Bart Stirling's Road to Success by Allen Chapman

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"Upward and onward," murmured Mrs. Stirling, placing a tender, loving
hand on Bart's shoulder.

A second rocket went whizzing up. It raced the other, outdistanced it,
seemed bound for the furthest heights, never swerving from a true,
straight line.

Then it broke grandly, sending a radiant glow across the clear, serene
sky.

"That's my motto," said Bart, a touch of intense resolve in his
tones--"higher still!"

CHAPTER XIV

MRS. HARRINGTON'S TRUNK

"Hey, there! Stirling."

Bart was busy at his desk in the express office, but turned quickly as
he recognized the tones.

Trouble in the shape of Lem Wacker loomed up at the doorway.

"What is it?" asked Bart.

It was a week after the Fourth, and in all that time Bart had not seen
anything of the man whom he secretly believed was responsible for the
fire at the old express office.

"Who's the responsible party here?" demanded Lem, making a great ado
over consulting a book he carried.

"I am."

"All right, then--I represent Martin & Company, pickle factory."

"Oh, you've found a job, have you," spoke Bart, forced to smile at the
bombastic business air assumed by his visitor.

"I represent Martin & Company," came from Wacker, in a solemn,
dignified way. "Inspector. We want a rebate on that bill of lading."

Lem removed a slip from his loose-leaf book and tendered it to Bart.

"What's the matter with it?" inquired Bart.

"Consignment short," announced Wacker.

Bart looked him squarely in the eyes. Wacker had made the announcement
malignantly. His gaze dropped.

"I'm hired to stop the leaks," he mumbled, "and if this office is
responsible for any of them I'm the man to find it out."

"Well, in the present instance your claim is sheer folly. I see you note
here one hundred and fifty pounds shortage. What is your basis?"

"I weighed them myself."

Bart consulted his books. Then he turned again to Wacker.

"This consignment was shipped as nine hundred and fifty pounds," he
said. "It weighed that at the start."

"That's what the shipping agent says, yes."

"And you claim eight hundred pounds?"

"Exactly."

"It was weighed up here when received--nine hundred and fifty pounds."

"Come off!" jeered Wacker. "Wasn't I an express agent once and don't I
know the ropes? What receiving agent ever takes the trouble to
re-weigh!"

"My father did--I always do," announced Bart flatly.

"Even if you did," persisted Wacker, "what little one-horse agent dares
to dispute the big company's weight at the other end of the line?"

"Oh," observed Bart smoothly, "you think there is a sort of collusion,
do you?"

"Yes, I do--I am an expert!"

"Sorry to disturb the profundity of your calculations, Mr. Wacker," said
Bart quietly, "but in the present instance there could not possibly be
any mistake. Our scales were burned up in the fire. The new ones have
not yet arrived, and in the meantime, as a temporary accommodation, our
weighing is done up at the in-freight platform by the official weigh
master of the road. I fancy Martin & Company will accept that
verification as final. Don't you think so, Mr. Wacker?"

Lem Wacker snatched the paper Bart returned to him with a positive
growl.

"I'll catch you Smart-Alecks yet!" he muttered surlily.

"What are you so anxious to catch us for?" inquired Bart coolly.

"Never you mind--I'll get you!"

Lem Wacker had said that before, and as he backed away Bart dismissed
him with a shrug of his shoulders.

There were too many practical things occupying his time to waste any on
fancies. Bart had put in a very busy week, and a very satisfactory one.
He had started in with a system, and had never allowed it to lag. In
fact, he improved it daily.

Thanks to his brief, but thorough apprenticeship under his father's
direction, he had acquired a knowledge of all the ins and outs of the
office work proper.

He had shown great diligence in clearing up the old business. In three
days after taking official charge Bart had forwarded to headquarters all
the claims covering the fire.

He had also listed the unclaimed packages in the safe, together with
those burned up, had followed out Mr. Leslie's direction to collect all
not-called-for express matter at little stations in his division, and
was now awaiting an order from headquarters as to their final
disposition.

The strange "Mr. Baker" had drifted out of his life, temporarily at
least.

Bart had purchased the articles the roustabout had required, and that
evening Baker came out from his hiding-place marvelously unlike the
great-bearded, shock-headed individual Bart had previously known.

A green patch and goggles, a deep brown face-stain, and a pair of thin
artistically made "side-burns" comprised a puzzling make-up.

Baker told Bart that he felt himself perfectly disguised, that he could
now venture freely down the road a distance where he had business.

"I'll be back, though," he promised. "Perhaps in two weeks. I'm not
through with Pleasantville. Oh, no! There's going to be an explosion
here some time soon. You've put me on my feet, Stirling, and you won't
be sorry when you know what I'm after."

Bart had half planned to hire Baker for what extra work he had to give
out. He had to look about for someone else, and Darry Haven and his
brother, Bob, alternately came around to the express office before and
after school, and helped Bart.

The company allowed for this extra service, but Bart had to take a
separate voucher for each task done.

Colonel Harrington had left for a fashionable resort two days after the
Fourth, and Bart understood that Mrs. Harrington was preparing to join
him there.

Bart's father had been taken home after spending two days in the
hospital.

The surgeon there had told him that his case was not at all hopeless,
and the old express agent was cheerful and patient under his affliction,
and nights Bart made a great showing of the necessity of going over the
business of the day, so as to keep his father's mind occupied.

So far Bart's affairs had settled down to what seemed to be a clear and
definite basis, and when that afternoon a new platform scale arrived,
and he received a letter of instructions from Mr. Leslie concerning the
sale of the unclaimed express packages, he felt a certain spice of
pleasant anticipation injected into the business routine.

"Why, it will be a regular circus!" said Darry Haven that afternoon,
when Bart told him about it. "Last year they advertised the sale at
Marion. I was up there at my uncle's. All the farmers came in for miles
around, and the way they bid, and the funny things they found in the
packages, made it jolly, I tell you!"

When Bart got through with the routine work the next day, he started in
to formulate his plans for the sale.

It was to take place in thirty days, and the superintendent had relied
on Bart's judgment to make it a success.

Darry Haven came in as Bart was laboring over an advertisement for the
four weekly papers of Pleasantville and vicinity.

"Here," he said promptly, "you are of a literary family. Suppose you
take charge of this, and get up the matter for a dodger, too."

"Say, Bart," said Darry eagerly, "we can print the dodgers--my brother
and I--as good as a regular office. You know we've got a good amateur
outfit at home. Father was an editor, and I'll get him to write up a
first-class stunner of an advertisement. Can't you throw the job our
way?"

"If you make the price right, of course," answered Bart.

"We can afford to underbid them all," declared Darry; and so the matter
was settled.

"Oh, by the way," said Darry, as he was about to leave--"Lem Wacker's
out of a job again."

"You don't surprise me," remarked Bart, "but how is that?"

"Why, Martin & Company are buying green peppers at seventy cents a
bushel. They heard that down at Arlington someone was offering them to
the storekeepers at one dollar for two bushels, investigated, detected
Dale Wacker peddling the peppers from factory bags, and found that his
uncle, Lem, was mixed up in the affair. Anyway, Dale's father had to
settle the bill, and they fired Lem."

"Mr. Lem Wacker is bad enough when at work," remarked Bart, "but out of
work I fear he is a dangerous man. All right!" he called, hurrying to
the door as there was a hail from outside.

Colonel Harrington's buckboard was backed to the platform and its driver
was unloading a large trunk.

Bart helped carry it in, dumped it on the scales, went to the desk, got
the receipt book, and reading the label on the trunk found that it was
directed to Mrs. Harrington at Cedar Springs, the summer resort to which
the colonel had already gone.

"Value?" he asked.

"Mrs. Harrington didn't say, and I don't know. If you saw all the finery
in that trunk, though, you'd stare. You see, Mrs. Harrington is going to
stay three weeks at the Springs, and is sending on her finest and best.
I'll bet they amount to a couple of thousand dollars."

Bart filled out a blank receipt, stamping it: "Value asked, and not
given."

"It can't go till morning," he said.

"That don't matter. The missus won't be going down to the Springs till
Saturday."

"You have just missed the afternoon express," went on Bart.

"Yes, Lem Wacker said I would."

"What has he got to do with it?" asked Bart.

"Why, nothing, I gave him a lift down the road, and he told me that."

The driver departed. Bart stood so long looking ruminatively at the
trunk that Darry Haven finally nudged his arm.

"Hi! come out of it," he called. "What's bothering you, Bart?"

"Nothing--I was just thinking."

"About that trunk, evidently, from the way you stare at it."

"Exactly," confessed Bart. "I believe I am getting superstitious about
anything connected with the Harringtons or the Wackers. Here, give me a
lift."

"All right. Where?"

"Swing it up--I want to get it on top of the safe."

"What!" ejaculated Darry in profound amazement.

"Yes, we don't handle property in the thousands every day in the week."

"But the company is responsible only up to fifty dollars, when they
don't pay excess."

"That doesn't satisfy the shipper if there is any loss. I feel we ought
to be extra careful until we get a new office with proper safeguards,
and that expensive outfit staying here all night worries me. Up--hoist!"

Bart settled the trunk on top of the safe, and on top of that he set the
lantern.

When he locked up for the night he lit the lantern, and went over to the
freight platform where the night watchman had just come on duty.

Bart knew him well and liked him, and the feeling was reciprocal.

He explained that a valuable trunk had to remain overnight in the
express shed, and how he had placed it.

"Just take a casual glance over there on your rounds, will you, Mr.
McCarthy?" he continued.

"I certainly will. You set the lantern so it shows things inside, and
I'll keep an eye open," acquiesced the watchman.

Bart went home feeling satisfied and relieved at the arrangement he had
made.

All the same he did not sleep well that night. About daybreak he woke
up with a sudden jump, for he had dreamed that Colonel Harrington had
thrown him into a deep pit, and that Lem Wacker was dropping Mrs.
Harrington's precious trunk on top of him.

CHAPTER XV

AN EARLY "CALL"

The young express agent was conscious that he shouted outright in his
nightmare, for the trunk he was dreaming about as it struck him seemed
to explode into a thousand pieces.

The echoes of the explosion appeared to still ring in his ears, as he
sat up and pulled himself together. Then he discovered that it was a
real sound that had awakened him.

"Only five," he murmured, with a quick glance at the alarm clock on the
bureau--"and someone at the front door!"

Rat, tat, tat! it was a sharp, distinct summons.

"Why," continued Bart briskly, jumping out of bed and hurrying on some
clothes, "it's Jeff!"

Jeff was "the caller" for the roundhouse. He was a feature in the B. &
M. system, and for ten years had pursued his present occupation.

"Something's up," ruminated Bart a little excitedly, as he ran down the
stairs and opened the front door. "What is it, Jeff?"

"Wanted," announced the laconic caller.

"By whom?"

"McCarthy, down at the freight house."

"What's wrong?"

"He didn't tell---just asked me to get you there quick as your feet
could carry you."

"Thank you, Jeff, I'll lose no time."

Bart hurried into his clothes. Clear of the house, he ran all the way to
the railroad yards.

As he rounded into them from Depot Street, he came in sight of the
express office.

McCarthy, the night watchman, was seated on the platform looking down in
a rueful way.

He got up as Bart approached, and the latter noticed that he looked
haggard, and swayed as though his head was dizzy.

"What is it?" cried out Bart irrepressibly.

"I'm sorry, Stirling," said the watchman, "but--look there!"

Bart could not restrain a sharp cry of concern. The express office door
stood open, and the padlock and staples, torn from place, lay on the
platform. He rushed into the building. Then his dismay was complete.

"The trunk!" he cried--"it's gone!"

"Yes, it is!" groaned McCarthy, pressing at his heels.

Bart cast a reproachful look at the watchman. The lantern, too, had
disappeared. He sank to the bench, overcome. Finally he inquired
faintly:

"How did it happen?"

"I only know what happened to me," responded the watchman. "I was
drugged."

"When--where--by whom?"

"It's guesswork, that, but the fact stands--I was dosed. You asked me to
watch, and I did watch. Up to midnight that lantern on top of the trunk
wasn't out of my sight fifteen minutes at a time."

"And then?" questioned Bart.

"I always go over to the crossing switch shanty about twelve o'clock to
eat my lunch. The old switchman lends me his night key. I put my lunch
in on the bench when I come on duty, and he always leaves the stove full
of splinters to warm up the coffee quick. When I let myself in at
midnight, the lantern here was right as a beacon--I particularly noticed
it."

"How long was it before you came out again?"

"Four hours afterwards--just a little while ago."

"Then you--fell asleep?" said Bart.

"Yes, I did, and no blame to me. I'm no skulker, as you well know. I
never did such a thing before in all my ten years of duty here. I was
doped."

"How do you know that?" asked Bart.

"I warmed up the coffee and had my lunch," narrated the watchman. "Then
I settled down for a ten minutes' comfortable smoke, as I always do. I
felt sort of sickish, right away. I had noticed that the coffee tasted
queer, but I fancied it might have been burned. Anyhow, half an hour ago
I seemed to come out of a stupor, my head fairly splitting, and my
stomach burning as though I'd taken poison. I thought of poison,
somehow, and more so than ever as I reached over to see if there was any
coffee left, for my throat was dry as a piece of pine board. There
wasn't, but at the bottom of the pail were two or three little sticky
brown dabs. I tasted the stuff. It was opium. I know, for I've used it
in sickness. I stumbled out to get the air. The minute I glanced over at
the express office I guessed it all out. It's a burglary, right and
proper, Stirling, and the fellows who did it knew I was on the watch,
got into the switch shanty, fixed the coffee and put me to sleep."

Bart rapidly turned over in his mind all that the watchman had
disclosed.

"See here," he said promptly, "how many keys are there to the switch
shanty?"

"Only one that I know anything of," responded McCarthy. "There can't be
many, or the old switchman wouldn't have to lend me his key."

"Lem Wacker subbed for him once, didn't he?" inquired Bart pointedly.

"Yes, for a day or two--say! you don't think--" began the watchman, with
a start of suspicion.

"I'm not thinking anything positive," interrupted Bart--"I am only
seeking information. When Wacker subbed for the old switchman, did he
have a special key?"

"N--no," answered the watchman hesitatingly, "for I remember Wacker
loaned me the old switchman's key the first night. Hold on, though!"
cried McCarthy with a spurt of memory, "it comes back to me clear now.
The next night he told me to keep the key till the old switchman came
back on duty--so he must have had an extra one of his own. They are
easily got--it's a common, ordinary lock."

Bart's lips shut close. He went outside, looked keenly around, and
jumped down from the platform.

The watchman trailed out after him, watching him in a worried,
discouraged way. There was no doubting the word of a trusted employee
like McCarthy, and Bart realized that he felt very badly over the
matter.

"What is it, Stirling--have you found anything?" asked the watchman
eagerly, as Bart, after inspecting the roadway, still more narrowly
regarded the edges of the platform boards, running his finger over them
in a critical way.

"Yes, I have," announced Bart--"that trunk was taken away from here in a
wagon."

"How do you know?"

"Look at those fresh wheel tracks," directed Bart, pointing to the road.
"They sided a wagon up to the platform, right here. So close, that a
wheel or the body of the wagon scraped along the edges of the boards.
The paint was fresh. And it was bright red," added Bart.

"You're a good one to guess that out," muttered the watchman. "Why,
say--"

McCarthy gave a prodigious start and put his hand up to his head, as if
some idea had occurred to him with tremendous force. "You mentioned Lem
Wacker. It's funny, but last week Wacker bought a new wagon."

"Are you sure of that?"

"Yes, it was the same one that his scapegrace nephew, Dale Wacker, was
caught peddling the stolen pickles in. I saw Lem painting it fresh out
in his shop only two days ago. You know I live just beyond him."

"What color?"

"Red."

"Then Lem Wacker must know something about this burglary!" declared
Bart.

CHAPTER XVI

AT FAULT

"I am sorry," again said the night watchman, after a long thoughtful
silence on the part of Bart.

"I know you are, Mr. McCarthy," returned Bart, "but nobody blames you.
I've got to get back that trunk, though! you are positive about Lem
Wacker's wagon being newly painted?"

"Oh, sure."

"And red?"

"Yes, a bright red. Wacker lives near us, as I said. I strolled down the
alley day before yesterday. I saw his shed doors open, and Wacker
putting on the paint. I remember even joking him about his experience in
painting the town the same color once in awhile. He took that as a
compliment, Lem did. It seems he traded for the wagon some time ago. He
told me he was going to start an express company of his own."

"He seems to have done it--so far as that trunk is concerned!" murmured
Bart. "Mr. McCarthy, you and I are friends?"

"Good friends, Stirling."

"And I can talk pretty freely to you?"

"I see your drift--you think Lem Wacker had a hand in this burglary?"

"I certainly do."

"Well, I'll say that I don't think he's beyond it," observed the
watchman. "You'll find, though, he only had a hand in it. His way is
generally using someone else for a cat's-paw."

"I am going to ask you to do something for me," resumed Bart
seriously--"I'm going to get back that trunk--I've got to get it back."

"The company ought to provide you with a safe, decent building."

"That will come in time."

"No one can blame you. They can't expect you to sit up watching all
night, nor carrying trunks to bed with you for safe-keeping."

"No, but the head office, while it might stand an accidental fire, will
not stand a big loss on top of it. My ability to handle this express
proposition successfully is at stake and, besides that, I would rather
have almost anybody about my ears than Mrs. Harrington."

"The colonel's wife is a Tartar, all right," bluntly declared the night
watchman. "Hello! here's somebody from Harrington's, now."

The same buckboard that had driven up the afternoon previous, came
dashing to the platform as McCarthy spoke.

It was in charge of the same driver, who promptly hailed Bart with the
words:

"That trunk gone yet?"

"No, not yet," answered Bart.

"Then I'm in time. Mrs. Harrington wanted to put something else in--this
box. Forgot it, yesterday," and the speaker fished up an oblong package
from the bottom of the wagon.

"It will have to go separate," explained Bart.

"Can't do that--it's a silk dress, and not wrapped for any hard usage.
Why, what's happened!" pressed the colonel's man, shrewdly scanning the
disturbed countenances of Bart and the watchman. "Door lock smashed,
too, and--say! I don't see the trunk!"

He had stepped to the platform and looked inside the express shed.

Bart thought it best to explain, and did so. It made him feel more
crestfallen than ever to trace in the way his auditor took it, that he
anticipated some pretty lively action when Mrs. Harrington was apprised
of her loss.

"You can tell Mrs. Harrington that everything possible is being done to
recover the trunk," Bart told the man as he drove off. "Now then, Mr.
McCarthy," he continued, turning to his companion, "I am going to ask
you to take charge here till I return. I will pay you a full day's
wages, even if you have to stay only an hour."

"You'll pay me nothing!" declared the watchman vigorously. "I'll camp
right in your service as soon as the seven o'clock whistle blows, and
you get on the trail of that missing trunk."

"I intend to," said Bart. "I will get Darry Haven to come down here. He
knows the office routine. In the meantime, we had better not say much
about the burglary."

"Are you going on a hunt for Lem Wacker?"

"I am."

Bart went first to the Haven home. He found Darry Haven chopping wood,
told him of the burglary, and asked him to get down to the express
office as soon as he could.

"If you don't come back by nine o'clock, I will arrange to stay all
day," promised Darry.

Then Bart went to the house where Lem Wacker lived. It was
characteristic of its proprietor--ricketty, disorderly, the yard unkept
and grown over with weeds.

Smoke was coming out of the chimney. Someone was evidently astir
within, but the shades were down, and Bart stole around to the rear.

The shed doors were open, and the wagon gone and the horse's stall
vacant.

Bart went to the back door of the house and knocked, and in a few
minutes it was opened by a thin-faced, slatternly-looking woman.

Bart knew who she was, and she apparently knew him, though they had
never spoken together before. The woman's face looked interested, and
then worried.

"Good morning, Mrs. Wacker," said Bart, courteously lifting his cap.
"Could I see Mr. Wacker for a moment?"

"He isn't at home."

"Oh! went away early? I suppose, though, he will be back soon."

"No, he hasn't been home all night," responded the woman in a dreary,
listless tone. "You work at the railroad, don't you? Have they sent for
Lem? He said he was expecting a job there--we need it bad enough!"

She glanced dejectedly about the wretched kitchen as she spoke, and Bart
felt truly sorry for her.

"I have no word of any work," announced Bart, "but I wish to see Mr.
Wacker very much on private business." When did he leave home?

"Last night at ten o'clock."

"With his horse and wagon?"

"Why, yes," admitted the woman, with a sudden, wondering glance at Bart.
"How did you know that?"

"I noticed the wagon wasn't in the shed."

"Oh, he sold it--and the horse."

"When, Mrs. Wacker?"

"Last night some men came here, two of them, about nine o'clock. They
talked a long time in the sitting room, and then Lem went out and
hitched up. He came into the kitchen before he went away, and told me he
had a chance to sell the rig, and was going to do it, and had to go down
to the Sharp Corner to treat the men and close the bargain."

"I see," murmured Bart. "Who were the men, Mrs. Wacker?"

"I don't know. One of them was here with Lem about two weeks ago, but I
don't know his name, or where he lives. He don't belong in
Pleasantville. Oh, dear!" she concluded, with a sigh of deep depression,
"I wish Lem would get back on the road in a steady job, instead of
scheming at this thing and that. He'll land us all in the poorhouse
yet, for he spends all he gets down at the Corner."

Bart backed down the steps, feeling secretly that Lem Wacker would have
a hard time disproving a connection with the burglary.

"Take care of the dog!" warned Mrs. Wacker as she closed the door.

Bart, passing a battered dog-house, found it tenantless, however.

"I wonder if Lem Wacker has sold the dog, too?" he reflected. "Poor Mrs.
Wacker! I feel awfully sorry for her."

Bart walked rapidly back the way he had come. It was just a quarter of
seven when he reached a half-street extending along and facing the
railroad tracks for a single square.

The Sharp Corner was a second-class groggery and boarding house,
patronized almost entirely by the poorest and most shiftless class of
trackmen.

Its proprietor was one Silas Green, once a switchman, later a prize
fighter, always a hard drinker, and latterly so crippled with rheumatism
and liquor that he was just able to get about.

Bart went into the place to find its proprietor just opening up for the
day. The dead, tainted air of the den made the young express agent
almost faint. As it vividly contrasted with the sweet, garden scented
atmosphere of home, he wondered how men could make it their haunt, and
was sorry that even business had made it necessary for him to enter the
place.

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