CHAPTER IX
AN ACT OF FOLLY AND A CRUEL DISPATCH.
THE ridicule that he had to endure on account of “Lord Steerem,”combined with the mortification of losing the boat-race, was more thanBen Watkins could endure. He was heard to declare at the beginning ofthe long vacation that he should never return to X—— College again;and as for boat-racing, he had had enough of it to last the rest ofhis life. Then he disappeared, but where he went or what became of himnone of his recent companions either knew or cared. They had had quiteenough of Ben Watkins, with his mean disposition and overbearing ways,and were quite willing to lose sight of him.
As the summer wore on Myles Manning steadily increased his list offriends. His fellow-reporters on the _Phonograph_ liked him becausehe was good-natured, obliging, and of a happy disposition. Those onthe other papers liked him because, while he was keen in pursuit ofnews and would use every honest method to obtain a “beat” on them,he never forgot that he was a gentleman or descended to dishonorablemeans to accomplish his purpose. Mr. Haxall liked him because he didnot shirk his work nor show the slightest disinclination to accept anyassignment, no matter how unpleasant its nature.
When Van Cleef was given the enviable summer job of visiting theprincipal watering-places and resorts of the country, for the purposeof writing letters from them to the paper, Myles was assigned to hisnight station-work. He particularly hated this, but he attended to itas well and thoroughly as though he had chosen it, and only Mr. Haxallsuspected, from a chance remark, how distasteful it was to him.
He studied the best models of newspaper-writing carefully, and beforethe summer was over developed an easy and pleasant style of his own.He was becoming recognized on the paper as a valuable man, but hissalary still continued to be what it was at the first, and there wasno intimation that it would ever be raised. The boy tried to send fivedollars of it home every week, for family affairs were becoming worseand more discouraging with each day, but he found it very hard to keepup his neat personal appearance and also pay his weekly board-billswith the small sum that remained.
It would seem from all this that our hero must be a paragon of virtue;and, as some of those who have followed his fortunes thus far wouldsay, “Altogether too good to live.” If this were the case this storymight as well end right here, leaving the reader to imagine how Mylesrose from one position to another until he finally became proprietorof the great paper on which he was now but one of the humblestworkers. That it does not thus end was because the young reporter waspossessed of two grave faults, either one of which, if unchecked, wouldeventually lead him to disgrace and ruin. He was in danger of becomingboth a drunkard and a gambler.
Myles would have been terribly shocked if any one had said this tohim, and would have indignantly denied it. At the same time he couldnot have denied that he was fond of all sorts of games of chance, northat he rarely refused an offered glass of wine. He had fallen intothe habit of drinking, now and then, while in college, because he wastoo good-natured to refuse an offered “treat,” and too generous notto “stand treat” in turn. Now, as a reporter, he found the temptationto do these same things increased a hundred-fold. It seemed asthough almost every assignment on which he was sent led to acceptingor offering drinks of some kind of liquor. He began to think thatthe gaining of interesting items of news depended largely upon hiswillingness to “stand treat” for, or be “treated” by, those from whomhe sought it. Several times he had returned to the office flushed andnoisy with wine, and once or twice Mr. Haxall’s keen eye had detectedhim in this condition. It was for this reason that the city editor haddecided to wait a little longer and test him a little further beforeadvancing his salary. He liked the young fellow and was watching himanxiously. He even went so far as to warn him of the dangers andtemptations that beset a reporter’s path, though he did not make hisallusions personal.
Thus matters stood with Myles Manning when one day, toward the end ofSeptember, Mr. Haxall called him to his desk and said,
“Mr. Manning, it now looks as though the most general and seriousrailroad strike this country has ever seen were about to break out. Ifit does it will be a very different thing from the horse-car strikein which you received your first lessons at reporting. That was onlya local affair, while this will be of interest to the whole country.Of course the _Phonograph_ wants the earliest news of it, and I amsending out half a dozen of our best reporters to important railroadpoints that seem likely to become centres from which the strikers willoperate. At these points we must have our steadiest and most reliablemen, of whom I count you as one. You will, therefore, start at once forMountain Junction, the terminus of the Central and Western Divisionsof the A. & B. Road. Send us full dispatches of all that happens,and remain there until relieved or recalled. Here is an order on thecashier for your expenses, and if you find yourself in need of moremoney you can telegraph for it. Remember that the _Phonograph_ expectsto receive the news—and all the news—from its reporters, but that ithas no use for their individual opinions. Those are formed for it byits editors.”
With the promptness that Mr. Haxall liked so well Myles answered,“All right, sir. I think I understand,” left the office at once, andthe next train westward bound over the A. & B. Road carried him as apassenger.
As Mr. Haxall turned again to his desk, after having started Myles onthis important and perhaps dangerous mission, he said to himself:
“I hope I have done right to trust him with this job. He is entitled toat least one fair trial on big work and a chance for himself outsidethe city. At any rate we can’t get badly beaten whatever happens, forRolfe, in Chicago, is certain to get hold of any thing important fromthe Junction and send it in on chance.”
Mountain Junction was a railroad town in every sense of the word. Herethe main line of the A. & B. Road was met by an important branch,and here were located its car-shops, locomotive-works, and generalrepair-shops. It was in a coal and iron region, and several large mineswere in operation not far from it. Its entire population, therefore,consisted of the families of railroad employés and miners. During thedaytime it was a scene of busy industry and the air was filled with thecrash of steam-hammers, the shriek of locomotive-whistles, and therattle of trains. At night the noise was hardly diminished, while thesky was reddened by the glow from hundreds of furnaces, foundries, andcoke-ovens.
The place did not look attractive to Myles, as, late in the afternoon,he surveyed what he could of it from the platform of the railwaystation at which the New York train had just dropped him, and he hopedhe should not be kept there long.
He found a more comfortable hotel than he expected, and in it, afterthoroughly cleansing himself from the dust and cinders of his longride, he went down to supper. The seats at two long tables, extendingthe whole length of the room, were filled with the bosses and heads ofdepartments of the many shops, mills, and foundries of the place. Achair had been reserved for him at a small table placed by a window, atwhich two persons were already busily eating. One of these uttered anexclamation of surprise as Myles entered the room, and, looking at him,the reporter saw his old rival, Ben Watkins.
“Well, of all things!” cried Ben. “What brings you here, MylesManning?”
“Business,” answered Myles. “But I suppose you are here for health andpleasure.”
“Not much I ain’t,” growled Ben. “I am here to make my living. My uncleis superintendent of the Western Division A. & B. Road, and I am hisvaluable assistant.”
Although Myles had no love for Ben Watkins, especially as he recalledthe nature of their last interview, he did not wholly dislike him, and,after all, it was pleasant to meet an acquaintance in a place where heexpected to find only strangers.
Ben introduced the other occupant of the table, a supercilious-looking,pale-faced little man in uniform, as Lieutenant Easter. He belonged toa company of country militia, sent to this point from a neighboringtown to be on hand in case of any serious emergency, and to his ownintense satisfaction found himself, owi
ng to the enforced absence ofhis captain, in command of the troops.
Ben Watkins ridiculed the precaution thus taken, and in answer to aquestion from Myles declared that he did not believe there would be anystrike, in spite of all the talk. The lieutenant agreed with him, and,caressing his silky little mustache, said, with an absurdly pompoustone, that the mere presence of himself and his men was sufficient toprevent any such thing.
After supper Ben, who had displayed an unusual friendliness towardMyles ever since their meeting, asked him how he intended to spend theevening.
“I must go out and find the telegraph office,” replied Myles, “andmake arrangements to have my dispatches sent through promptly. Then Ithought I would look about the town a little.”
“Oh, well,” said Ben, “that won’t take you long, and when you come backyou’d better drop into my room, No. 16. There isn’t any thing to do ofan evening in this beastly place, but a few of us generally manage toput in the time somehow, and perhaps we can make it pleasant for you.Come and see, at any rate.”
Myles promised he would, and after receiving directions how to reachthe telegraph office he went out.
A wickedly cruel expression swept over Ben Watkins’ face as he watchedhis recent rival out of sight.
“I’ll fix you, my young man. See if I don’t! I haven’t forgotten ‘LordSteerem’ and the trick you played on me. If I don’t get even with youthis very night I will before long. Oh, yes, Ben Watkins doesn’t forgetin a hurry.”
Myles, on the other hand, as he walked down the street, was thinking.
“Ben doesn’t seem half a bad fellow, after all. He has decidedlychanged for the better since last June, and I shouldn’t wonder if heproved a great help to me in this place.”
He found the telegraph operator to be a brisk, wide-awake young man,who said he was ready to handle any amount of press matter, and whoalso promised to send word to Myles if any thing important took placeduring the night.
Leaving the office Myles started toward the railway station, which wasonly a block farther on, to assure himself that every thing about itwas still quiet. As he reached its broad platform he noticed there achild four or five years old, and wondered what such a little thingcould be doing all alone in such a place at that hour, for it was nowabout eight o’clock. Stepping up to the child he asked:
“Well, little one, what is your name?”
“My name Bobby,” replied the child, gravely, lifting a roguish butself-possessed little face to look at the tall young fellow bendingover him.
As the light from a reflector hung outside the station fell on it,Myles thought he had never seen a sweeter or more winning face on achild, and he at once became greatly interested in the little fellow.
“Well, Bobby, where do you live?” he asked.
“Over there.” And the child pointed vaguely into the darkness behindthem.
“But what are you doing out here so late, and all alone? Don’t you knowit is high time for all good little boys to be in bed?”
“I’s waiting for my papa.”
“Who is your papa?”
“Why, my papa is my papa,” answered the child, with an air of surprisethat any one should ask such a question.
“Well, where is your papa, then?” asked Myles, looking about with theexpectation of seeing a papa at no great distance.
“My papa is on the chu-chu cars.”
“The chu-chu cars?”
“Yes, over there.”
Here the child pointed to a freight train that had just hauled in on asiding beyond the tracks of the main line. Then crying out, “I see mypapa,” the child jumped from the platform, and, before Myles could stophim, was running across the tracks toward a twinkling lantern that wasapproaching from the direction of the freight train.
All at once, with a cry of pain, the child fell directly across one ofthe glistening lines of steel.
Myles sprang toward him. As he did so the eastbound night expressdashed, with a shriek and a roar, out from behind a round-house thathad, until that moment, concealed it, and rushed with fiery breath andgleaming head-light toward where the child lay.
Myles’ heart ceased its beating, but he did not hesitate nor flinch,though it seemed impossible that he could get there before the ironmonster. He did, though, with a second to spare, and snatched the childas he ran. The little foot was caught in the angle of a switch and thechild uttered a sharp scream of pain as the strong young arms tore itaway, leaving a tiny shoe behind. Both rolled together in the cinders,barely beyond reach of the cruel wheels that ground over the quiveringrails. With a long wild howl, as of baffled rage, the night expressswept on, leaving Myles and the child almost suffocated in its dust,and breathless with the rush of wind that followed it.
As Myles staggered to his feet, and lifted the limp form of the childwhom he had saved at so imminent a risk of his own life, a man with alantern on his arm sprang forward, and snatching the child from him,cried, in a tone of agony:
“It’s my boy! My only boy! My little Bob—and he’s killed! The lastone; and he had to be taken too! Oh, it’s too hard, too hard!”
While Myles was trying to soothe him, the child, who was morefrightened than hurt, put up a little hand, and, patting its father’sface, said:
“Bobby was coming to you, papa, but he fell down and got hurted. Hisfoot hurts now.”
The father was Jacob Allen, one of the best-known men on the A. &B. road. He had just come in, as he did every other night at thesame hour, in charge of a through freight train. At this point hewas relieved, and could spend every other night in his home near thestation. His wife and little Bob were in the habit of coming as far asthe platform to meet him. But this evening Mrs. Allen was detained athome, and the child had slipped away alone unnoticed.
Great tears rolled down the man’s begrimed and weather-beaten cheeksas he tried to thank Myles for what he had done, and to tell him howdark and cheerless his home would be without its bit of golden-hairedsunlight.
Myles made light of his service and escaped from the other’soverpowering gratitude as soon as possible, promising to call and seethe child, and find out how he was getting along, on the morrow. Beforehe left the man had learned his name, and the last words he heard were:
“If ever the time comes when Jake Allen can lift a hand for you, or saya word that will in any way serve you, Mr. Manning, you may count onhis doing it, so long as he has breath left in his body. And who knowsbut the time may come sooner than you think!” he added significantly.
As Myles, hot, bruised, and covered with dust and cinders, re-enteredthe hotel almost the first person he met was Ben Watkins, who exclaimedin astonishment at his appearance. Myles told him in a few words whathad happened, and, pushing him into a chair, Ben said:
“Wait there a minute, old man, and I’ll fix you all right.”
He returned quickly, bringing a great tumbler of something that foamedand sparkled and tinkled with cool bits of ice. Without asking orcaring what it was Myles thirstily drained the glass saying:
“That’s the very thing I wanted, and it was awfully good of you tothink of it, Ben.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” replied Watkins. “Come up to my room and haveanother as soon as you get dusted off.”
Myles went to No. 16, where he found that Ben and Lieutenant Easterwere playing cards. There he drank another glass of the cool, pleasantmixture that was “just the thing he wanted.” It made him feel so goodthat he was easily persuaded to take a third. “It is as mild as milk,”Ben said, “and wouldn’t upset a baby.”
Then he winked at his companion, who looked at Myles and winked back atBen.
Myles now began to talk loud and boastfully. Then he joined in a gameof cards and began to lose money and say that it was no matter, forthere was plenty more where that came from. All the while Ben Watkins,with an evil smile on his face, kept urging him to take a sip of thisor a taste of that; and after a time, when his money was nearly goneand he could no longer keep awake
, they carried him to his own room andput him to bed.
The breathless messenger who came at midnight from the telegraph officeto tell Myles that the great strike had begun failed to arouse him. Theyoung reporter knew nothing of the exciting scenes taking place in thestreets of the lawless town. Of all the important events, for news ofwhich his paper depended upon him, he sent no dispatch.
Somebody, however, did send a dispatch that night to the _Phonograph_,and it was:
“Your reporter at Mountain Junction too drunk to send any news. Betterreplace him with a sober man.”