Top-Notch Magazine/Volume 22/Number 2/The Fluctuating Package/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
CHANGING HIS PLANS.
LONG'S angry remarks passed unheeded. Harrington turned to Summerfield. "Is that the package that passed through your office?" he asked.
"Yes," the agent answered.
"You are absolutely positive, are you?"
"Yes."
"How about you, Mr. Ruthven? Tell me: Would you declare, under oath, that that package is the one which you and Summerfield found to weigh nine pounds, and then six?"
Ruthven took the package in his own hands, and found the penciled mark he had placed on it for identification.
"I'm positive it is the same package," he declared.
"Mr. Long, what have you to say?"
"This thing makes me mighty tired," was the disgusted response. "That's all I've got to say. Nobody seems to have any horse sense. It was bad enough to have Summerfield go off the jump, but to have the foolishness spread the way it has is enough to make a man ashamed of the human race. That's the package we sent. Say, look here once."
He grabbed the parcel, untied it, unwrapped it, removed the cover of the heavy pasteboard box, and held up the tan bluchers with the eighteen-inch tops. "Jest boots!" he shouted, waving the footgear. "Boots for Tom Barton, at Dry Wash! Hang it, they'll be worn out afore they ever git to Barton, at this rate."
Harrington took the boots, replaced them in the box, carefully rewrapped and retied the package, and handed it back to Billings.
"That's enough," grunted Durfee. "I guess we've assassinated the time-table sufficiently with this wild-goose chase. All out, you men for the extra, and we'll let Seventeen proceed."
Harrington followed Durfee out of the express car, and Ruthven and Long and Summerfield followed Harrington. "Let her go!" said the superintendent to the conductor, and the latter yelled "All ab-o-o-ard," got the passengers back in the coaches, and gave the signal to the engineer.
Durfee went into the little station to send a message to the dispatcher, and Harrington trailed along. Ruthven, Summerfield, and Long remained on the platform and watched Seventeen pull out. Just then a face at one of the car windows caught Ruthven's attention. He gave an exclamation, stood irresolute for a moment, and then ran to board the rear platform of the last car.
"Summerfield," he called, "telephone Hoover that I'll be back to the ranch to-morrow!" That was all he had time to say.
His companions on the platform were surprised at this unexpected move. "What's the matter with him?" asked Long.
"Give it up," answered Summerfield. "Guess he saw somebody he knew on Seventeen, and went along to have a visit."
"Must have wanted a visit pretty tarnation bad,"grunted the other.
In truth, Ruthven had seen a man whom he knew, but he had not boarded Seventeen in order to visit him. The last time Ruthven had seen that particular person had been in the Catskill Mountains, near the town of Cairo, and a little nearer to the village of Purling, in New York. The fellow was a crook, and had stolen ten thousand dollars from the country home of a broker where Ruthven had been staying for a few days. His name was Morrison, and he had been nicknamed the "Weasel." He was a most accomplished cracksman, and was even then being searched for by the New York authorities.
Ruthven was stunned with surprise at the fleeting glimpse he obtained of Weasel Morrison's face. Morrison was far from his thoughts, and the very last man in the world he would have dreamed of seeing. Destiny plays some queer pranks, however, and perhaps it was not so odd that Morrison should be in the West, since the East had become too hot to hold him. The strange part of it was that Morrison should have been on Seventeen, that Ruthven should have happened to be with the party that had overhauled the train, and that at the last moment he should have seen Morrison's face at the window of the moving coach.
Ruthven was impulsive, and he had acted solely upon impulse at Bluffton. As he walked into the coach and seated himself, his mind had already begun to debate the advisability of the sudden move he had made.
In the first place, the man might not be Weasel Morrison at all. Ruthven had a keen eye and a good memory for faces, but he had had only a quick look at one face in a car whose windows furnished a broadside of faces. It might easily prove that he was mistaken. Besides, what was he to do even if the man really turned out to be Weasel Morrison?
On at least one account, Ruthven would much have preferred that Morrison should keep his liberty. His capture meant an airing in court of the lawless work in the Catskills, and a dragging in the mire of dishonor of the name of a classmate. That classmate was now recovering the ground his false step had lost for him, and it might cost him dear to have his error published by Morrison. But, nevertheless, Ruthven felt that the law required a duty of him.
"I hope the fellow isn't Morrison," he said to himself as he got up to go into the coach ahead to carry his investigations further.
Before he could reach the front platform, the conductor entered the car. "Jupiter!" exclaimed the trainman. "I thought you were with the superintendent's party?"
"I was," answered Ruthven, "but I thought I saw somebody I knew on the train as it pulled by, and I jumped on the last car."
"Make a mistake?"
"I don't know yet. Just come this way with me for a minute."
lie stepped out on the swaying platforms between the cars, and peered through the glass top of the door of the second coach. The conductor followed him obligingly.
"See that man in the gray cap, sitting on the left side, about the middle of the car?" Ruthven asked.
"Oh, that fellow! Yes, I see him. He got aboard in Dakota somewhere, and is traveling to Dry Wash."
"You don't happen to know his name, I suppose?"
"Hardly; but" The conductor paused, evidently turning some matter over in his mind. "Come back into the rear car a moment," he added presently.
Ruthven went with him, and they sat down together in a forward seat.
"Are you acquainted in Burt City?" the trainman went on.
"A little."
"Do you know Miss Lois McKenzie, of that place?"
Ruthven was startled somewhat by this question. Why had the conductor dragged Miss McKenzie into the discussion?
"Yes," he answered, "I am acquainted with Miss McKenzie."
"Then perhaps I can give you a line on who that man in the gray cap is. Miss McKenzie boarded this train at Williamsburg and rode to Burt City. She sat with that man part of the way and seemed to know him. Maybe, if he's a mutual friend, you can now guess who he is?"
"If he's a friend of Miss McKenzie's," said Ruthven, "then he isn't the one I know at all. I'll pay my fare to the next station and get off there, taking the first train back to Burt City. I made a fool move when I boarded Seventeen."
"Well, we all make fool moves occasionally," said the conductor in an attempt to be soothing. "Okaday is your stop, but you won't be able to get a train back until late this afternoon." He took the bill Ruthven handed him and returned some change. "Any idea what Durfee had up his sleeve, back at Bluffton?" he queried.
"Not the least."
The conductor moved on, looking somewhat incredulous. Ruthven did not notice the look, for he was thinking of his folly in losing a whole day when he should have been attending to the foreman's business at the bank in Burt City.
When the train halted at Okaday, which appeared to be a town of considerable size, a man with a truckload of express matter was pounding on the closed door of the express car. "What's the matter in there?" the man with the truck was asking of a brakeman.
Something unusual seemed to have happened, and Ruthven strolled forward alongside of the train. At the window through which he had seen the man in the gray hat he paused for a closer scrutiny. No passenger showed through the glass; the sinister face under the gray hat had disappeared.
"Moved to some other seat, I suppose," reflected Ruthven. "Well, it doesn't make much difference anyway—now." He proceeded on to the express car.
Here there was a good deal of excitement. A brakeman had entered the car by an end door, finding it unlocked. He pushed open the side door and thrust out his head excitedly. "Something wrong in here," he announced to the conductor and another brakeman who stood beside the man with the truck. "Billings, the messenger, is all doubled up in a heap. Guess he's sick or something."
The conductor climbed to the truck, and then into the car. He was followed by the other two men. Ruthven, curious, and impelled by a feeling that he might somehow have a personal interest in developments, got upon the truck and peered into the coach.
A brakeman had Billings' head on his knee, and the conductor was bringing a cup of water from the tank. The messenger was reviving, even before the cold water was flung in his face.
"What is the matter?" inquired Ruthven, stepping off the truck and through the wide doorway.
"Maybe Billings hurt himself," said the conductor, "or maybe some one else hurt him. We'll know in a minute. I don't like the look of things. The brakeman says he found the end door unlocked. Billings isn't usually careless."
The messenger, at that moment, lifted his head from the brakeman's knee and sat up. One hand went to the back of his head. "Some—somebody hit me," he remarked, looking around dazedly.
"When, Billings?" asked the conductor. "Who was it?"
"Not more than two or three miles out of Bluffton," said the messenger, gathering his wits to deal with the puzzling question. "Who it was is more than I know. I was sitting in that chair"—he pointed to an armchair near the middle of the car—"and my back was to the rear door. The fellow, whoever he was, crept in on me and gave me a crack from behind. That's all I remember till just now." Color flushed his pallid face as he struggled to his feet. "Is anything gone?" he asked wildly.
"The scoundrel didn't have time to steal anything, Billings," said the conductor, "if you were only two miles out of Okaday when he bowled you over."
"He must have been a robber!" insisted Billings.
"Then he miscalculated the distance to Okaday and didn't have time to get hold of anything valuable. Can you take on the stuff here? Edson will help you," and he nodded to one of the brakemen.
Ruthven started to leave the car, when his eye lighted upon the Barton package, and he picked it up. A sharp breath fluttered through his lips. The package weighed more than six pounds—he knew it! Turning the package end-up, he looked for the pencil mark. It was there! So Durfee and Harrington had made a mistake, after all. The Barton parcel was overweight, just as when it had left Burt City!