Bart Stirling's Road to Success by Allen Chapman

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"What do you want?" challenged the superintendent, turning on his heel.

"Why, it's this way," explained the dauntless Lem: "I'm an old
railroader and a handy man of experience, I am, and I wanted to make a
proposition to you. You see--"

Bart lost the remainder of Mr. Lem Wacker's proposition, for Mr. Leslie
had started forward impatiently, with Lem persistently following in his
wake. He was still keeping up the pursuit and importuning the affronted
official as both were lost to view behind a track of freights.

Bart of course surmised that Lem Wacker was on the trail of the "better
job" he had announced he was after to the old switchman, Evans.

"I don't think he has made a very promising impression," decided Bart,
as he got back to his writing.

"Say, you!"

Bart looked up a trifle startled at the sharp hail, ten minutes later.
He had been engrossed in his work and had not noticed an intruder.

Lem Wacker stood just in the doorway. He looked flushed, excited and
vicious.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Wacker?" inquired Bart calmly, though
scenting trouble in the air.

"You can undo!" flared out Wacker, "and you'll get quick action on it,
or I'll clean you out, bag and baggage."

"There isn't much baggage here to clean out," suggested Bart humorously,
"and as for the rest of it I'll try to take care of it myself."

"Oh! you will, will you?" sneered Lem, lurching to and fro. "You're a
sneak. Bart Stirling--a low, contemptible sneak, that's what you are!"

"I would like to have you explain," remarked Bart.

"You've queered me!" roared Wacker, "and I'm going to have
satisfaction--yes, sir. Sat-is-fac-tion!"

He pounded out the syllables under Bart's very nose with resounding
thumps, bringing down his fist on the impromptu office desk so forcibly
that the concussion disturbed the papers on it, and several sheets fell
fluttering to the floor.

Bart's patience was tried. His eyes flashed, but he stooped and picked
up the pages and replaced them on the dry goods box.

"Don't you do that again," he warned in a strained tone.

"Why!" yelled Wacker, rolling up his cuffs.

"I'll trim you next! 'Don't-do-it-again!' eh? Boo! bah!"

Lem raised his foot and kicked over the desk, papers and all.

"That's express company property," observed Bart quietly, but his blood
was up, the limit reached. "Get out!"

One arm shot forward, and the clenched muscular fist rested directly
under the chin of the astounded Lem Wacker.

"And stay out."

Lem Wacker felt a smart whack, went whirling back over the threshold,
and the next instant measured his length, sprawling on the ground
outside of the express shed.

CHAPTER VII

WAITING FOR TROUBLE

Lem Wacker rolled over, then sat up, rubbed his head in a half-dazed
manner, and muttered in a silly, sheepish way.

"Lem Wacker," said Bart, "I have got just a few words to say to you, and
that ends matters between us. I am sorry I had to strike you, but I will
have no man interfering with the express company's affairs. I want you
to go away, and if you ever come in here again except on business
strictly there will be trouble."

Lem did not put up much of a belligerent front, though he tried still to
look ugly and dangerous.

He got his balance at last, and extended his finger at our hero.

"Bart Stirling," he maundered, "you've made an enemy for life. Look out
for me! You're a marked man after this."

"What am I marked with," inquired Bart quickly--"burnt cork?"

"Hey! What?" blurted out Lem, and Bart saw that the shot had struck the
target. Wacker looked sickly, and muttered something to himself. Then he
took himself off.

Bart's worries were pleasantly broken in upon by the arrival of his
sister Bertha. She brought him a generous lunch, the first food Bart had
tasted that day, and his appetite welcomed it in a wholesome way.

He put in the time planning what he would do if he was lucky enough to
be retained in his father's position, and what he might do in case
someone else was appointed.

At half-past two Bart loaded the two ice cream freezers on the cart and
started for the picnic grounds.

Juvenile Pleasantville had somewhat subsided for a time in the fervor of
its patriotism. There was a lull in the popping and banging, nearly
everybody in town being due at the time-honored celebration in the
picnic grove.

When Bart reached the grove, someone was making an address, and he
piloted his way circumspectly up to the side of the platform where the
speaking was going on.

He deposited the freezers inside the bunting-decorated inclosure, where
half a dozen young ladies were posted to dispense the refreshments after
the literary programme was finished.

Bart started to return with his empty cart the way he had come, but
about ten feet from the platform paused for a moment to take in the
exceptionally flowery sentiment that was being enunciated by the speaker
of the day.

Colonel Harrington, it seemed, was the self-appointed hero of the
occasion. The great man of the village was in his element--the eyes and
ears of all Pleasantville fixed upon him.

In rolling tones and with magnificent gestures he was paying a lofty
tribute to the immortal Stars and Stripes waving just over his head,
when, his eyes lowering, they focused straight in a fixed stare on Bart.

The colonel gave the young express agent an awful look, and in an
instant Bart knew that the military man had been informed of the
identity of the audacious cannoneer of the evening previous.

Like some orators, the colonel, once disturbed by an extraneous
contemplation, lost his voice, cue and self-possession all in a second.

It seemed as if he could not take his eyes from the innocent and
embarrassed author of his distraction.

He spluttered, the rounded sentence on his lips died down to measly
insignificance, he stammered, stumbled, and sat down with a red face,
his eyes darting rage at poor Bart.

Some of the boys in the crowd "caught on" to the situation, and giggled
and made significant remarks, but the chairman on the platform covered
the colonel's confusion by announcing the national anthem, and Bart
effected his escape.

"He'll never forgive me, now," decided Bart. "The damage to the statue
was bad enough, but breaking him up as my appearance did just now is the
limit. I hope Mr. Leslie doesn't hear of my unfortunate escapade, and I
hope the colonel doesn't undertake to hurt my chances. He's an
irrational firebrand when he takes a dislike to anybody, and Mrs.
Harrington is worse."

Bart had a foundation for this double criticism. The colonel was a
pompous, self-important individual, intensely selfish and domineering,
and his wife a thoughtless devotee of fashion and society.

Mrs. Stirling did some very fine fancy work, and a few months previous
to the opening of this tale the magnate's wife had asked as a favor
that she embroider some handkerchiefs as a wedding present for a
relative.

She never visited the Stirling house but she left some sting or sneer of
affected superiority behind her, and when the work was done took it
home, and the next day sent a note complaining that the handkerchiefs
were spoiled, inclosing about one-fifth the usual compensation for such
labor. But she did not return the handkerchiefs.

Mrs. Stirling later learned that their recipient had expressed herself
perfectly delighted with the delicate, beautiful gift, but, being a true
lady, Bart's mother said nothing about the matter to those who would
have been glad to spread a little gossip unfavorable to the dowdy
society queen of Pleasantville.

The village hardware store was open for the sale of powder, and Bart
stopped there on his way back to the express office and purchased a
padlock, two keys fitting it, and some stout staples and a hasp. He
carried these articles into the office when he reached it.

The thoughts of his father's plight, a haunting dread that Colonel
Harrington might make him some trouble, and the uncertainty of continued
work in the express service, all combined to depress his mind with
anxiety and suspense, and he tried to dismiss the themes by whistling a
quiet, soothing tune as he started to get the hammer to put the padlock
in place.

The minute he opened the door, however, the whistle was instantly
checked, and a quick glance at the impromptu desk told Bart that the
place had welcomed a visitor since he had left it.

On a sheet of blank paper was scrawled the words: "Express safe was
locked last night--contents all right."

And beside it was a heap of account books--the entire records of the
office, which Bart had supposed were destroyed in the fire at the old
express shed the evening previous.

CHAPTER VIII

THE YOUNG EXPRESS AGENT

Our hero regarded the little pile of account books as if they
represented some long-lost, newly-found treasure.

He was very much astonished at their presence there. They were a
tangible reality, however, and no delusion of the senses, and his ready
mind took in the fact that someone had in an unaccountable manner
rescued them from the burning express shed, and mysteriously restored
them to the proper representative of the express company in the nature
of a vast surprise.

The edges of one of the books was scorched, which was the only evidence
that they had been in the flames.

They were all there, and Bart was very glad. He now had in his
possession every record of the transactions of the Pleasantville express
office since the last New Year's day.

"And the contents of the safe are all right, too, that writing says!"
exclaimed Bart; "now what does all this mean?"

The handwriting of the announcement was crude and labored, and the boy
felt sure he had never seen it before.

He glanced with some excitement at the ruins of the old express shed,
then he went over there. The embers had died down entirely, and the mass
of ashes and debris was sparkless and cold.

Bart went to a near railroad scrap heap and selected a long iron rod
crowbar crooked at the end. He returned to the ruins and began poking
the debris aside. He was thus engaged when some trackmen, lounging the
day away over on a freight platform, sauntered up to the spot.

"Why don't you work holidays, Stirling?" asked one of them satirically.

"Somebody has got to work to get this mess in shipshape order," retorted
Bart. "The writing said what was true!" he spoke to himself, as his
pokings cleared a broad iron surface. "The safe door is shut."

The safe lay flat on its back where it had fallen when the floor had
burned away. It was an old-fashioned affair with a simple combination
attachment, and so far as Bart could make out had suffered no damage
beyond having its coat of lacquer and gilt lettering burned off.

He leaned over and felt of its surface, which retained scarcely any heat
now.

"We heard the old iron box was caught open by the fire and everything in
it burned up," spoke one of the trackmen.

"I supposed so myself," said Bart, "but it seems otherwise. I wonder how
heavy it is?"

"Wait till I get some tackle," said one of the workmen.

He went away and returned with two crowbars and a pulley and block
tackle.

It was no work at all for those stout, experienced fellows to get the
safe clear of the ruins, and, with the aid of a big truck they brought
from the freight house, convey it to the new express quarters.

Just as the town bell rang out four o'clock, Mr. Leslie stepped over the
threshold.

He glanced about the place briskly, gave a start as he noticed the heap
of account books at Bart's elbow, and looked both pleased and puzzled as
his eyes lighted on the safe.

"Why, Stirling!" he exclaimed, "are you a wizard?"

"Not quite," replied Bart with a smile, "but someone else seems to be."

"Are those the office books we thought burned up, and the safe?"

"Yes, sir."

"How is this?"

Bart told of the mysterious return of the books and of the scrap of
writing that had led him to dig up the safe.

"That's a pretty strange circumstance," observed Mr. Leslie
thoughtfully. "How do you account for it?"

"I can't," admitted Bart, "except to theorize, of course, that someone
had enough interest in myself or the company to rush into the burning
shed and save the books and close the safe while I was getting my father
to safety."

"That's rational, but who was it?" persisted Mr. Leslie.

"Whoever it was," said Bart, "he has certainly proved himself a good,
true friend."

"Have you no idea who it is?" challenged Mr. Leslie sharply.

Bart hesitated for a moment.

"Why, yes," he admitted finally. "I am pretty sure who it is. I do not
know his name, but I have seen him several times," and Bart thought it
best to reveal to his superior all he knew about the roustabout who had
warned him of the burglary, who had assisted him in rescuing his father
from the burning express shed, and who had vanished suddenly as people
began to crowd to the scene of the blaze.

"I would like to meet that man!" commented Mr. Leslie.

"I hardly think that possible," explained Bart. "He seems to be afraid
to face the open daylight, and, as you see, has not even manifested
himself to me, except in a covert way."

"He is some poor unfortunate in trouble," said the superintendent. "If
you do see him, Stirling, give him that--from the express company."

Bart was sure that his mysterious friend could be no other than the
roustabout. He took the crisp ten-dollar bill, which the superintendent
extended with an impetuousness that showed he was a genuine,
warm-hearted man under the surface.

"That quarter of a dollar you gave him was a grand investment, Stirling.
And now to get down to business, for I haven't much time to spare."

The superintendent, seating himself on the bench, consulted his watch
and fixed his glance on Bart in his former stern, practical way.

"I saw your father at the hospital," he announced.

"Yes, sir?" murmured Bart anxiously.

"They are going to let him go home to-morrow. I am very sorry for his
misfortune. He is an old and reliable employee of the express company,
and we will find it difficult to replace him. I have thought over a
suggestion he made, and have decided to offer you his position."

"Oh, sir! I thank you," said Bart spontaneously, and the tears of
gladness and pride sprang to his eyes uncontrollably.

"Technically your father will appear in our service. I do not think the
company bonding him will refuse to continue to be his surety. You must
make your own arrangement as to legally representing him, signing his
name and the like, and of course you will have to do all the work, for
he will be helpless for some time to come. Are you willing to undertake
the responsibility?"

"Gladly."

"Then that is settled. This arrangement will be in force for sixty days.
If, at the end of that time your father is no better, I do not doubt
that we will give you the regular appointment, if in the meantime you
fill the bill acceptably."

"I shall do my best."

"And I believe you will succeed. I like you, Stirling," said Mr. Leslie
frankly, "and I am greatly pleased at the way you have stood in the
breach at a critical time, and protected the company's interests. You
will continue to draw fifty-five dollars a month, and use your judgment
in incurring any expense necessary to keep things running smoothly until
we get a new express office built. What is in the safe?"

Bart was familiar with its contents. He itemized them, including some
fifty unclaimed parcels of small bulk that had accumulated during the
year.

"Get rid of all that stuff," ordered the superintendent briskly. "I
shall advise all the small offices in this division to ship in all their
uncalled-for matter. Advertise a sale, make your returns to the company,
and start with a new sheet. I think that is all there is any need of
discussing at present, but I will send instructions by wire or mail as
the occasion comes up. Count me your friend as long as you show the true
manhood you have displayed to-day in a situation that would have rattled
and frightened most boys--and grown men, too. Good-by."

He was keen, practical business to the core, and no sentiment about him,
for he arose promptly with the farewell words, shook hands with Bart in
an off-hand way, and was gone like a flash to catch his train to the
city.

Bart stood for a moment in a kind of daze. The congratulatory words of
the superintendent, and the appointment to the position of agent,
stirred the dearest desires of his heart.

His great good fortune momentarily overwhelmed him, and he stood staring
silently after the superintendent in a grand dream of opulence and
ambition.

"I want you!" spoke a harsh, sudden voice, and Bart Stirling came out of
dreamland with a shock.

CHAPTER IX

COLONEL JEPTHA HARRINGTON

The young express agent recognized the tones before he saw the speaker's
face. Only one person in Pleasantville had that mixture of lofty command
and tragic emphasis, and that was Colonel Jeptha Harrington.

As Bart turned, he saw the village magnate ten feet away, planted like a
rock, and extending his big golden-headed cane as if it was a spear and
he was poising to immediately impale a victim. The colonel's brow was a
veritable thundercloud.

"Yes, sir," announced Bart promptly--"what can I do for you?"

Bart did not get excited in the least. He looked so cool and collected
that the colonel ground his teeth, stamped his foot and advanced
swinging his cane alarmingly.

"I've come to see you--" he began, and choked on the words.

"May I ask what for?" interrogated Bart.

Colonel Harrington shook, as he placed his cane under his arm and took
out his big plethoric wallet.

He selected a strip of paper and held it between his forefinger and
thumb.

"Young man," he observed, "do you know what that is?"

Bart shook his head.

"Well, I'll tell you, it's a bill, do you hear? a bill. It's for
eighty-five dollars, damage done maliciously on my private grounds,
yesterday evening. It represents the bare cost of a new copper pedestal
to replace the one you shot to pieces last night, and it's a wonder you
are not in jail for murder, for had that cannon ball struck a human
being--Enough! before I take up this outrage with the district attorney
in its criminal phase, are you going to settle the damage, or are you
not?"

"Colonel Harrington, I haven't got eighty-five dollars."

"Then get it!" snapped the Colonel.

"Nor can I get it."

"Then," observed the colonel, restoring the bit of paper to his
pocket--"go to jail!"

Bart regarded his enemy dumbly. Colonel Harrington was a power in
Pleasantville, his will and his way were paramount there.

"I am sorry," said Bart finally, in a tone of genuine distress, "but
eighty-five dollars is a sheer impossibility--in cash. If you would
listen to me--"

"But I shan't!"

"I would like to offer payment or replace the pedestal on reasonable
terms."

"It don't go!"

"And, further, I am not to blame in the matter."

"What!" roared the colonel "what's that?"

"It's the truth," asserted Bart. "I never knew the cannon was loaded
with a ball."

"Do you know who loaded it?"

Bart was silent.

"You won't tell? We'll see if a jury can't make you, then!" fumed the
colonel. "Aha! it's serious now, is it? Not so much fun breaking up my
home and breaking up my speech at the grove to-day, hey?"

Bart saw very plainly that what rankled most with his volcanic visitor
was the blow to his pride he had suffered that afternoon at the grove.

"You put me in a nice fix, didn't you?" cried the colonel--"laughing
stock of the community! Young man, you're on the downward road, fast.
You're all of a brood. Your mother--"

Bart started forward with a dangerous sparkle in his eye.

"Colonel Harrington," he said decisively, "my mother has nothing to do
with this affair."

"She has!" vociferated the magnate, "or rather, her teachings. You're
full of infernal pride and presumption, the whole kit of you!"

"We have our rights."

"I'm a stockholder in the B. & M., and I fancy my influence will reach
the express service. You'll stay in your present job just long enough
for me to advise your employers of your true character."

Bart was dismayed--that threat touched him to the quick. He had felt
very glad that Mr. Leslie had not met the irate colonel. The
mean-spirited magnate noted instantly the effect of his threat.

"You'll insult and defy me, will you?" he cried, with a gloating
chuckle. "Very well--you take your medicine, that's all."

Bart could hardly control his voice, but he said simply:

"Colonel Harrington, my father has been blinded at his post of duty. I
am the sole support of the family. I hope you will pause and consider
before you plunge us into new trouble and distress that we do not
deserve. I have never had the remotest thought of injuring you or your
property in any way. I am willing to make all the amends I am able for
the accidental damage to your property, but I can't and won't cringe to
your injustice, nor grovel at your feet."

"Eighty-five dollars--one, the name of the person who loaded that
cannon--two, C.O.D. before ten o'clock to-morrow morning, or I'll sweep
you off the map!" shouted the colonel.

He marched off, puffing up as his vain senses were tickled with the
fancy that he was a born orator, and had just given utterance to some
profoundly apt and clever sentiments. Bart stared after him in sheer
dismay.

"It's a bad outlook," he murmured, "but--I have tried to do my duty. I
would like to have money and influence, but would rather be plain Bart
Stirling than that man. He is coming back."

Bart thought this, for, just about to round the end of a dead freight
and cross to the public street, his late visitor turned abruptly.

He did not, however, retrace his steps. Instead, he came to the
strangest rigid pose Bart had ever seen a human being assume.

He stood staring, spellbound, at the partly open door of the nearest
freight car. His cane had fallen from his hand, his head was thrown up
as if he had been struck a stunning blow under the chin, and even at the
distance he was, Bart could see that his usually red-puffed face was the
color of chalk. Almost immediately, through the open doorway space of
the freight car an arm was protruded.

Its index finger was pointed, inflexible as an iron rod, directly at the
colonel. It fascinated and transfixed the military man, and Bart
Stirling, staring also at the strange tableau, was overcome with
perplexity and mystification.

CHAPTER X

QUEER COMRADES

So many sensational occurrences had marked the last twenty-four hours of
Bart Stirling's career, that it seemed as though the accumulating series
would never end.

It was a particularly ragged and miserable-looking arm, and why it could
so summarily check, halt and hold the great magnate of Pleasantville,
was the problem that now tried Bart's reasoning faculties.

Bart closed the door of the express office and stepped out to where he
could get a clearer view of the colonel and his environment.

Suddenly the strain was removed. The colonel threw up his arms with a
gasp. He started to turn around, clutched at his neck in a strangling
kind of a way, tottered, reeled, and plunged forward on his face against
a heap of cinders.

"This is serious," murmured Bart.

He rapidly covered the two hundred foot space between the express shed
and the freight car.

"Colonel--Colonel Harrington!" he called in some alarm, kneeling by the
prostrate body of his enemy.

Bart tried to pull him over on his back. As he partially succeeded, he
noticed that the colonel's face was pitted, and in one or two places
scratched and bleeding from contact with the cinder particles.

The bulky form was quivering and convulsed. The colonel had been dazed,
it seemed, but not rendered entirely unconscious, for now with a groan
he struggled to a sitting posture.

Bart drew out his handkerchief and tried to clean the dirt from the
military man's face.

The colonel resisted, he swayed and mumbled. Then he groaned again as
his eyes lit on the freight car.

"Get me away from here," he moaned--"get me away! What's happened to
me?"

"That is what I was going to ask you," said Bart. "Don't you know?"

The colonel passed his hand over his face and mumbled, but made no
coherent reply.

Bart glanced at the freight car. It afforded no evidence of present
occupancy. He reflected for moment.

"Wait for just two minutes," he directed.

Running over to the drug store on the next street, he spoke a few words
to the man in charge, and darted out again as the druggist hurried to
his telephone to call up the livery stable.

When he got back to the colonel, Bart found the latter sitting propped
up against the cinder heap, his eyes open, and breathing heavily, but
still in a helpless kind of a daze.

He worked over the colonel, and finally got the man on his feet. His
position was so unsteady, however, that he had to support him with one
hand while he dusted off his clothes with the other.

As he stood trying to keep his charge on his feet, a cab rushed across
the tracks. Its driver, bluff Bill Carey, nodded familiarly to Bart, and
looked the colonel over critically. He got the latter into the cab in an
experienced way.

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