the conductor seemed a jolly man, and he took a fatherly interest in dorothy and tavia, having a daughter about their age at home, so he said. yet dorothy did not feel like telling him about the old tramp whom she and tavia had seen attempting to board the train.
“you see, the conductor has his rules to go by,” explained dorothy, “and we couldn’t expect him to break them for us. i wish we had money to pay the fare of the poor old creature.”
“you don’t really know, dorothy dale, whether the man is on the step, or not,” urged tavia.
“i’m going to find out,” pronounced her chum, with decision.
she left her seat, following the conductor slowly to the end of the car. ostensibly she went for a drink, but the moment the blue-coated official had passed through to the next car, dorothy went out into the vestibule. the brakeman chanced to be out of sight at the moment.
92 the doors on the “off” side of the vestibule were locked, but dorothy could peer through the glass. directly beneath her she could see the broken top of the old army hat.
“he’s there!” gasped dorothy, running back to tavia. “whatever shall we do about it?”
“i wish lance was here,” said her friend. “he’d know what to do.”
“we can’t have men-folk around to help us out of all our troubles,” sniffed dorothy.
“this isn’t trouble,” declared tavia. “it’s really nothing to us——”
“but suppose the poor man should fall off?”
“we’re anxious for nothing, i wager,” said tavia. “he is probably used to riding on car steps.”
“it’s such a narrow place,” groaned dorothy. “he can’t more than cling to it. oh! here’s a curve!”
they whirled around this corner and then over a long trestle that crossed a placid river. when the train did stop the girls did not see the tramp get off. all the stations chanced to be on the other side, as killock had been.
the peril of the man whom dorothy believed to be a fellow-soldier with her own father, major dale, was the uppermost topic in dorothy’s mind and conversation. tavia began to have another, and more personal, worry.
“i could eat a planked steak—plank and all!—right now,” said the flyaway. “dear me, doro! i wish your purse was like the widow’s cruse, and never gave out. there’s a buffet car on, too.”
they had to satisfy their appetites for the time being by buying some fruit from the train boy. but this was a poor substitute for planked steak—or any other hearty viand.
“i hope aunt winnie and ned and nat will wait for us at sessions, as i asked them,” sighed dorothy.
“if they don’t, we’ll have to steal a ride,” said tavia, quickly. “ned has our tickets, you know.”
but that was not a real worry. dorothy was pretty sure her aunt and the boys would do just as she had asked them to do. what was happening outside that car, on the rear step, was a matter (so she thought) for real anxiety!
a dozen times she went back to peer through the window in the vestibule door and caught a glimpse of the top of the battered grand army hat.
perhaps she went once too often—for the contentment of the old man who was cheating the railroad company of a fare. or, it may have been in some other manner that the brakeman’s attention was called to the presence of the stowaway on the step. for he was discovered before94 the train reached the junction, at eleven o’clock, where dorothy and tavia were to leave the train.
the conductor had been through again and talked to them, and they had learned when and where to look for the station. other passengers were already getting their baggage out of the racks, and putting on their light wraps.
suddenly the two friends heard a disturbance at the end of the car. tavia jumped up and looked back.
“oh, doro!” she cried, in a horrified tone, “they have him!”
dorothy turned quickly and saw the brakeman drag the old tramp into the car and fling him into an end seat.
“how rough he is!” gasped tavia, referring to the railroad employee.
dorothy darted down the aisle. she would have interfered had the conductor not come at once and taken charge.
“on the step, eh? well! he took his life in his hands,” grumbled the conductor. “give him a drink of water, john. i expect he’s famished for it—chewing grit as he has been since we started.”
“oh! what will you do with him?” cried dorothy, clutching at the conductor’s sleeve.
“nothing very bad, little lady,” assured the conductor, smiling at her. “we’ll hand him over95 to the railroad police at sessions. they’ll take him to court.”
“oh! must he be punished?”
“i am afraid so. the company’s pretty strict. he’s been stealing a ride and the magistrate will send him to the rockpile for that.”
“but he’s such an old man—and he’s a soldier,” whispered dorothy, pointing to the button on the lapel of the old coat.
the conductor started and looked more closely. “it’s a grand army button—sure enough,” he muttered. then he looked into the soot-lined face of the man and shook his head.
“stole it, most likely,” was his comment, and went on through the car.
dorothy did not believe that. the man’s eyes were dull, and it was evident that he was much exhausted. a traveling-man came up and offered him a drink from his pocket-flask. dorothy was sorry to see how eagerly the trembling old hands went out for the spirits.
soon color returned to the flabby cheeks, and a certain look of confidence to the old eyes, after the tramp had imbibed the liquor.
he was kept in the seat until the train stopped at the sessions platform. then, as the girls hurried out to find their friends, dorothy saw the old man with the grand army button being taken off the car by two policemen in plain clothes.
“dorothy dale!”
“tavia travers!”
two lusty shouts greeted the girls the moment they showed themselves upon the steps of the car. ned and nat white burst through the crowd outside and seized upon the two girls as they descended.
“glory!” yelled nat. “i could pound you girls, i’m so glad to see you. you had us scared stiff. and little mum will never get over it.”
“not so bad as that,” rejoined his brother. “but you girls certainly managed to give us all a scare. i’d just as soon travel with two kids as with you graduates of glenwood school.”
“now, neddie,” advised tavia, “don’t put on airs.”
“we’re real sorry, boys,” admitted dorothy. “but that old train went off and left us without saying one word!”
“i should think it did,” answered ned. “and what business had you off of it?”
“it wasn’t we that went off,” declared tavia. “it was the train that went off.”
“where have you been all this time?” asked nat. “how did you get here by an entirely different road? and who helped you?”
“oh, there! now you’ve said something,” cried tavia. “just the very nicest young man. a cattle puncher by trade, and we rode fifty miles97 with him, and saw a mrs. little of gigantic size, and helped a young woman and her lover elope, and witnessed the ceremony while her father battered at the door and threatened to blow all our heads off—and were chased by the angry father thinking we were the elopers, and——”
“stop her! stop her!” shouted nat. “i know you girls can collect adventures as a magnet does steel filings, but you are going too far now. an elopement! and an angry father with a gun——”
“and our grand army man!” cried dorothy, suddenly. “where is he? we must do something to help him.”
“that’s so, doro,” agreed tavia. “we must find him.”
“now they’re off again!” groaned nat, looking helplessly at his brother.
“where is aunt winnie?” demanded dorothy, suddenly.
“she is at the hotel. and she’s gone to bed,” said ned, gloomily. “you girls will give little mum the conniptions, if you’re not careful. she was awfully worried.”
“but you got our telegram?” cried dorothy.
“sure. but it read a good deal like the irish foreman’s message to the widow of his fellow-countryman suddenly killed in the stone quarry: ‘don’t worry about pat. he’s only lost both legs and one arm; and if it wasn’t that his head98 was cut off, too, he’d be as good as ever.’ your telegram gave just enough particulars to worry mother.”
“we’ll run and show her we are all right,” cried tavia.
but dorothy held back. her eyes were fixed upon the ragged figure of the old tramp being led out of the station by the two policemen.
“do you see that poor fellow, ned?” she whispered. “he wears a grand army button—like father.”
“that tramp?” gasped ned.
“yes. but maybe he isn’t really a tramp. only he stole a ride clear from killock,” and she hastily told her cousins about the stowaway on the steps of the car. “and ned!” added dorothy dale, “i want to save him from punishment. they are going to take him before the magistrate—and the conductor says the magistrate will send him to jail.”
“i expect so,” said ned, slowly.
“come, ned!” exclaimed the girl, anxiously, shaking him by the sleeve. “let nat take tavia to aunt winnie, and you come to court with me. maybe we can help the poor old man. a grand army man, ned!”
ned white knew that there was no stopping his cousin when she had “taken the bit in her99 teeth.” and here was a case where she was greatly moved.
nobody could gain dorothy dale’s sympathy like a grand army man. ned merely shrugged his shoulders and went with her, while nat and tavia started in the other direction.
“remember we go on the one o’clock train,” shouted nat after them.
dorothy and her cousin quickly caught up with the railroad police and their captive.
“oh, please, sir!” cried dorothy, to one of the officers, who had a very kind face, “where are you taking him?”
“hello, miss!” exclaimed the policeman, taking off his hat. “are you interested in this old chap?”
dorothy told him why, and how. “oh!” said the railroad man, “i didn’t know but you knew him. he’s got to go to court, anyway.”
“right away?” asked the girl, breathlessly.
“that’s where we are taking him, miss,” said the other officer.
“may we go with you?”
“of course you may. and if you want to say a good word for the old fellow to judge abbott, i’ll fix it so you can,” he added.
“that is so kind of you!” dorothy said. “you see, he is a grand army man.”
100 “mebbe he stole the button, miss,” growled one of the police.
dorothy turned swiftly to the prisoner. his old face was drawn and haggard. dorothy put her finger upon the button on the frayed lapel of his coat.
“where did you get that, sir?” she asked.
almost instantly the dull eyes brightened. the sagging chin came up and the old shoulders were squared.
“it belongs to me, miss,” he said, in a broken voice. “i am an army man—oh, yes! thank you. i—i been in the home; but i couldn’t stay indoor. so—so i ran away.”
“ran away!” gasped dorothy. “and where were you running to?”
“to the great out-of-doors,” whispered the old man. “i always lived in the open. i prospected, and i hunted, and i worked—all through these hills,” and he pointed westward.
“i suppose i did wrong in beating my way on the cars. but i’ve often done it,” confessed the old man. “i had no money for carfare. my pension’s turned over to the home as is only right, i s’pose. but i got to get out into the open, or die!”
the two railroad police looked at each other, grimly. “what do you know about that?” one muttered. dorothy was frankly crying.
