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THE STEEL HORSE;

OR,

THE RAMBLES OF A BICYCLE.

CHAPTER I.

IN WHICH I MAKE MY BOW.

"SCOTLAND'S a-burning! Look out, fellows! Put on the brakes, or you will be right on top of it the first thing you know."

"On top of what?"

"Why, can't you see? If it hadn't been for my lamp I should have taken the worst header anybody ever heard of. How some fellows can run around on their wheels after dark without a light, and take the chances of breaking their necks, beats my time. I wouldn't do it for any money."

​"Great Scott! How do you suppose that pile of things came on the track?"

"It isn't a pile of things. It is a big rock which has rolled down from the bank above, and we have discovered it in time to prevent a terrible railroad disaster."

"The rains loosened it, probably."

"Well, what are we standing here for? Let's take hold, all hands, and roll it off before the train comes along."

"We can't roll it off. It's half as big as Rube Royall's cabin. It seems strange to me that it stopped so squarely in the middle of the track. I should think it ought to have gathered headway enough during its descent to roll clear across the roadbed, and down into the gulf on the other side."

The speakers were your old friends Joe Wayring and his two chums, Roy Sheldon and Arthur Hastings; and I am one of the Expert Columbias who were introduced to your notice in the concluding chapters of the second volume of this series of books. I have been urged by my companions to describe the interesting and exciting incidents that happened during ​our vacation run from one end of the State to the other and back again, on which we set out just a week ago to-day. I have begun the task with many misgivings. This is my first appearance as a story-teller; but then my friends, Old Durability and the Canvas Canoe, labored under the same disadvantage. When I am through it will be for you to decide which one of us has interested you the most.

You will remember that when the Canvas Canoe's adventures were ended for the season and he was "laid up in ordinary" (by which I mean the recess in Joe Wayring's room), it was midwinter. The ponds and lakes were frozen over, and the hills surrounding the little village of Mount Airy were covered with snow. The canoe had just been hauled up from the bottom of Indian River, where he had lain for four long, dismal months, wondering what was to become of him and the six thousand dollars he had carried down with him when he was "Snagged and Sunk" by the big tree that was carried out of Sherwin's Pond by the high water. You know that Roy Sheldon discovered him with the aid of his "water-scope," ​that Joe got his canoe back (a little the worse for his captivity, it must be confessed, for there was a gaping wound in his side), and that the money quickly found its way into the hands of the officers of the Irvington bank, from whom it had been stolen by the two sneak-thieves who were finally captured by Mr. Swan and his party.

Before this happened Matt Coyle's wife and boys had been shut up in the New London jail to await their trial, which was to come off as soon as Matt himself had been arrested. The truth of the matter was, the Indian Lake guides were so incensed at Matt for his daring and persistent efforts to break up their business and to ruin the two hotels at the lake, that they threatened to make short work of him and all his worthless tribe; and as the guides were men who never said a thing of this sort unless they meant it, the authorities were of opinion that the old woman and the boys would be safer in the New London lock-up than they would be if confined in the tumble-down calaboose at Irvington. But now it appeared that Matt Coyle could not be arrested ​and brought to trial, for the good and sufficient reason that he was dead. He was drowned when the canvas canoe was snagged and sunk.

Joe Wayring and his chums declared, from the first, that if the squatter had attempted to run out of the river into Sherwin's Pond during the freshet that prevailed at the time of his flight, he had surely come to grief. If three strong boys, who were expert with the oars, could not pull a light skiff against the current that ran out of the pond, how could Matt Coyle hope to stem it in a heavily-loaded canoe and with a single paddle? If he had been foolish enough to try it, he would never be heard of again until his body was picked up somewhere in the neighborhood of the State hatchery. The finding of the canoe and his valuable cargo at the bottom of the river led others to Joe's way of thinking, and it was finally conceded on all hands that the squatter would never again rob unguarded camps, or renew his attempts to "break up the business of guiding." Nothing remained, then, but to remove his wife and boys to Irvington and hold them for trial at the next term of the circuit court. The grand ​jury first took the matter in hand, and Joe Wayring and his chums, much to their disgust, were summoned to appear before it as witnesses.

When Tom Bigden and his cousins, Loren and Ralph Farnsworth, heard of that, they shook in their boots. And well they might; for, as you know, Tom was accessory to some of Matt's violations of the law. More than that, rumor said that the old woman had told all she knew, and that she had even gone so far as to assure the officers of the Irvington Bank that she and her family would not have been half so bad as they were, if one Tom Bigden had not advised and urged them to commit crime.

"It's all over with me, boys," groaned Tom, when one of his school-fellows incidentally remarked in his hearing that he had seen Joe Wayring and his two friends take the train for Irvington that morning to testify before the grand jury. "You know Joe is jealous of me and that he will do anything he can to injure me."

"Well," said Ralph, plunging his hands deep into his pockets and looking thoughtfully ​at the ground, "what would you do to a fellow who was the means of having you tied to a tree with a fair prospect of a good beating with hickory switches on your bare back? Would you be friendly to him or feel like shielding him from punishment?"

"But I didn't tell Matt to tie Joe Wayring to a tree and thrash him," retorted Tom. "I never thought of such a thing."

"I didn't say you did," replied Ralph. "I said you were the cause of it, and so you were; for you told Matt that you had seen the valises that contained the six thousand stolen dollars in Joe's camp-basket."

"Matt was a fool to believe it," said Loren. "One little camp-basket wouldn't hold both those gripsacks."

"That doesn't alter the facts of the case," answered Ralph. "Matt did believe the story, ridiculous as it was, and Tom's fate is in the hands of a boy whom we have abused and bothered in all possible ways ever since we have been here."

"And we didn't have the slightest reason or excuse for it," added Loren.

​"So you're going back on me, are you?" exclaimed Tom.

"Not at all. We are simply telling you the truth."

"Perhaps Joe doesn't know that Tom put it into Matt's head to follow him and his friends to No-Man's Pond," suggested Loren. "I haven't heard a word said about it."

"Neither have I; but that's no proof that Joe doesn't know all about it," answered Ralph.

"Who do you think told him?" asked Tom. "It couldn't have been Matt Coyle, for I told him particularly not to mention my name in Joe's hearing, or drop a hint that would lead him to suspect that Matt had seen me in the Indian Lake country."

"The squatter didn't care that for your injunctions of secrecy," said Ralph, snapping his fingers in the air. "What he said to you during those interviews you held with him ought to convince you that he would just as soon get you into trouble as anybody else. Being a social outcast, Matt believes in ​making war upon every one who is higher up in the world than he is."

"Well," said Tom, with a sigh of resignation, "if Joe knows as much as you think he does, my chances of getting out of the scrapes I've got into are few and far between. He'll tell everything, and be glad of the chance. I wish from the bottom of my heart that we had never seen or heard of Mount Airy."

"Joe Wayring will tell nothing unless it is forced out of him," said Ralph stoutly; and for the first time in his life Tom did not scowl and double up his fists as he had been in the habit of doing whenever either of his cousins said anything in praise of the boy he hated without a cause. If Joe was as honorable as Ralph seem to think he was, Tom thought he saw a chance to escape punishment for his wrong-doing. "He'll not commit perjury nor even stretch the truth to screen you," continued Ralph, as if he read the thoughts that were passing in Tom's mind. "But he'll not volunteer any evidence; I am sure of that."

If Ralph had been one of Joe Wayring's most intimate friends he could not have read him ​better. The latter was very much afraid that he would be compelled to say something that would criminate Tom, but to his surprise and relief the members of the grand jury did not seem to know that there was such a fellow in the world as Tom Bigden, for they never once mentioned his name. If the old woman and her boys had tried to throw the blame for their misdeeds upon his shoulders, they hadn't made anything by it. All the jury cared for was to find out just how much Joe and his friends knew about the six thousand dollars that had been stolen from the Irvington Bank; and as the boys knew but little about it, it did not take them long to give their evidence. Finally one of the jurymen said:

"Matt Coyle bothered you a good deal by stealing your canvas canoe and other property, I believe."

Joe replied that that was a fact.

"Would you prosecute him for it, if you had a chance?"

Joe said he never expected to have a chance, because Matt was dead.

"Perhaps he is, and perhaps he isn't," said ​the juryman, with a laugh. "Matt Coyle is a hard case, if all I hear about him is true, and it sorter runs in my mind that he will turn up again some day, as full of meanness as he ever was."

"You wouldn't think so if you could see Indian River booming as it was on the day we came home," said Joe, earnestly. "It must have been a great deal worse when Matt saw it, but he had the hardihood to face it."

"And went to the bottom," added Roy.

"Would you have the law on him for tying you to a tree and threatening to wallop you with switches?" asked the juryman.

"No sir, I would not," said Joe, truthfully. "All we ask of Matt Coyle or any other tramp is to keep away from us and let us alone."

"Do you believe any one told Matt that you had the bank's money and sent him to No-Man's Pond to whip it out of you?"

"No, I don't."

"Matt's boys stick to it that such is the fact."

"I don't care what Matt's boys say or what they stick to," answered Joe. "You can ​imagine what the evidence of such fellows as they are amounts to. Folks who will steal are not above lying, are they?"

"That juryman isn't half as smart as he thinks he is," said Roy, when he and his companions had been dismissed with the information that they might start for Mount Airy as soon as they pleased. "I was awfully afraid that his next question would be: 'Did you ever hear that Tom Bigden was accessory to Matt Coyle's assault upon you at No-Man's Pond?' You could not have wiggled out of that corner, Mr. Wayring."

"I didn't wiggle out of any corner," answered Joe. "I made replies to all the questions he asked me, didn't I? That juryman knew his business too well to ask me any such question as that. My answer would have been simply hearsay, and that's not evidence. See the point?"

"Why, didn't Jake Coyle declare in your hearing that Tom Bigden told his father that the money was in your camp-basket?" demanded Arthur.

"Well, what's that but hearsay? Do you ​expect me to take Jake's word for anything? I didn't hear Tom tell him so."

"No; but you have as good proof as any sensible boy needs that Tom did it. If not, why did Matt fly into such a rage at the mention of his name, and cut Jake's face so unmercifully with that switch?"

"I don't believe that would pass for evidence, although it might lead the jury to put a little more faith in Jake's story and Sam's," answered Joe. "We didn't come here to get Tom into trouble. Didn't they say at the start that all they wanted of us was to tell what we knew about that money? We've done that, and my conscience is clear. I think Tom will take warning and mind what he is about in future."

"I'll bet you he won't," Roy declared. "He'll get you into difficulty of some sort the very first good chance he gets."

"If he does, and I can fasten it on him, I'll give him such a punching that his cousins won't know him when they see him. I'm getting tired of this sort of work, and I'll not put up with it any longer. If Tom will not leave ​off bothering us of his own accord, I'll make him."

In due time the jury returned a "true bill" against Jake Coyle for burglary. Mr. Haskins had little difficulty in proving that Jake broke the fastenings of his door before he robbed the cellar, gave a list of the things he had lost, and Rube Roy all, the watchman at the hatchery, testified that those same articles appeared on Matt Coyle's table on the following morning. Jake went to the House of Refuge for five years; but nothing could be proved against Sam and the old woman, and they were turned over to a justice of the peace to be tried for vagrancy. They got ninety days each in the New London workhouse.

"There, Ralph," said Tom, when he read this welcome news in his father's paper. "You said Matt Coyle didn't care the snap of his finger for my wishes, but now you see that you were mistaken, don't you? Matt never told Joe Wayring that I sent them to his camp after that money, and his boys didn't blab it, either. If they had, Joe would have said ​something about it when he was brought before the grand jury."

"Well, what are you going to do to Joe now?" inquired his cousin. "I mean, what kind of a scrape are you going to get into next?"

"I do not intend to get into any scrape," answered Tom; and when he said it he meant it. "I shall treat Joe and everybody who likes him with the contempt they deserve. I wish I might never see them again. I tell you, fellows, I feel as if a big load had been taken from my shoulders. Matt will never again demand that I shall act as receiver for the property he steals, his vagabond family are safe under lock and key, I am free from suspicion, and what more could I ask for? For once in my life I am perfectly happy."

But, as it happened, Tom was not long permitted to live in this very enviable frame of mind—not more than a couple of hours, to be exact. Of late he had stayed pretty close around the house when he was not at school. He could not bear to loaf about the village, as he used to do, for fear that he might hear ​something annoying. But on this particular day (it was Saturday) he was so light of heart that he could not keep still, so he proposed a walk and a cigar. He and his cousins did not mind smoking on the streets now, for they had long ago given up all hope of ever being admitted to the ranks of the Toxopholites. But their desire to belong to that crack and somewhat exclusive organization was as strong as ever. Another thing, they were not on as friendly terms with the drug-store crowd as they used to be. A decision rendered by umpire Bigden during a game of ball excited the ire of George Prime and some of his friends, and as the weeks rolled on the dispute waxed so hot that on more than one occasion the adherents of both sides had been called on to interfere to keep George and Tom from coming to blows over it. Ralph reminded his cousin of this when the latter proposed a walk and a cigar.

"Oh, Prime has forgotten all about it before this time," said Tom confidently. "He has had abundant leisure to recover his good-nature, for the fuss began last fall."

​"Don't you owe him something?"

"Yes; about fifty cents or so. But George isn't mean enough to raise a row about a little thing like that."

Ralph and Loren had their own ideas on that point; and when they walked into the drug store and looked at the face Prime brought with him when he came up to the cigar-stand, they told themselves that if the clerk had had opportunity to recover his good-nature, he certainly had not improved it. He looked as sour as a green apple.

"Hallo, George," said Tom, cordially.

"How are you!" was the gruff reply.

"Fine day outside," continued Tom. "Been sleigh-riding much?"

"A time or two. What do you want?"

"Some cigars, please."

Prime languidly reached his hand into the show-case and brought out a box.

"Chalk these, will you?" said Tom, after he and his cousin had made their selections.

Without saying a word the clerk turned and walked toward the prescription counter at the back part of the store. Tom evidently ​thought the matter settled, for he gave Ralph the wink, lighted his cigar and was about to go out when Prime called to him. Tom faced around, and saw that he held in his hand something that looked like a package of bills.

"I'll chalk this, because you've got the cigars and I can't very well help myself," said Prime, as he came up. "But the next time you want anything in our line you had better come prepared to settle up. Do you know how much you owe the house?"

"I've kept a pretty close run of it," said Tom shortly, "and I guess seventy-five cents will foot the bill. These weeds are three for a quarter, I suppose?"

"That's the price; but you owed me just four times seventy-five cents before you got these last three. There's your bill!"

Tom opened his eyes when he heard this. He picked up the paper that Prime tossed upon the show-case before him, and saw that, if the figures on it told the truth, he had smoked much oftener than he supposed.

"George, "said he, as soon as he could speak, "I don't owe you three dollars."

​"You owe me three dollars and a quarter, counting in the three you just got," was Prime's reply.

"I say I don't; and what's more to the point, I won't pay it. If you want to impose upon somebody and make him pay for cigars that you have smoked yourself, try some one else. You can't come it over me."

"You mean to repudiate your honest debts, do you?" said Prime hotly. "Well, I don't know that I ought to have expected anything else of you. A fellow who will associate with tramps and thieves, as you have done ever since you poked your meddlesome nose into Mount Airy, is capable of anything."

"Look here," said Tom, his face growing red and pale by turns. "Step out from behind the counter and say that again, will you?"

"I can talk just as well from where I stand," was Prime's answer; and then he clenched one of his hands and pounded lightly upon the top of the show-case while he looked fixedly at Tom. "Perhaps you think because you were in the woods when these things happened that ​the folks in Mount Airy don't know all about them," he went on.

"What things?" Tom managed to ask, while Ralph and Loren nerved themselves for what was coming.

"What things!" repeated Prime, in a tone that almost drove Tom frantic. "Don't you suppose I know as well as you do that when Matt Coyle stole Joe Wayring's canvas canoe a year ago last summer, he did it with your knowledge and consent? I will say more than that. You urged him to take it."

"Why—why, you—" Tom began, and then he paused. There was a look on Prime's face which told him that there was more behind; and now that he was in for it, Tom thought it would be a good plan to find out just how much the Mount Airy people knew of his dealings with the squatter.

"It has all come out on you," continued Prime. "And I know, too, that it was through the information you gave him that Matt followed Wayring to No-Man's Pond and committed that assault upon him."

"The idea!" exclaimed Tom, trying to look ​surprised, though inwardly he quaked with fear. "I never told Matt to follow Joe Wayring to No-Man's Pond. I never saw him while I was in the woods—did I, boys?" he added, appealing to his cousins.

"I know a story worth half a dozen of that," said the clerk, before either Ralph or Loren could collect their wits for a reply. "Some of the sportsmen who were stopping at one of the Indian Lake hotels saw you wait for him at a certain place for more than an hour; and when at last Matt arrived, you held quite a lengthy consultation with him."

Tom was so amazed that he could not utter a word. Prime seemed to have the story pretty straight—so straight, in fact, that Loren did not think it best for him to deny it; so he hastened to say:

"If all these ridiculous things which you say you have heard are true, how does it happen that they did not come before the Grand Jury?"

"There were two good reasons for it," answered Prime. "In the first place, there was no one to appear against Tom; and in the ​second, Jake Coyle, who was the only one of the family tried before the Circuit Court, was not accused of stealing the canoe or of making an assault upon Joe Wayring. He was charged with breaking open the door of Haskins's cellar, and for that he received his sentence. If Matt Coyle had been on trial, there would have been other and more interesting developments. I tell you, Mr. Bigden, it was a lucky thing for you that he was drowned."

"Now, let me say a word in your private ear," said Tom, who had had time to take a hasty review of the situation. "There is such a thing as wagging your tongue too freely, and it constitutes an offense of which the law sometimes takes notice. You don't want to publish the outrageous stories you pretend to have heard of me. They are false from beginning to end."

"Why, bless your heart, I can't publish them," answered the clerk, with a most provoking laugh. "The facts are as well known to other folks as they are to me. Every man, boy, and girl you meet on the street knows them by heart."

​This astounding piece of news fairly staggered Tom. While he was trying to frame a suitable rejoinder a party of ladies came into the store, and the clerk hastened away to attend to them. This gave Tom and his cousins an opportunity to escape, and they were prompt to avail themselves of it.

"Worse and worse!" exclaimed Loren, as soon as he could speak freely without fear of being overheard. "Tom, Tom, what have you brought upon yourself!"

"I was afraid that something of this kind would be sprung upon me sooner or later," groaned the guilty boy. "Every girl I meet on the street knows all about it," he added, recalling the clerk's last words. "I don't believe it. Or, if they have heard about it, they don't take any stock in it, for I have received just as many invitations and gone to as many parties as I ever did. Can you two raise three dollars and a quarter between you? Then lend it to me, and I will get Prime's debt off my mind without a moment's delay."

"That's the idea," said Ralph, approvingly. "Go now while those ladies are in the store, ​and he can't say anything more to annoy you."

Loren had a five-dollar bill which he handed over, and Tom got it broken at the most convenient place, because he did not want to wait for Prime to make change. He laid the exact amount of his indebtedness upon the counter, pocketed his receipted bill, and left the store firmly resolved that he would never cross its threshold again.