

"Climb up the aisle. Support yourself by the seats. You will be able to get through all right. I'll follow you just as soon as I can find Grace. She may have gotten out, but I don't believe she has."

"Is – is – do you think she is dead?" gasped Mollie.

"Hurry!" urged Barbara, as the smell of smoke smote her nostrils more strongly than before. "Grace!" she called, as soon as she saw that Mollie had begun climbing.

There was no answer. Barbara was hurrying into such of her clothing as she was able to find. The intense darkness of the car made any systematic effort to dress impossible.

"Grace! Oh, Grace!"

Still no answer. Bab observed by the light that now filtered through the broken windows of section number thirteen on the opposite side of the aisle, that that section was empty. The car itself appeared to be empty. At least the cries had died out, though outside the car there was a great uproar. Barbara climbed into the upper berth occupied by Grace Carter, who lay silent, unheeding Barbara's voice.

"Oh, Grace! Grace!" begged Barbara, throwing her arms about her friend. "Answer me."

There was no response. A bar of moonlight shone through the broken window of section number thirteen, falling directly on the pallid face of the unconscious girl. Barbara shook her, calling upon her friend to answer, but Grace neither spoke nor stirred.

"Is there any one left in here?" called a voice from the other end of the car.

"Yes, yes; come here quickly and help me," cried Barbara.

Instead of coming to her assistance, the owner of the voice appeared to turn back and go out again. Barbara was now chafing the hands and face of the motionless girl in the upper berth.

"Oh, she's dead, she's dead. What shall I do?" gasped Bab.

With a suddenly formed resolution, she clasped her arms about Grace and with considerable difficulty – for Grace was now a dead weight – dragged the unconscious girl from her berth into the aisle. Bab did not pause for an instant. Handling her friend as tenderly as possible, she began working her way up the steep aisle, making but slow progress, one arm about Grace Carter, the other pulling herself and her heavy burden along by grasping the backs of the seats and the partitions between such of the berths as were made up.

CHAPTER II

THE MISSING PASSENGER

AN endless corridor it seemed to Barbara Thurston as little by little she dragged her drooping burden to the end of the aisle. Reaching the narrow passage that led past the staterooms, she was obliged to creep on hands and knees along the slippery lower side of the car.

Suddenly she heard a groan.

Bab glanced apprehensively at the curtains that hung over the door of the smoking room. The curtains now stood out at a sharp angle. A thin cloud of smoke filtered out from the smoking compartment.

"Oh, there's some one in there," exclaimed the girl. But she had other work to do just then. The young woman struggled on, at last reaching the platform that now stood in the air some feet above the track.

"Jump! We'll catch you," called a voice.

"I – I can't. Help me. My companion is hurt."

"She's got someone with her. Get up there," commanded a sharp voice.

Two trainmen clambered to the platform.

"Is the girl dead?" demanded one.

"I don't know. Oh, please hurry," begged Barbara in an agonized tone.

The men quickly lifted down Grace Carter's limp form. Then they turned to assist Barbara, but she already had swung down without assistance. Mollie was kneeling beside Grace, other passengers crowding about the unconscious girl who lay stretched out on the ground beside the track. Someone pushed through the crowd to Grace and thrust a bottle of smelling salts under her nose.

This served to restore her to consciousness, and she feebly brushed the bottle aside.

"She's alive," screamed Mollie, almost beside herself.

"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Barbara in an ecstacy of joy.

Grace Carter sat up dazedly.

"Are you hurt, dear?" urged Bab.

"I – I don't know. I think not. Oh, it was awful. I – I thought the world surely was coming to an end. Was anyone – anyone killed?"

"No," answered a voice from the crowd. "Some of us got a fine shaking up, but the train was running so slowly that the shock of the accident was not very severe."

"What was the matter?" asked Grace as Barbara assisted the trembling girl to her feet.

"The trainmen say it was a loose rail. They've been putting in new rails at this point and the train was running slowly on that account, the work not yet being entirely finished."

At this juncture the conductor came bustling up, ordering the passengers to go to the cars ahead, which had not left the track. The train was to move on in a few minutes. A flagman had been stationed some distance to the rear to stop any following trains and the conductor was anxious to reach the next station ahead to telegraph for a wrecking train and report the wreck of the sleepers. A pleasant-faced woman whom Barbara had seen on the train the day before, stepped up and offered to assist them, which she did by placing an arm about Grace, helping to support the latter in the walk to the cars.

"I am Miss Thompson, from Chicago," said the woman. "My father is with me. I saw you yesterday and wanted to speak to you. Are you going to Chicago?"

"Yes. You are very kind," answered Barbara.

"I wonder if all the passengers were gotten out of the sleeper?" asked Miss Thompson when they had finally reached the cars up ahead and Grace had been comfortably disposed of in another sleeper.

Barbara started.

"Oh, I forgot. Conductor! There was a man in the smoking compartment of our car."

The porter who had followed them with the other passengers and such luggage as he could find, shook his head.

"I know there was. I had forgotten all about it," declared Bab. "I heard someone groan in there as I passed the compartment with my friend. Where is the man who occupied the lower berth of section thirteen?"

No one had seen him. All the other passengers had been accounted for, but no one had seen the tall, slim, sandy-haired man from section number thirteen.

"Then he is in that smoking compartment. I saw him when he went there. The compartment was on fire when I passed it," cried Barbara Thurston, springing up, her face flushed, her eyes large and troubled.

"If there's anyone there the men will find him. There was no fire in that car," said the conductor, with which statement the porter agreed.

"There was smoke," declared Bab. "I don't know about fire. I do know that I'm going back to find out about that man," she announced.

"Come back," called the conductor. "We're going to start."

Unheeding, Barbara ran for the door, and, leaping from the platform, started on a run back to the wrecked sleeper. The conductor was determined to move his train, but the passengers objected so strenuously that he reluctantly decided to wait and make a further hurried search of the wrecked sleeper.

With a porter and half a dozen passengers the conductor followed Barbara. She could smell the smoke before she reached the car. Hastily climbing to the platform, she crawled in. By the time she had gotten into the corridor a porter had also climbed up. The smoke was so thick and suffocating that the girl choked and coughed.

"He's here," she cried, as a faint groan reached her ears. "Hurry! Oh, do hurry!" Then Bab's words were lost in the fit of coughing that had seized her.

Three men pushed their way into the smoking compartment. They saw that the carpet was smouldering. It had probably been set on fire by a burning cigar or a lighted match. There was no blaze, just a dull smoulder and a lot of smoke. It did not seem possible that one could live in that atmosphere for very long.

Suddenly the porter stumbled over the form of a man. It was the former occupant of section number thirteen.

"Young woman, get out of here at once," commanded the conductor. "We will take care of this man."

Bab staggered out to the platform, where she waited. A minute later the men came out bearing the unconscious form of the stranger. Barbara asked if he were dead. The men said no, but that he was half suffocated from the smoke he had inhaled. They carried the man on ahead to the train and up to the dining car, after which a doctor was hurriedly summoned from one of the other cars. In the meantime Barbara had returned to her companions, who were anxiously awaiting her reappearance. She told them of finding the man, and was warmly commended by the passengers for her bravery.

"I do wish we could get word to Ruth Stuart that we are all right," said Barbara, after she had related the story of the finding of the man from section thirteen.

"Ruth Stuart?" questioned Miss Thompson. "I wonder if by any chance she could be related to Robert Stuart, a Chicago broker?"

"Why, she is his daughter. Do you know the Stuarts?" cried Barbara, a smile lighting up her face still pale and somewhat drawn.

"No, but my father wishes to know Mr. Stuart. Only yesterday he was speaking of him. I should not be surprised if he were to call on Mr. Stuart soon to discuss a business matter with him."

"The world is small, after all, isn't it?" smiled Bab. "We are on our way to Chicago to visit the Stuarts. We are friends of Ruth Stuart. We four are known to our friends as the 'Automobile Girls.'"

The readers of this series must undoubtedly feel well acquainted with that quartette of sweet, dainty, lovable girls, Ruth Stuart, Barbara and Mollie Thurston and Grace Carter, who were met with in the first volume of this series, "The Automobile Girls at Newport." Their acquaintance really dated from the time Barbara Thurston so pluckily stopped a team of runaway horses driven by Ruth Stuart, a wealthy western girl, then summering at Kingsbridge, the home of the Thurstons. A warm friendship sprang up almost at once between the two girls, culminating in a long trip in Ruth's automobile, during which journey Ruth, Bab and Mollie Thurston, their friend Grace Carter, and their chaperon, Aunt Sallie Stuart, met with many exciting adventures. It was on this eventful trip, as will be recalled, that Barbara distinguished herself by causing the arrest of a society jewel thief, at the same time heaping coals of fire on the head of a girl cousin who had treated Barbara and Mollie with scornful contempt.

The girls were next heard from in "The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires," to which region, chaperoned, as always, by Ruth's Aunt Sallie, they had driven in Ruth's car for a month's stay in a lonely cabin in the Berkshire Hills. Their experiences with the "Ghost of Lost Man's Trail" was not the least of their exciting adventures there; in fact, their stay in the mountains was filled with a succession of strange happenings that thrilled the girls as nothing in their lives ever had done before.

By this time they considered themselves veteran automobilists and seasoned travelers. As related in "The Automobile Girls Along the Hudson," the now famous quartette showed themselves fully equal to the more than ordinary emergencies they met with from time to time on a most eventful journey. From balking highwaymen to fighting a forest fire that for a time threatened the ancestral home of Major Ten Eyck, whose guests they were at the time, the "Automobile Girls" fully lived up to the reputation they had earned for themselves.

After their trip through the Sleepy Hollow country, Ruth had returned to her home in Chicago, while Mollie, Barbara and Grace had settled down to their studies in the Kingsbridge High School. But with the approach of the holidays had come Ruth's cordial invitation to spend Christmas with her in her own home, not forgetting to mention "Mr. A. Bubble," who, she promised, would do his part toward making their visit a lively one. The three girls had set out on their journey to the Windy City on the Chicago Express, that journey having been interrupted in a most unexpected manner, as already related.

The conductor sent off a message for them to Ruth Stuart at the next stop. It was a characteristic message from Barbara, reading:

"Train wrecked. 'Automobile Girls' safe. Arrive some time.

"Grace, Mollie, Bab."

This telegram for a time created no little excitement in the Stuart home.

Daylight was upon them by the time the train started from the scene of the wreck. Grace said she felt as though she had contracted a severe cold, for she was aching in every muscle of her body. Mollie declared that she was all right, but Bab averred that she knew she hadn't been in bed in a hundred years.

The dining car was opened early, for all the passengers felt the need of something more sustaining than fright. When the girls came back from the dining car they felt much better. Grace had suffered no serious injuries, but Bab's face was scratched from the particles of broken glass that had showered over her when the windows burst in.

A young man was occupying Barbara's seat when she entered the car they had occupied since the accident. He was leaning back against the high chair. His eyes were closed and a bandage was bound about his head.