Under Orders: The story of a young reporter

Going to his room, to wash his face and hands before sitting down to table, he suddenly remembered his letter. It was post-marked Mountain Junction, and the post-mark bore the date of that very day.

“That is curious,” thought Myles.

His surprise was greatly increased when, as he opened the letter, a fifty-dollar bill fell from it, and he turned eagerly to its contents:

My Dear Mr. Manning:

Having accidentally learned of your temporary embarrassment, and knowing your unwillingness to accept pecuniary assistance from strangers, I take this method of forcing a slight loan upon you. Do not hesitate to make use of the enclosed $50 for when you are again in funds I will call upon you for repayment. Say nothing of this little affair, but use the money as your own, and believe me to be

A Friend in Need.

“Well, if that telegraph fellow isn’t a trump!” thought Myles, as he finished reading this friendly note. “He has sent me the exact sum that I asked the office for in that dispatch, and sent it in such a delicate, generous way that I don’t see how I can very well refuse to take it. He is, indeed, ‘a friend in need,’ and one whom I won’t forget in a hurry. Yes, I will use the money, now that it has actually come to me, for I shall certainly soon be able to pay it back.”

With a lighter heart than he had known since arriving in this town of incident and adventure, and with the bill in his hand, Myles ran down stairs and called for the proprietor, to whom he said:

“I’ll thank you, sir, for my watch, together with a receipted bill for my board to date, and here is the money to pay it. If there was any other hotel in town I would not spend another minute in yours, you may depend upon it. Now make the change quickly, if you please, for I am in a hurry.”

The landlord did not deign to reply to this little speech; but, taking the proffered bill and satisfying himself that it was genuine, he handed out the change, the watch, and a receipt without a word.

Myles ate his breakfast, or, rather, his lunch, for it was now nearly noon, with a hearty appetite, and then started off briskly and happily toward the railway station, prepared to encounter any adventure that the day might bring forth.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE STRIKERS CAPTURE A TRAIN

AT THE railway station Myles found the train nearly ready to start and its military passengers on board. A foreman of the locomotive works was to act as engineer, and Ben Watkins was to be fireman. Lieutenant Easter found a seat in the locomotive cab, where Myles would have liked to join him but for the presence of Ben, with whom he wished to hold no communication. The two cars of the train were well filled, for the town was so quiet and so absolutely deserted by the strikers that the lieutenant did not think it necessary to leave more than half a dozen of his men in charge of a corporal to guard the jail and the railroad buildings. So he took nearly the whole of his command with him, and an interesting lot they were to Myles, who now, for the first time, saw them all together.

Most of them were green, awkward-appearing young men, who had joined the company solely that they might wear its uniform. As has been said, this uniform was a remarkably gorgeous one, and it represented the taste of its wearers; for they had voted to adopt it at one of the very first meetings of their organization. It was of scarlet, black, and gold, and above the stiff beaver caps nodded scarlet and black plumes of cocks’ feathers. These were the particular joy and pride of Lieutenant Easter’s men, and were regarded by them as the most truly military and warlike portion of their equipment. If these fiercely nodding plumes did not inspire terror in the hearts of the strikers, what would?

The whole business of the strike was looked upon as a picnic by these gorgeous militiamen. They had no idea that it might mean fight. Oh, no, that was too absurd. No body of strikers with a grain of sense among them would be so foolhardy as to await their coming. Their mere appearance on the scene would be the signal for flight. Did they not have law and muskets on their side?

Thus they talked and boasted as the train rolled slowly out of town without meeting the slightest form of opposition. Nobody in the car in which Myles had found a seat spoke to him or paid the least attention to him, except to wonder who he was and what right he had there. He might be a striker, for all they knew. At any rate he did not wear a uniform, was evidently only an ordinary, every-day civilian, and was consequently unworthy of their notice.

Every thing went on smoothly and comfortably for an hour or so. The track was in perfect order, no strikers were to be seen, and the citizen soldiery were boisterously happy. As many of their muskets as could be were crowded into and snugly stowed in the package-racks above their heads, while the rest were shoved under the seats so as to be well out of the way. Their owners loosened their belts for greater comfort, played cards, smoked, ate, drank, and were merry. This state of affairs continued until they had gone about twelve miles. Then the train began to climb a long grade. Its speed was of course slackened by this, but not enough to attract the notice of the card-players.

All at once the great driving-wheels of the locomotive began to spin furiously, but without taking any hold of the rails. The engineer knew in a moment what the trouble was – the track had been soaped! – and shut off steam. The train slid a few rods farther, and then stopped. As it did so a wild yell was heard in the bushes that at this point grew thickly close to the track. Then a crowd of men leaped from them and charged upon the motionless train. Half a dozen of them sprang to the locomotive, taking complete possession of it, and dragging its three occupants to the ground before they had time to offer the least resistance.

In less than a minute after it stopped the train was in undisputed possession of the strikers, and its passengers were their prisoners.

Myles was greatly startled and not a little alarmed by these summary proceedings. He sprang to his feet with the rest when the train stopped, and had nearly reached the rear door of the car when the strikers rushed in and commanded everybody to sit down. He obeyed the order at once, slipping into a little corner seat behind the open door. Here, as he was not in uniform, he escaped attention for a few minutes. Then a burly fellow, who seemed a sort of leader among the strikers, pulled back the door so as to reveal him fully, and asked gruffly:

“Who are you, and what are you doing here? What’s your position on the road?”

“I haven’t any,” answered Myles, who did not know whether to say he was a reporter or not.

“Well, who are you, then? Come, spit it out quick! We haven’t any time for fooling.”

“I am a friend of Jacob Allen’s,” replied Myles, with a happy thought.

“Oh, you are, are you? Well, how do I know that? It’s easy enough to say you are a friend of Jake Allen’s, but how can you prove it?”

“By this,” said Myles, producing a folded bit of note-paper that Allen had given him the night before. The man read aloud:

The bearer, Mr. Manning, is my friend; and I wish all my friends to treat him as a friend of – Jacob Allen.

“That’s all right,” said the man, returning the note to Myles, “though some of those that Jake Allen thought were his friends have gone back on him lately. Still, I guess we’ll have to pass you this time. I must say, though, that for a friend of Allen’s you are in mighty poor company just now.” Then he walked away, and Myles left the car to see what was going on outside.

Now it happened that a soldier occupying the next seat in front of the reporter overheard the reading of this note, and was struck by its curious wording. He afterward told Lieutenant Easter of it, and the Lieutenant told Ben Watkins, adding his own suspicions that this friend of Jacob Allen-must be the very one who had conveyed to the strikers the news of this attempt to run a train through. “Otherwise,” he said, “they could not possibly have known of it in time to plan the stopping and capture of the train as they did.”

In thus laying suspicion upon Myles the Lieutenant entirely forgot that the reporter had a companion, the telegraph operator, the night before, when he himself gave away this information.

After leaving the car Myles was witness of some very funny scenes. First the strikers inside the cars secured all the guns they could find and passed them to their comrades outside. Then, two at a time, so guarded that there was no chance of escape, and solemnly assured that they were about to be hanged, the disgusted soldiers were made to leave the cars. As they appeared on the platforms in all the splendor of their gorgeous uniforms they were greeted with howls of derision. The nodding cocks’ plumes received their full share of attention, and at the cry of “Scalp ’em! scalp ’em! give us their scalps!” the gaudy feathers were shorn from the beaver caps or plucked out by the roots and distributed to all who wanted them. Then the prisoners were marched back into the bushes, struggling, protesting, pleading, making all sorts of promises, or, in some cases, laughing, and treating it all as a joke. As each couple reached a point beyond sight of their companions, to whom their fate was thus a mystery, they were stripped of their cherished uniforms with the exception of their shorn beavers, and made to put on pairs of greasy or coal-blackened overalls in place of them. Then the dejected-looking couple was allowed to step to one side and witness the similar treatment of the next two who were brought out.

Myles, who had no occasion to feel particularly sorry for the humiliation of these boastful soldiers, could not help joining in the merriment caused by their comical appearance. Even pompous little Lieutenant Easter had been deprived of his sword and shorn of his plumes, though he was permitted to retain his uniform. Beside him stood Ben Watkins, scowling savagely, and muttering threats that he dared not utter aloud.

A little later Myles overheard a conversation between two of the strikers, from which he learned that all the men captured with the train were to be put on board again and taken to within a short distance of the town to which they belonged, some thirty miles westward.

Now this would not suit him at all. His orders were to remain at Mountain Junction until recalled, and he proposed to obey them just as long as possible. So, fearing that Jacob Allen’s note might not again avail him, and, watching for a chance when the attention of the strikers was fully occupied with the mock review of Lieutenant Easter’s company, he quietly slipped back among the bushes, and in another moment was lost to sight.

From a well concealed hiding-place he saw all the captured men, including Ben Watkins, for whom the strikers had no love, put on board the cars strongly guarded. The track was then well sanded to overcome the effect of the soap, and finally he saw the train move slowly away and disappear over the crest of the long up grade. Still he kept his hiding-place, until the crowd of strikers who remained had gathered up and shouldered the captured muskets, stuck the scarlet and black cocks’ plumes in their hat-bands, and also departed. As they marched on the railroad toward Mountain Junction, in the very direction he wished to go, he waited until they were out of sight and hearing. After these prolonged waitings it wanted less than an hour of sunset when he returned to regain the track. Then, assuring himself that no human being was in sight in either direction, he set out bravely and at a rapid pace to walk back over the twelve miles to the town in which he had been ordered to stay.

Walking on a railroad track is by no means easy work, and before he had accomplished more than half the distance to the town the young reporter wished that a train, or, at least, a hand-car, would come along and give him a lift. The sun had set, it was rapidly growing dark, and Myles was as rapidly growing very hungry. His way lay through a particularly rough and lonesome stretch of country. It was mountainous and heavily wooded. He had not seen a house, unless one or two distant huts of charcoal-burners could be called such, since he started. Now the solitude and the silence, only broken by the melancholy cries of a whippoorwill or the weird hootings of an occasional owl, became drearily oppressive, and Myles longed for human companionship. If only he had his jolly comrade of the night before, the telegraph operator. But he had not, and he tried to cheer his lonely way by whistling as he trudged wearily along. He kept a sharp lookout for lights on either side of the way, determined to go to the first one he saw in the hope of finding food. He also decided that if he found any sort of shelter for the night he would remain there until morning, for the thought of crossing, in the dark, the several trestle-bridges over mountain torrents that lay between him and the town was by no means pleasant.

At last he saw a faint gleam, apparently that of a candle, at some little distance on his left. Whether it was far away or near at hand Myles could not tell. It at least betokened the presence of human beings, and he determined to try and reach it. He did not find any road or path leading to it, but worked his way slowly, with many a stumble amid rocks, trees, stumps, and bushes, toward the light. He often lost sight of it, but always found it again, until, all of a sudden, he was close upon it.

It came from a cabin, apparently that of a charcoal-burner, only somewhat larger than most of those he had seen. In order to announce his presence he gave a shout, which was answered by the savage barking of a dog that came bounding toward him. As Myles felt for a stick or a rock with which to defend himself, the door of the cabin was opened and a harsh voice shouted:

“Tige! you Tige! Be quiet, sir. Who’s there?”

“I am,” answered Myles.

“Well, who’s I?”

“A stranger in search of something to eat and a place to sleep in.”

“Step up here and let’s take a look at you. Tige, be quiet!”

The dog obeyed his master so far as keeping quiet was concerned, but he followed the new-comer and sniffed at his heels in a manner both suggestive and extremely unpleasant.

The figure that confronted Myles in the door-way was that of a tall, broad-shouldered, rough-looking man, clad in a flannel shirt and a pair of coarse trousers tucked into cowhide boots.

“Well, you be a stranger, sure enough,” said he, holding a candle so that its light shone in the other’s face; “leastways I never see you in these parts before. An’ you’ve struck a mighty poor place. This ain’t no hotel, and I reckon you’d better travel a bit further on.”

“Where to?” asked Myles.

“To the Junction, I expect. There ain’t no place short of that, as I know of, where you could be took in.”

“But that is a long way off,” objected Myles, “and I don’t believe I could cross the bridges in the dark.”

“No more do I believe you could,” replied the man.

“Besides, I am willing to pay, and pay well, for whatever food and shelter you will give me,” added Myles.

“Will you pay a dollar?”

“With pleasure.”

“In advance?”

“Yes, if you insist upon it.”

“Let’s see your money, stranger, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Now Myles had no money with him except the change from the fifty dollars that he had tucked into the envelope in which the bill had come to him that morning. So he was obliged to produce this in order to get out the required dollar.

Upon receiving his pay in advance and discovering his would-be guest to be a person of means the man’s manner softened. Saying, “Step in, stranger, and I’ll see what I can do for you,” he led the way into the cabin. Myles followed him, glad to accept even so poor a shelter, and little dreaming that before morning he would be ten times more anxious to escape from it than he was now to be admitted.

CHAPTER XIV.

A RACE AGAINST TIME

SEVERAL events combined to make Myles regret seeking shelter in that cabin instead of pushing on with ever so slight a chance of reaching the town in safety, or camping out under some tree and bearing the night’s cold and hunger as best he might. To begin with, he lost his money in this cabin, or at least he thought he lost it there, when, late the next day, he made the discovery that it was gone. In regard to it he was only certain of two things. One was that he had it safe enough when he reached the cabin, and the other was that he did not gamble it away. Whether he was robbed as he slept, or whether, after replacing it in the envelope, it slipped to the ground instead of into his pocket, as he meant it should, he could not tell. It did not seem possible that either of these things had happened. If he was robbed why was not his watch taken also? And he did not believe he could have been so careless as to let the package slip to the ground without noticing it. At any rate the money disappeared, and with it went the kindly worded note signed “A Friend in Need.”

The interior of the cabin presented a much more cheerful and comfortable appearance than was promised by the outside. It contained two rooms, in the larger of which a fire was glowing on an ample hearth. The man appeared to be the sole occupant of the place, and, bidding Myles sit down and wait a while, he proceeded to prepare supper for the hungry reporter.

He was evidently not an inquisitive man; for, as he busied himself over the fire, he asked no questions. Neither did he volunteer any information, except that it was a dark night and middling cool for the season. Myles tried to enter into conversation with him, but the man was so evidently disinclined to talk that he soon gave up the attempt and watched him in silence.

In about half an hour a much better supper than he had dared expect was ready for him. It consisted of fried ham and eggs, a cup of hot tea, plenty of bread and butter, and a dish of preserved peaches. To Myles it seemed about the best meal he had ever eaten, and he did full justice to it, while the man sat silently gazing into the fire and smoking a short black pipe.

When the reporter had satisfied his appetite he felt more sociable and inclined for a chat than ever; but, though he exerted himself to the utmost to be entertaining, he only succeeded in getting from the man an occasional yes and no or a grunt that might have meant either. Finally, in despair, he said he guessed he was ready to go to bed. The man rose, knocked the ashes from his pipe, lighted a candle, and led the way to the other room. There he pointed to the single bed that it contained and told his guest that he might “lay down” on it if he liked. Then, without another word, he set the candle down and went out, closing the door behind him.

Thus left to his own devices, Myles examined his surroundings curiously. The room was a small one, having two windows, but no door except the one by which he had entered. It contained a cot-bed, a couple of chairs, and a rickety bureau. From nails driven into the rough board wall hung a few articles of men’s clothing. The young reporter’s curiosity was quickly satisfied, and, opening one of the windows wide, for he believed in plenty of fresh air, he blew out the light, pulled off his shoes, and lay down on the outside of the bed.

For some time he listened to the movements of the man in the adjoining room, from which his was only separated by a thin board partition, and to Tige’s uneasy prowlings and occasional growls outside. Then he fell asleep.

Some hours later he was wakened by the dog’s furious barking and the harsh voice of his master bidding him be quiet. Then he heard other voices, and presently two men entered the outer room. The owner of the cabin evidently met them outside and warned them of his presence; for, as they came in, Myles heard one of them ask in a low tone:

“Who is he, any way?”

“Blest if I know,” was the host’s reply. “He’s a stranger to these parts, and I reckon he’s harmless. He didn’t ask no leading questions, and if he knows any thing it isn’t on account of my telling.”

“It certainly is not,” thought Myles.

“Is he asleep, do you think?” was the next question.

“I don’t know, but I’ll make an errand into his room and find out.”

Myles instantly closed his eyes and began to breathe heavily. The next moment his door was softly opened and his host, with a candle in his hand, tiptoed across the floor and took down a coat that hung on the opposite wall. Then he went out.

“Yes, he’s asleep fast enough,” Myles heard him say.

“Let’s take a look at him,” said one of the men.

Again Myles was obliged to feign sleep while his face was closely examined by the new-comers. It was a trying moment, but he succeeded in acting his part so well as to convince them that he was really asleep.

He was greatly relieved when they left the room, and still more so when he heard one of them say:

“No, he don’t belong to these parts; but, whoever he is, he sleeps like a log. You must have given him a dose of your sleeping-drops, Bill.”

“Not much I didn’t,” answered Bill, in whose voice Myles recognized that of his host. “He didn’t ask for it, and you can bet I wasn’t fool enough to offer it.”

“Well, whether you did or not, you want to offer it to us, and about two gallons of it too. The boys have got a big job on hand, and will need bracing up before they’ve done with it.”

“What is it?” asked Bill.

“Sh! Not so loud,” answered one of the men.

Then a long conversation followed, but at first it was carried on in such low tones that Myles only caught a word of it now and then. A clinking of glasses explained why it gradually grew louder, until at last every word came plainly to the ears of the young reporter. The first thing that he heard distinctly was:

“Jake Allen was too tender-hearted about it. He sent ’em word that the track was in a dangerous condition, and if they came ahead it would be at their own peril. I’d a let ’em come without a word, and find out for themselves.”

“But I thought Jake Allen was locked up,” said Bill.

“So he was, but he isn’t now. When that fool of a lieutenant carried off all his men, or the best part of ’em, what was to hinder the boys from slipping into town and letting Jake out? Just nothing at all, and that’s what they did. No, there wasn’t any fuss. It was all done quiet enough, and now that Jake is out they won’t get him in again in a hurry, you can bet on that. We’re just laying for them city roosters, though, and it will serve ’em right if the whole regiment gets pitched into the creek. What business have they, anyhow, coming out here to interfere with us and our rights?”

“Then they are really coming, are they?” asked Bill.

“Coming! Of course they are, a whole train-load of ’em. They got as far as Martin’s yesterday, and, if they make an early start and get along as fast as they have been doing, they’ll be where we want ’em soon sun’s up.”

“Where’s that?”

“Just this side of Station One. Somewhere on the Horseshoe.”

“Are you going to fight ’em there?”

“Fight? Not much! The boys won’t be there at all; but they are fixing up a little trap to leave behind ’em that’ll do the business. The boys will be far enough away long before that, though. There isn’t anybody going to be caught in this racket.”

From all this Myles concluded that the 50th Regiment from New York City, of whose intended coming he had already heard, was really on its way to Mountain Junction. Some sort of a trap had been laid for them on the Horseshoe, a sharp curve on the edge of a deep stream that he remembered well. What if the train should be thrown from the track there! Why, the result would be simply horrible. They had been warned of danger, too, and yet would insist upon pushing ahead. Of course they would do that, though; and Myles thrilled with an honest pride as he thought how the boys of a New York City regiment would laugh at the word “danger.” “It would only make them come ahead all the quicker,” thought he, “for when those fellows are ‘under orders’ obeying them is the first thing they think of, and the danger of doing so the very last. But it would be awful if any thing were to happen to that train. Couldn’t any thing be done to warn them? Couldn’t I do something even now? If I were only at Mountain Junction, where I ought to be, instead of ’way off here in the woods – on the wrong side of it too!”