Читать книгу The Copperhead Trail Mystery - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 4

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“We got to do this thing systematic like,” said the engineer briskly. “The conductor’s going to fix up the fireman ’s best he kin before dark—he knows one thing or the other ’bout this first aid business. ’N’ soon’s I fetch a rope from the cab two of us kin go down and see what’s what. It’ll take three of us to hold on up here, I guess.”

“Easily,” Hal observed. “Mr. Perry and I will go down first.” And as a gleam of anger flashed in that gentleman’s eyes, he added: “We’ll take turns. All of us.”

“Righto,” Mac agreed with sparkling eyes. “Mr. Doyle and I will take the next because Mr. Engineer’s cliff-climbing days are over. Am I not right, sir?” the young man asked respectfully.

“Quite right, son, quite right,” answered the veteran railroad man. “My arms will hold the rope all right, but I couldn’t promise you how I’d be on my legs.”

Perry eyed the engineer sullenly. “How do I know you ain’t going to let the rope slip, hah? Look what you did to the train—did you hold on to that, hah?”

The old man scrutinized his questioner quietly. “These are the first lives I’ve ever lost, young feller,” he answered sadly and nodding toward the ravine, “and I guess if you saw the size of the spike that jumped my engine you wouldn’t ask such questions. Satan himself couldn’t o’ held on the way we jumped.”

“You mean the rail was spiked on purpose?” Hal asked incredulously when the engineer returned with the rope.

“It’s the truth, son, it’s the truth,” the man answered. “And if it wasn’t that I let her jump a little before I give her the emergency, both coaches would be down there instead of one. You’d of all crashed into silence the same as them poor sons!” The little group was silenced with the awful import of the engineer’s revelation.

Hal divested himself of his coat, ready for duty, and so intently was he thinking of the malicious cause of the disaster that he did not see the gray ghost of fear upon the craven Mr. Perry’s countenance.

And as if to comfort his friend, Mr. Danny Doyle said, “Some close call, Todd! Some close call!”

“Shut up!” growled Mr. Perry. “Save your sympathy for when I come up from that hole down there. If I do!” he added fearfully.

Hal shrugged his shoulders and let them tie the rope about his waist. “I’ll go first, Perry,” he said disgustedly. “It’ll give you time to sort of take hold of yourself.”

Mac gave the rope a solicitous tug. “It’ll hold, Red, old kid,” he smiled. “Know how to make sure your foothold isn’t false?” Hal shook his head.

“Kick in with your toes and press down with your heels good and hard,” the other advised. “Don’t let the rope come up until the ground you’re standing on is firm enough not to yield under pressure. Sometimes this grass around here hides a gully. Have to be careful. All set, old top?”

Hal nodded and gave them the signal to lower him. He watched Mac and the engineer struggling at the first weight on the rope. Doyle was behind them. Gradually they moved back out of sight as the distance grew between them.

Unconsciously, Hal shut his eyes as he slid down, down the rocky wall. The pungent smell of wild flowers growing in the crevices floated about his nostrils and in a dreamy sort of way he was listening to the voices above him. Time enough, he thought, to put his mind in action when he was at last in the ravine.

“Know of anybody who has a grudge against the Laidlaw Branch Line or the railroad in general?” Mac was asking the engineer.

“Not a soul,” came the reply, “not a soul that I know of.”

“Funny,” Mac observed in that lazy way of his, “I didn’t know there was a soul up here who’d do such a thing.”

“You ever lived round here, son?” asked the engineer. “You a Canadian?”

“No, no,” Mac laughed with evident confusion. “Not so’s you’d notice it.”

Hal heard no more then for he had slipped out of the range of their voices. His senses were alert to the dangers of the canyon, but for a long time his mind echoed the confusion in Mac’s laugh.