CHAPTER XV
A PIECE OF CHALK
Frank Newton had said that Markham was a first-class peddler. If he had followed his young friend as he darted from the house, he would also have noted him quite a proficient amateur detective.
Markham looked down the street after the retreating figures of old Dorsett and his companion. He saw they were bound for the business centre of the town. He cut down an alley, and heading them off allowed them to pass him by and quietly followed on their trail.
When they went up into a building occupied as offices for a justice of the peace and lawyers, Markham in a few moments trailed after them.
Loitering about the hall, he could watch them conversing with a village magistrate at his desk. The latter consulted a copy of the statutes, expounded some point under discussion, and finally filled out several legal blanks.
Markham was industriously reading the notices tacked to the justice's bulletin board outside of his office door, as Dorsett came out of the room.
"Hold on, Sherry," he said to his companion. "I'll settle with you now."
"All right, governor," bobbed the man.
"You are deputized to serve these papers. Don't get them mixed. Got any tacks?"
"I'll get some all right."
"Very well. When you have disposed of the first two documents, serve the last one on Mrs. Ismond, see?"
"Sure, I see, governor—ah, and glad to see this five-dollar bill. First one I've seen, in fact, for an age."
"When you're all through, report to me."
"I will, governor."
They kept together till they reached the street. Arrived there, Dorsett went one way, his hireling another.
Markham put after the latter, who was so elated over the possession of money that he chuckled and swung along the street with a great air of importance and enjoyment.
The man Sherry went straight to the railway depot. Markham, looking in through one of its windows, saw him approach the station agent. To him Sherry read one of the documents and came out again.
The second day of Markham's residence in Greenville, he had done quite an heroic act. It had made the railroad men his friends. One of their number had celebrated pay day too freely. He had stumbled across a track.
Markham had run at the top of his speed, and had even risked life and limb to reach him in time to drag him out of the way of a freight train backing down upon him.
"Mr. Young," said Markham, running into the depot by one side door as Sherry left it by another, "you remember me?"
"Sure, I do. How are you?" said the depot master heartily.
"I'm worried to death to find out what that man who was just here is up to," said Markham, hurriedly.
"Up to? Down to, you mean," flared out Young. "He's served a paper on me as the representative of the railway company, notifying me that we are to hold the car containing Mrs. Ismond's furniture until the matter of a debt she owes old Dorsett is settled in court."
"Mrs. Ismond does not rightfully owe him a cent," asserted Markham. "It's a mean, malicious trick of the old reprobate to persecute my friend, Frank Newton. Can they stop the car?"
The station agent shrugged his shoulders dubiously.
"They won't get any help from me," he said. "That man asked me where the car was. I told him to find out—I wasn't hunting for it. I'd like nothing better than to delay him for two hours. By five o'clock the north freights will have left the yards. Once out of the county, that furniture would be safe."
"Thank you," said Markham. "I'll see what I can do."
He ran out of the depot forthwith. Sherry had crossed the road. Markham saw him coming out of one of the taverns lining the street in that immediate vicinity.
Sherry had one or two men with him with whom he had evidently been treating. They walked along with him until they reached another haunt of the same class, and went in there.
Markham got in a doorway near the entrance to the place. In a few minutes Sherry came out to the street.
He had his hat stuck back and his head up by this time, and was officious and blatant in his manner.
"I'd like to stay with you, boys," he announced. "Join you later. Got a big responsibility on my shoulders just now."
"That so?" smirked one of the hangers on.
"You bet. See that paper?" and Sherry produced a document.
"We see it."
"I can tie up the whole railroad system here if I want to," he bragged.
Markham hurried off in the direction of the freight tracks. There was a wide crossing where the sidings began. A flagman guarded this. Markham ran up to him. This man, as he knew, was a brother of the railroader he had saved from being run over by the freight train.
"Mr. Boyce," said Markham," will you do me a favor?"
"Sure, will I," cried the flagman. "We're a whole family of friends to you, boy."
"All right. Have you got a piece of chalk—the kind they use for marking on the cars?"
"Dozens of it. Here's a handful, my hearty," and the flagman darted into the little shanty and out again with a fistful of great chunks of chalk.
"All right," said Markham, selecting a piece. "Now then, do you see that man coming down the track?"
"Yes," nodded the flagman.
"He will ask you about the out freights, maybe about some particular car. It's the car holding Frank Newton's furniture that he's after—their household goods they're shipping to Pleasantville."
"Aha," nodded Boyce.
"I will be in sight," went on Markham, rapidly. "Point me out to him. Say I can tell him, will you?"
"But what for—no, that's all right. I will, I will," pledged the flagman.
Markham ran down a siding. He was busy about a certain car for a few minutes. As, after interviewing the flagman. Sherry came that way, he discovered Markham seated on top of a locked box car idly kicking his heels against its side.
"Hey. hello," hailed Sherry—"this the out freights?"
"How should I know?" muttered Markham.
"Oh, I know you. You're the fellow who trains with young Newton. Of course you'd be here, and of course this is the car. Yes," decided Sherry, scanning its side. "Sure. Here's the destination marked in chalk."
Sherry read the sprawling writing: "7–23, Pleasantville," marked across the locked door of the car, and pulled out a document.
"That's the way we do it," he said in a boastful chuckle, picking up a coupling pin and using it to hammer some tacks through the paper. "There you are. In the name of the law this car seized in transit, ipse dixit, e pluribus unum, according to the statoots therein pervided. Quite a lawyer, hey? Boy, it's a life sentence to tamper with that car till the judge says move her."
"It is?*' said Markham, tranquilly.
The big braggart swaggered away. Markham jumped down, watched him out of sight, jumped up and cracked his heels together. Then with his handkerchief he rubbed off the destination mark that had deluded old Dorsett's boisterous and self-important emissary.
Then Markham chuckled as he glanced at the document tacked to the car door. He now moved over to a line of made-up freights on another track. He lingered in their vicinity for over an hour.
When he had seen an engine run on a caboose and then switch to the head of the train, Markham, with a good deal of complacency in his face, started back to join his friends.
As he neared the house where he had left Mrs. Ismond and Frank, he noticed a man leave the place. It was Sherry.
"All right," announced Markham, breaking in upon his friends a moment later. "I've found out what old Dorsett is up to."
"Yes, so have we," answered Frank, who stood by the side of his mother, who was looking down dejectedly. "They have just notified us that the car containing our furniture is attached."
"That so?" said Markham, with a broad smile. "Well, what are you going to do, Frank?"
"We can't leave Greenville, that's all," said Frank, with a sigh. "Mother, I'll go down to the station and get the money back for our tickets."
"Hold on," cried Markham, "you won't do any such thing. How soon does that train leave, Frank?"
"In half an hour."
"Well, get your traps together. You're going to take that train all right."
"Why, what are you talking about?" demanded Frank, staring at Markham in wonder.
"I mean that fellow who was just here has made a mess of it," said Markham. "He's attached a car all right, but not your car."
"What?"
"No, sir-ree! Your car, my dear Frank, I am happy to tell you, is by this time twenty miles over the county line whirling on its way to Pleasantvllle. Hip, hip, hurrah!"
"See here, Markham," said Frank, seriously, seizing his friend's arm in an endeavor to cure his jubilant antics. "What have you been up to."
"Me? Nothing," declared Markham, assuming the vacant bumpkin look he expressed so well when he gave a character delineation. "It's old Dorsett's emissary who was up to something—up to the wrong car, see? He has tacked that attachment notice onto a poor innocent old car filled with ballasting cinders. Never mind now. I'll tell you later. Don't miss the train, Frank."
There were hurried good-byes to their kind-hearted neighbor. Frank and Markham, each carrying two satchels, piloted Mrs. Ismond to the railroad station.
Just as the train came in from the south a man drove past the depot platform. He drew up his horse with a jerk. It was Dorsett.
He stared in amazement at the departing trio. Then suddenly, as if suspecting some trick, he got out of his gig and hurried across to the train.
Frank had got his mother to a comfortable seat. The coach window was open.
"You leave at your peril, widow Ismond," shouted Dorsett. "That stuff of yours is attached. We've stopped the freight car, and—"
"All aboard!" sang out the conductor.
"Hold on, stop—zounds!" yelled Dorsett at the top of his voice.
He was lifted from his feet suddenly. Some one rushing down the platform at cyclone speed had collided with him.
It was Nelson Cady. He was hatless, his hair flying in the wind, his whole appearance that of fearful excitement.
"Say, conductor," he panted out breathlessly. "Three people just got on the train—where are they? Must see Frank Newton!"
"Hi, there, Nelson," hailed Frank, waving his hand through the open coach window.
"Oh, jolly!" shouted Nelson, keeping on a run with the moving train. "See Frank!"
Nelson tugged at his pocket. He pulled out a white, fluttering sheet of paper.
"Frank, Frank," his excited tones rang out after the vanishing train—"I've got my letter at last!"