Lakeland Evening Telegram Newspaper, March 10, 1915, Page 2

The Trey O’ Hearts By Louis Joseph Vance - Swiftly the earth rose to receive the volplaning mechanism. Under Coast's admirable handling it settled down al- OBy DRURUB OO fiiferpretation of thelf to be aware of the show. They were not many in number: perhaps half a dozen aboard the spe- cial train—which was making away as fast as it could run toward the glory of the sunset; as many more aboard the light engine. It was the engineer who etarted the trouble. After bringing his monster to a full pause, he turned upon his I passengers and—not without plausible | excuse—violently indicted Mr. Alan Law for abuse of his and his fire- ' man’s trustfulness. This the said fire- man (climbing forward over the ten- der) vigorouely applauded. | They had been engaged, both gentle- 'men asserted vigorously, for nothing more dangerous than a quick run across the prairies, in furtherance of the unspecified plans of Mr. Alan Law and his companion, Miss Judith Trine. ' After starting out, they had wickedly and maliciously been bribed by the said Law to put on speed and catch up | | with the special, in order that he might Escape of Alan and Judith. most without a jar, on the outskirts of | a city whose name Alan never learned. For the biplane was barely at a' standstill before he was out and, reel ing with the giddiness that affects men | sfter long flights, making his way as best he might toward the manager’s office connected with a trainyard im- mediately adjacent to the spot where they had come to earth. Lavish disbursements of money won | him his way against official protests that what he demanded was an impos- | sibility. Within twenty minutes, leav- iug Coast to follow on when and as | best he might, Alan and Judith were ! spinning through open country in the cab of an engine running light, wlthl only clear track between it and the special. The several hours that ensued be- fore the rear lights of the special were ' brought to view were none too many | for the task imposed upon Alan ol‘ overcoming the scruples of the en- gineer and fireman. Another minute, and less than fifty | feet separated the two—the special train and the light engine, both hur tling through the light at top speed. With a word to the engineer Alan rescue from the latter a young woman, his bride-to-be and the eister of Miss Trine. But—and here was the grievance— they hadn’t bargained to be shot at with pistols. And precisely that out- rage had been put upon them during and subsequent to the moment of res- cue. It was unhappy Mr. Barcus who pre- cipitated the affair. This gentleman was suffering from a severe sprain to his sense of decent pride. In the serv- ice of Miss Rose Trine and her be- trothed, Mr. Law, Barcus had black- ened his face and hands to the hue of ebony and had garmented himself in the garb of a Pullman porter, surren- dering himself to humiliating service to those aboard the special, suffering their insolence and scorn without a murmur, but with the tides of wrath mounting ever higher in hie bosom. And now, when at length he had won his freedom from that ignomini- ous servitude, it was only to be sworn at and vilified, as a common nigger, by railroad hands! It was the fireman (to be just) who brought the row to a focus by a slight- ing reference to that “shiftless and ‘mllbelotten dinge.” He repented quite promptly. Mr, Barcus jumped for his throat with a crept out along the side of the boller, ' with only a greasy handrail and a nar- row foothold between himself and what meant death, or something close- 1y resembling it, should he be shaken off by the tearing wind and the sway- ing of the locomotive. } It seemed an hour before he worked himselt up to the cowcatcher—now ' within four feet of the rear platform of the epecial, ! On this last he could see a woman's figure indistinctly silhouetted against the light through the door, and beside her a man in a white coat, clinging for dear life to the knob of the door— ! holding it against the frantic efforts of | some persons inside to tear it open. Another hour of suspense dragged out—or such was the effect—while the light engine with intolcrable slowness bridged those four scant feet. At length it was feasible to attempt the thing. Rose (he could see her strained white face quite plainly now) ‘was half over the rail of the car ahead, ready to jump. His heart failed him. It was too hazardous a risk. He dared not let her take it. Something very like a shot sounded from the train and something very like a bullet whistled past his cheek, and | proved the signal for eeveral more. Strangely, that knowledge steadied | his nerves. Straining forward and holding on to a bar so hot that it scorched his palm, he offered a hand to the girl on the rail. Her hand fell confidently into it. She Jumped. His arm wound round her as she landed on the platform of the cow- catcher. He heard her breathe his name, then hurriedly passed her be- tween himself and the boller to the footway at the side. The fireman was walting there to help her. Alan turned his attention to Barcus. To his dismay he found that the en- &lne was losing ground. The space wio widening rapidly as Barcus re- leased the knob and threw himselt over the rail. By a miraculous, flying leap, the man accomplished that incredible feat and gained the platform. An instant later ten feet separated the engine from the special, as the en- gineer applied the brakes. And this he did none too soon: for at the eame time Marrophat and an- other appeared on the rear platform and opened a hot, but, thanks to the widening distance, ineffectual fire. The engine ground slowly to a halt as the rear lights of the special train swept from sight round a bend, CHAPTER XXXIl. Light Engine. Toward the close of that summer's day it was the whim of that arch-man- ager of theatricals whom men call Fate to stage an anticlimax in the midst of a vast and hilly expanse of desolate middle western country—a rude and rugged diek of earth which boasted no human tenancy within a circle of its far-flung horizon and was bisected, not neatly, rather irregular- ly. by the flowing double line of steel ribbons which marked the railroad's right of way over the old Santa Fe trail. So much for the stage: the light ef- fects were provided exclusively by the crimson and purple and gold of a por- tentous sunset; the properties em- ployed were simply a special train and ‘what is known as a light engine (mean- ing a locomotive unhandicapped by care); audience there was none, if one except the actors—who were one and ll far too deeply. precccupied with the veral roles ) One of His Arms Was Around Her Shoulder. bellow of rage. The brakeman leaped for his shovel and brandiehed it threat- eningly. Mr. Barcus made nothing of that: he closed in without hesitation and got the fireman by the throat, pro- ceeding to shake the breath out of his H body with the greatest good will and ' dispatch. In the course of this enter- tainment the fireman slipped on the cab platform, trod on nothing, and went over backwards, taking Mr. Bar cus with him to the ballast. At almost the same moment Mr. Law, attempting to restrain the engi- neer from going to the aseistance of his fellow-worker, ducked in under a vicious swing for his chin, grappled with his foe, tripped him up—and went with his to the ground on the oppo- site side of the locomotive from that occupied by Mr. Barcus and the fire- man. For the next several seconds he was very busy indeed keeping his face out of the ballast. The engineer was a heavy man, but active and infuriated. He fought like a demon unchained. It was all very exciting. Mr. Law was even beginning to enjoy it when he heard a woman ehriek. At the same instant revolvers began to pop. Mr. Law released his foe almost as quickly as he was released. Both rose as one man, to find Judith Trine be- side them, a little smile of excitement playing round her lips as she looked up the track and watched the special slow down to a stop—eeveral persons on the back platform plying busy trig- ger-fingers all the while, As these last threw open the plat- form gates and dropped to the ballast, still perforating the air with many bul- lets, Mr. Law, Miss Judith Trine, and that late belligerent, the engineer, turned simaltaneously and sought the rear of the tender. On thc opposite side they found Rose Trine and Mr. Barcus standing | uncertainly above the body of the fire- man, who, it appeared, had stunned himself in falling and remained in- sensible. The appearance of Law and Judith from behind the tender, closely pur sued by the engineer, who was in turn closely pursued by gentlemen with re- | | ind nothing amiss. volvers, stirred Barcus and Roseé (0 a¢- tion. Alan passed him at a round pace, pausing only long enough to seize Rose and drag her with him toward the special. Judith flung him a phrase of well-meant advice in passing: “Come along, you simpleton—unless you want to be shot down where you stand!” Mr. Barcus acted on that advice, as immediately as resentfully. Judith Trine was little before him at the steps of the Pullman: Mr. Law had al- ready assisted Rose aboard. Mr. Bar- cus ungraciously gave place to the lady: his ingrained chivalry sorely strained by bullets that kicked among the ballast round his feet. CHAPTER XXXIII, Pullman, “Come inside,” Law suggested, “and introduce me to the brakeman. I pre- sume I've got to fix things up with him—" “If there's really any doubt in your mind as to that,” Barcus said, rising, “I don’t mind telling you you're right.” He paused as Alan entered the car before him and was greeted by a storm of vituperation that fairly blistered the panels of the Pullman. Mr. Seneca Trine, helpless in his invalid chair, thus celebrated his introduction to the young man whom he had never before eeen whose life he had schemed to take these many years. His heavy voice boomed and echoed through the car like the sounding of a tocsin. Alan made no effort to respond, but listened with his head critically to one side and an exasperating expres- sion of deep interest informing his countenance until Mr. Trine was out of breath and vitriol; when the younger man bowed with the slight- est shade of mockery in his manner and waved a tolerant hand to Barcus. “He has, no doubt,” Alan inquired, “his own private cell aboard this car?” “Yas, suh!” Barcus agreed, aping well the manner of his apparent caste and color. “Ain’t dat de troof?” “Take him away, then,” Alan re- quested wearily—“if you please.” “Yas, suh!” Barcus replied, with nimble alacrity seizing the back, of the wheeled chair and swinging it round for a spin up the length of the car. Before Trine had recovered enough to curse him properly, the door to his drawing room was closed and Barcus was ambling back down the aisle. His grin of relish at this turning of the tables on the monomaniac proved, however, short-lived. It erased itself in a twinkling when Judith shouldered roughly past him, wearing a sullen and forbidding countenance, and flung herself into the drawing room with her father. The cause of her temper was not far to seek: at the far end of the car Alan was bending solicitously over the chair in which Rose was resting. One of his arms was around her shoulder. { Her face was lifted confidently to his. Barcus mused morosely on his ap- | prehension of trouble a-brew, simmer- ing over the waxing fire of that etrange | woman’s jealousy. He didn't like the prospect at all. If only Alan and Rose hadn’t been so desperately in love . that they couldn’t keep away from one another! If only Alan had been sen- sible enough to outwit the woman and leave her behind when he started in pursuit of the special! If only there had not been that light engine in pur- suit—as Barcus firmly believed it must be—loaded to the guards with Trine's unscrupulous hirelings! No telling when they might catch up! The fear of this last catastrophe wovked together with his fears of Ju- dith to render that night a sleepless one for Barcus. He spent it in a chair whence he could watch both the door to the compartment Judith had chosen for her own (formerly Marrophat's quarters) and the endless ribbons of steel that swept beneath the tracks. But nothing happened. He napped ) uneasily from time to time, waking with a start of fright, but always to Ever Judith stopped behind that closed door, and ever the track behind was innocent of the glare of a pursuing headlight. Nor did anything untoward mark the !nroxren of the morning—unless, in- | deed, Judith’'s protracted sessions | with her father behind the closed | door of the drawing room were to be | counted ominous. e hands for the purposes of his mas- querade—staining them a shade of ebony upon which soap and water and scrubbing had no effect whatever. And he had invented a most excruciating method of revenging himself upon the druggist who had taken advantage of his confidence and sold him the in- eradiable dye—when he was roused by the sudden flight of a magazine across the car, missing his head by a bare two inches, and the bang of a chair overturned by Judith as she jumped up and flung herself furiously toward the door. Just what had happened on the ob- servation platform Barcus didn’t know, but he could readily believe that the ! Jovers had just indulged in some espe- ! clally provoking and long-drawn-out ! caress. He overhauled Judith none too soon. In another moment she would have had her sister by the throat—if her purpose had not been to throw Rose bodily overboard, as Barcus suspected. Happily, he was as quick on hie feet as Judith on hers; and almost before he had grasped the situation, he had grasped her—had seized her arms and drawn them forcibly behind her back, at the same time swinging her round and endeavoring to propel her back through the doorway. It was a man-gize job. For the ensu- ing five minutes he had his hands full of violently reeentful and superbly able-bodied young woman. Only with the greatest difficulty did he succeed in wrestling her up the aisle and to the door of her compartment, where an even more furious resistance for some additional minutes prefaced the ultimate closing of the door upon the maddened Judith. Even then he might | not draw a free breath: there was no l way of locking that door from the out- side; and he dared not leave go the handle, lest the girl again fiy out and i renew the battle. Waving aside Alan’s proffer of as- . sistance, he acidly advised that gen- | tleman to return to his post of duty { and not let his infatuation blind him to what might at any moment loom up on the track behind them, Barcus stoutly held the door against the girl’s attempt to pull it open and through another period when she occupied her- self with kicking its panels as if hope- ful of breaking a way out. A long pause followed. He heard no sounds from within. And wearying, he won- dered what the devil she was up to. ‘Then her voice penetrated the barrier, its accents calm and not unamiable: “Mr. Barcus!” “Hello!” he replied, startled. “What is it, Miss Judith?”" “Please let me out.” “Not much.” “Oh—please!” Struck by the fact that she hadn’t lost her temper on hearing his refusal, ' he hesitated. It was very true that he couldn’t stay there forever, holding on to that knob. “Will you be good if I let you out?” “Perfectly.” “No more shenanigan?” “I promise.” “Word of honor?” “If my word of honor means any- thing to you—you have it.” “Well .!"” he said dubiously. In the same humor he turned and re- leased the knob; promptly Judith opened it wide and swept out into‘the | corridor, her mood now one of really | fetching mockery. “Thank you so much!” she laughed into his face of discomfiture; and drop- | ping him an ironic curtsy, she turned | forward and swung into the drawing | room occupied by Trine. | “Wonder what she put that on for?” he speculated, with reference to the ankle-long Pullman wrapper which Ju- dith had seen fit to don during her period of captivity. ‘“Heaven knows it's hot enough without wearing more clothing than decency demands . | But you never can tell about a wom- an I bet a dollar I've made a blithering ass of myself—letting her loose at all!” He took his doubts aft, communi- cating them to Alan and Rose. And his long conference with Alan and Rose on the observation platform afforded Judith ample opportunity in which undetected to euborn the train crew to treachery. ‘Whether she did or not, this is what happened in the course of the next hour: the special was forced to take a | Ever since lunch-time the girl had | siding to make way for the California been closeted with her father; Barcus ; limited, east-bound; and when thie had had been getting some well-earned and | Passed, the. engine of the special sorely-needed rest in his quarters; | coughed apologetically and pulled Alan standing his watch on the obser- | EWitly out, leaving the Pullman stalled vation platform, in company with Rose; and the train booming along through an uncouth wilderness of arid mountains, barren mesas, and eun- smitten flats given over to the desolate genius of sagebrush. Whatever had been the tenor of the communication between father and daughter, Judith eventually emerged from the drawing room in an ominous temper. Barcus, coming drowsily away from his compartment at the same time, was jarred wide awake by sight of the foreboding countenance she wore; and after a moment of doubt followed her back to the lounge at the rear of the car, He got there in time to see her at " rigid standstill, etaring steadfastly at the two figures so close together on the observation platform. But on his appearance Judith shook herself together, snatched up a magazine, and plunged wrathfully into an easy chair, burying her nose between the pages of the publication with every indication of deep interest in its text. Mr. Barcus, however, had learned the lesson of bitter experience to the effect that the outward bearing of Mise Judith Trine was no sure index to her inwerd hum~r—uvlers ¢h-t ig it might bo rect contrery though even 1! Reminding b o e fore inven-ed s morh'd interest in wn- other magazine—round the edge of which he kept a wary eye upon the young woman. For all her exasperation, Judith con- tained herself longer than might have been expected. Her continued show of placidity, indeed, lulled Barcus into & dangerous feeling of security. Per suaded that she meant to behave, he gradually ceased to watch her as nar rowly as at first, and lost himself in & morose reverie whose subject was the seemingly twhich and he had plunged his face ‘i er than ty the r | on the siding. From the rear of the tender the brakeman and fireman waved affecting farewells to the indignant faces of Alan and Barcus when they showed in the front doorway. CHAPTER XXXIV. Hand Car. “Well!” Mr, Barcus broke a silence whose eloquence may not be translated in print—“can you beat it?" “Not with this outfit,” Alan admit- ted gloomily. “But—damn it!—we've got to.” “Profanity—even yours, my friend— won't make this Pullman move without an engine.” “All the same, we can't stop here like bumps on a log, waiting for that gang of thugs to sail up in the light engine and cut our blessed throats.” Mr. Law answered this unanswer- able contention only with a lhmz.“” Then, stepping out on the forward platform of the Pullman, he cast a hopeless eye over the landscape. Raw, rugged hills hemmed in the right of way, hills whose vast flanks were covered with dense thickets of mesquite, chapnarsl, sagebrush and cacti, the La cf ow's and rattle- snokes rnd—sciited>. MNo way of es- cape from that p 't in the Lills oth- i-oad itself. He lew 2ze to the tracks ard siding—and ted sharply. “Eb—what now?" Barcus inquired with interest. “Some thoughtful body has left an ©old hand car over there in the ditch,” Alan replied. “Maybe it isn't beyond service—" “With me supplying the horsepower, 1 suppose!™ “Horse isn't the word," Alan cor rected meticulously; and escaped the other’s wrath by dropping down to the permanent mourning into ' pallast and trotting over to the ditch, where the hand car lay. “Looks as if it might work,” he an- nounced. “Come along and lend me & hand.” “Half a minute,” Barcus answered, dodging suddenly back into the car. When he reappeared, after some five minutes, Rose accompanied him, and Barcus was emiling as brilliantly as though nothing whatever was wrong with his world. “Sorry to keep you waiting, old top,” he explained; “but I was smitten with an inspiration. There didn’t seem to be any sense in letting the amiable Judith loose upon this fair land, so I found a coil of wire in the porter’s closet and wired the handle ot the drawing room door fast to the bars across the aisle. It'll take her eome time to get out, now, without assist- ance.” Ten minutes more had passed before the two grimy and perspiring gentle- men succeeded in placing the hand car upon the tracks. “It's a swell little hand car,” Bar-' cus observed grimly: “no wonder they threw it away.” 4 “What's the difference how it looks, as long as it will go?” I 1 “But will it?” Barcus doubted. Somewhere far back along the line & locomotive hooted mournfully. “It's got to!” Alan replied, helping Rose aboard. “If we can only get out of sight before they get here—" “Don't worry,” Barcus advised: “that’s a freight whistle.” “Maybe you can distinguish the whistle of a freight from that of a pas- senger train—I don't say you can't; but I'll take no chances on your judg- ment being good. Hop aboard here if | you're coming with us Slowly the hand car stirred on its grease-hungry and complaining axles; slowly it gathered momentum and eurged noisily up the track as Alan and Barcus, on opposite sides of the handlebar, alternately rose and fell back; slowly it mounted the slight grade to the bend in the track, rounded it, lost sight of the stalled Pullman on the siding and began to move more swiftly on a moderate down grade. Behind it the thunder of an ap- proaching train grew momentarily in volume, lending color to the theory of . Mr. Barcus that what they had heard . had been the whistle of a freighter rather than of the light engine. But | just as Alan was about to advocate leaving the tracks and taking the hand | car with them, to clear the way for the | train, its rumble began to diminish, grew less and beautifully less, and was stilled. “What do you make of that?” Alan panted across the racking bar. “The obvious,” Barcus returned. “The freight has taken the siding to walit for some other through train to pass. We'll have to look sharp and be ready to jump.” ! The grade became a trace more steep; the car moved with less reluc: tance. “Let go,” Alan advised: “it'll coast down the balance of this incline—and we'd better save our strength.” But they had barely regained their ' breath and mcpped the streaming eweat away from their eves when a second whistle, of a different tone, startled both back to their task. | Catching the eve of Barcus Alan ' nodded despairingly, H “Afrald it's all up with us now,” he groaned; “that sounded precisely like the whistle of the light engine.” “Sure it did!” Barcus agreed. “It wouldn’t be us if we had any better luck. The raints be praised for this grade!” For all its age and decrepitude the hand car made a very fair pace at the urge of the two who rose and sagged again without respite on either side the handlebar; and the grade was hap- pily long, turning and twisting like a snake through the hills, A little grace was granted them, moreover, through the circumstance (as they afterward discovered) that the light engine had stopped at the siding long enough to couple up Trine's Pullman—thus automatically ceasing to be a light engine, and becoming a special. It was fully a quarter of an hour be- fore the growing rumble of the latter warned the trio on the hand car, just as it gained the end of the grade and addressed itself to a level though tor- tuoue stretch of track. And at this point discovery of the switch of a spur line that shot off southward into the hills furnished Alan with his independent inspiration, Stopping the hand car after it had jolted over the froes, he jumped down, set the switch to shunt the pursuit off to the spur, and leaped back upon the car. Hardly had they succeeded in work- ing the hand car up round the shoulder of the next bend when the special took the switch without pause and the roar of its progress, shut off by an inter- vening mountain, was suddenly stilled to a murmur. But even so, there was neither rest | for the weary nor much excuse for self-congratulation; the rumble of the ! special was not altogether lost to hear- ! ing when the thunder of the freight | replaced and drowned it out. | Of a sudden, releasing the handle- | T, Alen stood up and signed to Bar- | cus to imitate his example. “Well—?" this last te H Snd obavel. panted, when he i “Jump off—leave the hand car w] it is—they'll have to stop to clear lt:!o'; the track.” “And then | T buY 2 1"t from tham §¢ it | : takes | my l_nrl dolr in the werla,” Alan promised. “it's our only bopa. We E can't keep up heartbreaking busi- ness forever—end it cen't be long be- fore Trine d Marro, thelr phat dlleoyn | — CHAPTER XXXV. Caboose. For once. in & way, 1t fell out pre- 88 Mr. Law bad planned and SELECTRIC g £ | | FEPOOSOS P OSSO Os 60000 Se +H 444444004 To thePubli TR T s AT Beginning FEB. 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