The Young Railroaders Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity

There all was darkness. Entering, a search with matches soon produced a lantern, however. Lighting it, Jack stepped without to discover whether its glimmer could be seen from the direction of the office. As he closed the door West appeared, panting and laughing.

"Well, what do you think of that stunt, youngster?" he chuckled. "Did you get the instruments?"

"Yes. I was out here to learn whether the light of a lantern I found could be seen."

"Good head! No; it doesn't show.

"And come on! Here the beggars are again!" West led the way inside, and closed the door behind them.

"Now what, my boy?"

"A table first. Here, the very thing," said Jack, making towards a long feed-box at the rear of the barn.

As they cleared its top of a pile of harness West asked, "Just what is the scheme here, youngster? I don't think I understand it."

"Oh, simple enough. I'll just run the wires out through that knot-hole, and connect one to the fence and the other to the ground."

"Simple! It looks different to me," declared the reporter admiringly. "All right, go ahead. I'll get down on this box and grind out the rest of my story."

Already Jack was at work sorting over the odd pieces of wire he had brought. Finding two suitable lengths, and straightening them out, he quickly connected them to the instruments, placed the instruments in a convenient position on the top of the box, and thrust the wire ends through the knot-hole. Then, hastening outside to the rear of the barn, he proceeded to connect one of them to the same strand of the fence wire to which the telegraph line was secured a mile distant. The other he drove deep into the damp earth beneath the edge of the building. And, theoretically, the circuit was complete.

Hurriedly he re-entered the barn to learn the result.

"Well?" said West anxiously.

"There is current, but it's too weak." Jack's voice quavered with his disappointment. "I suppose the rusty splices of that old fence offer too much resistance.

"But I'm not beaten yet," he exclaimed, suddenly recovering his determination. Turning from the box, he began pacing up and down the floor. "I'll figure it out somehow if I--oh!" With the cry Jack darted for the door, out, and toward the office.

The intoxicated roughs were again in possession. Quietly he made his way to a dark window adjoining the lighted window of the operating room--the window of a little store-room, where, the local operator had told him, the batteries were located.

The window was unlocked, and with little difficulty he succeeded in raising it. Cautiously he climbed within, and feeling about, found the row of glass jars. Quickly disconnecting two of them, he carried them to the window-sill, clambered out, and hastened with them to the barn.

"Now I've got it, Mr. West!" he cried. "I'll have H again in fifteen minutes!"

West started to his feet. "Can't I help you?"

"All right. Come on," said Jack. And ten minutes later, working like beavers, they had transferred to the barn the entire office battery of twenty cells.

In nervous haste Jack connected the cells in series, then to the wire. Instantly the instrument closed with a solid click.

"Hurrah! We win! We win!" cried West, and Jack, springing to the key, whirled off a succession of H's. "H, H, H, ON! Rush! H, H--"

"I, I, H! Where have you been? What's the matter?" It was the chief, and the words came sharply and angrily.

"The wire was cut both sides of the village," shot back Jack. "I think it was Raub and Simpson's work. And two roughs chased me out of the office with a revolver. Hired by them, I suppose. I've fixed up an office in the barn, and am sending for a mile through a wire fence, to bridge the cut. Orr."

For a moment the chief was too amazed to reply. Then rapidly he said: "Orr, you are a trump! But come ahead with that report now. And make the best time you ever made in your life. I'll copy you myself."

And there, in a corner of the big barn, by the dim light of the lantern, and to the strange accompaniment of munching cattle and restlessly stamping horses, West wrote as though his life depended upon it, and Jack sent as he had never sent before. And exactly an hour later the young operator sent "30" (the end) to one of the speediest feats of press work on that year's records of the Hammerton office.

Though it was 3 A. M. when Jack got back to Hammerton, he found the chief operator at the station to meet him. "I had to come down, to congratulate you," said the chief. "That was one of the brightest bits of work all-round that I've heard of for years."

"But did we beat them?" asked Jack.

"We assuredly did. For didn't you know? Those two roughs later went up and cleaned out the other office--the very men who had hired them to disable us! And what with having had a slow-working wire previously, the 'Bulletin' didn't get in more than five hundred words. We gave the 'Star' over three solid columns."

The manager's congratulation the following morning was as enthusiastic as that of the chief. "And as a practical appreciation, Jack," he added, "we are going to give you a full month's vacation, with salary. We think you earned it."

When Jack returned to his wire one of the first remarks he heard was from Alex Ward, at Bixton.

"Well, old boy," clicked Alex, "your adventure came, didn't it. And it has me beaten to a standstill."

"Nonsense. It was your stunt at Hadley Corners that suggested the trick that got me out of it," declared Jack. "But say, the manager has given me a month's vacation. What do you think of that?"

"He did! Look here," sent Alex quickly, "come to Bixton and spend some of it with me. I'll promise you all kinds of a good time. Though I am not sure I can guarantee anything as exciting as last night's work," he added.

Jack readily accepted the invitation. And, as it turned out, Alex might as well have made his promise. He could have kept it.