Top-Notch Magazine/Volume 14/Number 3/Signals Against Him/Chapter 1
CHAPTER I.
A MISSING SEMICOLON.
LANSING, the day man at Sweetbriar, was tilted back comfortably in a chair, his elevated heels on his order book, smoking a fat cigar with a gold band, and dumping the ashes on his clip in lieu of an ash tray. Presently he heard a slight cough close at hand, looked up, and nearly dropped out of his chair.
In the open half door, over the shelf where trainmen signed their orders, were framed the head and shoulders of William Horace Harding. It was a brown, pleasant face, not to say handsome, and it wore an expression of mingled yearning and determination. The cap above the face was ragged, and the coat and flannel shirt that covered the square shoulders were seedy, all testifying eloquently to the fact that Harding had fallen upon evil days.
“Hello, you old lightning jerker!” called William.
“Why, Billy!” Lansing, genuinely pleased, took his feet off the table, and crossed the room with outstretched hand. “How's the world using you?”
“Well, it's my oyster, but if you look sharp maybe you'll discover that I haven't opened it yet. I lasted six months at the mines. Dropped a skip to the bottom of the five-hundred-foot level—cable parted—but I survived that. Then the old donkey hoister let go—it had been condemned—and I might even have weathered that if my old reputation as a jonah hadn't drifted up from the Jerkwater Division. The super ditched me, and I went down to Burt's Gap, looking for a job. Nothing doing. All the people there seemed to know me, and to feel positive that I left a trail of calamity wherever I went.”
“Tough luck!” murmured Lansing. “But it's the case, ain't it, Billy?”
“Looks like it,” sighed Harding; “and that's a fact.” He reached into his pocket for a pipe. “Old man,” he went on, "I haven't had a smoke since day before yesterday, and the smell of that fat perfecto of yours has put me all in a quiver. How about a pipeful?”
“Is it as bad as that?” queried Lansing sympathetically. “Come in, Billy, and I'll blow you to all the smoking you want.”
He dumped an armful of supplies out of a chair, and pushed it hospitably forward. Then he opened a drawer, took out a half-filled bag of tobacco, and tossed it to his caller.
“Put that in your pocket, son,” he went on. “Had anything to eat to-day?”
“Never mind about the eats—this will save my life.” He slumped wearily into the chair, filled the bowl of the brier with eager fingers, and touched a match to it. “Ah, this is something like!” he finished, and settled back, contented.
“Where did you go from the Gap?” went on the day man.
“Junction,” was the reply. “Got a job freighting. Held it a little longer than usual before Johnny Hardluck threw the switch—three months. Then the mules ran away and scattered the wagon for three miles along the trail. Might have lived that down, I guess, if an ex-railroader from Crook City hadn't hit the camp, opened up his chimney, and spread the same old story about me. They gave me my time, and I went back to the Junction. A short order place took me on, and I peddled ham and, spuds, and coffee among the tables.”
“Great Scott!” murmured Lansing, horrified.
“Awful, of course,” agreed Harding; “but a man's got to live. I lasted a month, at that—broke so many dishes the bill amounted to more than my salary. Then I tried the mines again, tramping from one stamp mill to, another. But I was too well known, and no one wanted me. I made up my mind that I was foolish, moseying around all outdoors with the jinx chasing me from pillar to post. So I'm going back to Crook, to break the hoodoo on the same line of track where it first got me. That's sensible, isn't it?”
“I don't know, Billy,” murmured Lansing, dubious and noncommittal.
“Well, I know? Any man with good, red blood in his 'veins is a fool to lie down and let the hard luck trample all over him. I'm going up to see Trawl, and the old man has got to give me another chance. I'm entitled to it in my own right; and then there's the mother, up at Divide. Has Trawl forgotten the Rolling Stone, and the smash that took away the head of the family? Another chance is coming to me, and I'm going to plug for it, and plug hard.”
“I wish you luck, Billy,” said Lansing, “on my soul I do. There's some body else at Divide, isn't there?” and he winked as he said it.
A painful flush crept into the bronzed face opposite. Harding shifted uncomfortably.
“I'm not answering that flag, Lansing,” said he. “Time enough for that when I show I'm a man and able to handle my own affairs without letting the hard luck take so many falls out of me. I'm in earnest about this,” and his steel-gray eyes snapped through the wreaths of fragrant smoke. “I'll not ride the 'blind' nor the brake beams into Crook. I'm going, by James, like an honest fighter coming into his own. There's something you can do for me.”
“What?” The operator flinched as though it might be a request for money; he could be free with a little tobacco, but cold cash was a different thing.
“I haven't a cent in my clothes,” went on Harding, a bit dryly, for he was shrewd, and not slow to raise the other's smoke. “Send Trawl a message, and word it like this: 'William Horace Harding is here, and says that if I don't give him transportation to Crook he'll have to walk. Shall I issue?' If you rush things I can go up on Nineteen,” and Harding tossed a glance at the clock.
“I'll do that, sure,” said Lansing; “but, I'm sorry to say, Billy, I haven't much hope.”
“Right here is where the luck begins to turn,” declared Harding confidentially. “The old man can't look that 'William Horace' in the face without thinking right off of what two of the family have done for the Jerkwater Division. He'll come back with an O. K., you see. And then, again, this is the first time I've ever tackled this hoodoo proposition with both hands, same as now.”
Harding smoked contentedly as he listened to the message as Lansing clicked it off. Then ensued a wait, while the hands of the clock drew near the time the fast express was due in Sweetbriar.
Orders came for an extra east to go onto the siding at Sweetbriar and wait for Nineteen. The extra arrived, and the conductor got his orders. As he lingered a moment, his eyes appraised Harding rather ominously.
“What're you up to now, Hardluck?” he asked.
“Breaking the blockade,” said Harding.
The conductor whistled. “Too big a job for one man,” was his comment.
“We'll see about that,” muttered the other grimly. Then came the message for which Harding was waiting:
Don't let William Horace walk.
Harding bounded out of his chair, and tossed his cap. “Didn't I tell you?” he cried triumphantly. “The old man couldn't turn me down. It's a good omen, Lansing, a mighty fine omen.”
“I'm glad it happened this way, Billy,” returned the operator, “even if it don't amount to anything in the long run.”
He copied the message and handed it to Harding, then he went to his ticket case, pulled out the slip of pasteboard, stamped it, and pushed it into the other's hand.
Ten minutes later, when Nineteen rolled up to the station platform, Harding climbed aboard. In those fifty miles to Crook City he renewed old acquaintance with the train crew, and discussed his hopes. Fears he had none.
It was four-thirty when he climbed the stairs at division headquarters, and was ushered in to see Trawl. The division superintendent stared at him as at a ghost.
“I didn't know the walking was so good between Sweetbriar and Crook,” he remarked. “How'd you make it, Hardluck?”
“Can't see the joke, Mr. Trawl,” replied the puzzled Harding. “Lansing gave me transportation on your order.”
“The deuce he did!” exclaimed Trawl. “Have you a copy of that message?”
Harding handed it over. Trawl stared and snickered.
“Well, I guess you win,” he remarked. “The fool operators left out a semicolon after the word 'Don't.' I tried to be humorous, and you missed that little stroll of fifty miles. Now, tell me, what are you here for, anyhow?”