Kitobni o'qish: «Cab and Caboose: The Story of a Railroad Boy»

July 31st, 1913.

TO THE PUBLIC:—

In the execution of its purpose to give educational value and moral worth to the recreational activities of the boyhood of America, the leaders of the Boy Scout Movement quickly learned that to effectively carry out its program, the boy must be influenced not only in his out-of-door life but also in the diversions of his other leisure moments. It is at such times that the boy is captured by the tales of daring enterprises and adventurous good times. What now is needful is not that his taste should be thwarted but trained. There should constantly be presented to him the books the boy likes best, yet always the books that will be best for the boy. As a matter of fact, however, the boy’s taste is being constantly vitiated and exploited by the great mass of cheap juvenile literature.

To help anxiously concerned parents and educators to meet this grave peril, the Library Commission of the Boy Scouts of America has been organized. EVERY BOY’S LIBRARY is the result of their labors. All the books chosen have been approved by them. The Commission is composed of the following members: George F. Bowerman, Librarian, Public Library of the District of Columbia, Washington, D. C.; Harrison W. Graver, Librarian, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Pa.; Claude G. Leland, Superintendent, Bureau of Libraries, Board of Education, New York City; Edward F. Stevens, Librarian, Pratt Institute Free Library, Brooklyn, New York; together with the Editorial Board of our Movement, William D. Murray, George D. Pratt and Frank Presbrey, with Franklin K. Mathiews, Chief Scout Librarian, as Secretary.

“DO A GOOD TURN DAILY.”

In selecting the books, the Commission has chosen only such as are of interest to boys, the first twenty-five being either works of fiction or stirring stories of adventurous experiences. In later lists, books of a more serious sort will be included. It is hoped that as many as twenty-five may be added to the Library each year.

Thanks are due the several publishers who have helped to inaugurate this new department of our work. Without their co-operation in making available for popular priced editions some of the best books ever published for boys, the promotion of EVERY BOY’S LIBRARY would have been impossible.

We wish, too, to express our heartiest gratitude to the Library Commission, who, without compensation, have placed their vast experience and immense resources at the service of our Movement.

The Commission invites suggestions as to future books to be included in the Library. Librarians, teachers, parents, and all others interested in welfare work for boys, can render a unique service by forwarding to National Headquarters lists of such books as in their judgment would be suitable for EVERY BOY’S LIBRARY.

Signed

Chief Scout Executive.

THE PURSUIT OF THE TRAIN ROBBER.—(PAGE 156.) FRONTISPIECE.

CHAPTER I.
“RAILROAD BLAKE.”

“Go it, Rod! You’ve got to go! One more spurt and you’ll have him! There you are over the line! On time! On railroad time! Three cheers for Railroad Blake, fellows! ’Rah, ’rah, ’rah, and a tigah! Good for you, Rod Blake! the cup is yours. It was the prettiest race ever seen on the Euston track, and ‘Cider’ got so badly left that he cut off and went to the dressing-room without finishing. Billy Bliss was a good second, though, and you only beat him by a length.”

Amid a thousand such cries as these, from the throats of the excited boys and a furious waving of hats, handkerchiefs, and ribbon-decked parasols from the grand stand, the greatest bicycling event of the year so far as Euston was concerned, was finished, and Rodman Blake was declared winner of the Railroad Cup. It was the handsomest thing of the kind ever seen in that part of the country, and had been presented to the Steel Wheel Club of Euston by President Vanderveer of the great New York and Western Railroad, who made his summer home at that place. The race for this trophy was the principal event at the annual meet of the club, which always took place on the first Wednesday of September. If any member won it three years in succession it was to be his to keep, and every winner was entitled to have his name engraved on it.

Snyder Appleby or “Cider Apples” as the boys, with their love for nicknames, sometimes called him, had won it two years in succession, and was confident of doing the same thing this year. He had just obtained, through President Vanderveer, a position in the office of the Railroad Company, and only waited to ride this last race for the “Railroad Cup,” as it was called in honor of its donor, before going to the city and entering upon his new duties.

Now to be beaten so badly, and by that young upstart, for so he called Rod Blake, was a mortification almost too great to be borne. As Snyder left the track without finishing the last race and made his way to the dressing-room under the grand stand, he ground his teeth, and vowed to get even with his victorious rival yet. The cheers and yells of delight with which the fellows were hailing the victor, made him feel his defeat all the more bitterly, and seek the more eagerly for some plan for that victor’s humiliation.

Snyder Appleby was generally considered by the boys as one of the meanest fellows in Euston, and that is the reason why they called him “Cider Apples”; for those, as everybody knows, are most always the very poorest of the picking. So the name seemed to be appropriate, as well as a happy parody on that to which he was really entitled. He was the son, or rather the adopted son, of Major Arms Appleby, who, next to President Vanderveer, was the richest man in Euston, and lived in the great, rambling stone mansion that had been in his family for generations.

The Major, who was a bachelor, was also one of the kindest-hearted, most generous, and most obstinate of men. He loved to do good deeds; but he loved to do them in his own way, and his way was certain to be the one that was contrary to the advice of everybody else. Thus it happened that he determined to adopt the year-old baby boy who was left on his doorstep one stormy night, a little more than sixteen years before this story opens. He was not fond of babies, nor did he care to have children about him. Simply because everybody advised him to send this one to the county house, where it might be cared for by the proper authorities, he declared he would do nothing of the kind; but would adopt the little waif and bring him up as his own son.

As the boy grew, and developed many undesirable traits of character, Major Appleby was too kind-hearted to see them, and too obstinate to be warned against them.

“Don’t tell me,” he would say, “I know more about the boy than anybody else, and am fully capable of forming my opinion concerning him.”

Thus Snyder Appleby, as he was called, because the name “Snyder” was found marked on the basket in which he had been left at the Major’s door, grew up with the fixed idea that if he only pleased his adopted father he might act about as he chose with everybody else. Now he was nearly eighteen years of age, big and strong, with a face that, but for its coarseness, would have been called handsome. He was fond of display, did everything for effect, was intolerably lazy, had no idea of the word punctuality, and never kept an engagement unless he felt inclined to do so. He always had plenty of pocket money which he spent lavishly, and was not without a certain degree of popularity among the other boys of Euston. He had subscribed more largely than anybody else to the Steel Wheel Club upon its formation, and had thus succeeded in having himself elected its captain.

As he was older and stronger than any of the other members who took up racing, and as he always rode the lightest and best wheel that money could procure, he had, without much hard work, easily maintained a lead in the racing field, and had come to consider himself as invincible. He regarded himself as such a sure winner of this last race for the Railroad Cup, that he had not taken the trouble to go into training for it. He would not even give up his cigarette smoking, a habit that he had acquired because he considered it fashionable and manly. Now he was beaten, disgracefully, and that by a boy nearly two years younger than himself. It was too much, and he determined to find some excuse for his defeat, that should at the same time remove the disgrace from him, and place it upon other shoulders.

Rodman Ray Blake, or R. R. Blake as he signed his name, and “Railroad Blake” as the boys often called him, was Major Appleby’s nephew, and the son of his only sister. She had married an impecunious young artist against her brother’s wish, on which account he had declined ever to see her again. When she died, after two years of poverty-stricken widowhood, she left a loving, forgiving letter for her brother, and in it committed her darling boy to his charge. If she had not done this, but had trusted to his generous impulses, all would have gone well, and the events that serve to make up this story would never have taken place. As it was, the Major, feeling that the boy was forced upon him, was greatly aggrieved. That the lad should bear a remarkable resemblance to his handsome artist father also irritated him. As a result, while he really became very fond of the boy, and was never unkind to him, he treated him with an assumed indifference that was keenly felt by the loving, high-spirited lad. As for Snyder Appleby, he was jealous of Rodman from the very first; and when, only a short time before the race meeting of the Steel Wheel Club, the latter was almost unanimously elected to his place as captain, this feeling was greatly increased.

CHAPTER II.
A RACE FOR THE RAILROAD CUP

Young Blake had now been in Euston two years, and was, among the boys, decidedly the most popular fellow in the place. He was a slightly-built chap; but with muscles like steel wires, and possessed of wonderful agility and powers of endurance. He excelled in all athletic sports, was a capital boxer, and at the same time found little difficulty in maintaining a good rank in his classes. He had taken to bicycling from the very first, and quickly became an expert rider, though he had never gone in for racing. It was therefore a great surprise, even to his friends, when, on the very day before the race meeting, he entered his name for the event that was to result in the winning or losing of the Railroad Cup. It would not have been so much of a surprise had anybody known of his conversation, a few weeks before, with Eltje Vanderveer, the railroad president’s only daughter. She was a few months younger than Rod, and ever since he had jumped into the river to save her pet kitten from drowning, they had been fast friends.

So, when in talking of the approaching meeting, Eltje had said, “How I wish you were a racer, and could win our cup, Rod,” the boy instantly made up his mind to try for it. He only answered, “Do you? Well, perhaps I may go in for that sort of thing some time.”

Then he began training, so secretly that nobody but Dan, a stable boy on his uncle’s place and Rod’s most ardent admirer, was aware of it; but with such steady determination that on the eventful day of the great race his physical condition was very nearly perfect.

He was on hand at the race track bright and early; for, as captain of the club, Rod had a great deal to do in seeing that everything went smoothly, and in starting on time the dozen events that preceded the race for the Railroad Cup, which came last on the programme.

While these earlier events were being run off Snyder Appleby, faultlessly attired, sat in the grand stand beside his adopted father, and directly behind President Vanderveer and his pretty daughter, to whom he tried to render himself especially agreeable. He listened respectfully to the Major’s stories, made amusing comments on the racers for Eltje’s benefit, and laughed heartily at the puns that her father was given to making.

“But how about your own race, Mr. Appleby?” asked Eltje. “Don’t you feel any anxiety concerning it? It is to be the hardest one of all, isn’t it?”

Immensely flattered at being addressed as Mister Appleby, Snyder replied carelessly, “Oh, yes! of course I am most anxious to win it, especially as you are here to see it run; but I don’t anticipate much difficulty. Bliss is a hard man to beat; but I have done it before, and I guess I can do it again.”

“Then you don’t think Rodman has any chance of winning?”

“Well, hardly. You see this is his first race, and experience goes a long way in such affairs. Still, he rides well, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see him make a good third at the finish.”

Eltje smiled as she answered, “Perhaps he will finish third; but it would surprise me greatly to see him do so.”

This pretty girl, with the Dutch name, had such faith in her friend Rod, that she did not believe he would ever be third, or even second, where he had once made up his mind to be first.

Failing to catch her real meaning, Snyder replied: “Of course he may not do as well as that; but he ought to. As captain of the club he ought to sustain the honor of his position, you know. If he doesn’t feel able to take at least third place in a five-starter race, he should either resign, or keep out of the racing field altogether. Now I must leave you; for I see I am wanted. You’ll wish me good luck, won’t you?”

“Yes,” answered Eltje mischievously, “I wish you all the luck you deserve.”

Forced to be content with this answer, but wondering if there was any hidden meaning in it, Snyder left the grand stand, and strolled leisurely around to the dressing-room, lighting a cigarette as he went.

“Hurry up!” shouted Rod, who was the soul of punctuality and was particularly anxious that all the events of this, his first race meeting, should be started on time. “Hurry up. Our race will be called in five minutes, and you’ve barely time to dress for it.”

“Where’s my wheel?” asked Snyder, glancing over the dozen or more machines stacked at one side of the room, but without seeing his own.

“I haven’t seen it,” answered Rod, “but I supposed you had left it in some safe place.”

“So I did. I left it in the club house, where there would be no chance of anybody tampering with it; for I’ve heard of such things happening, but I ordered Dan to have it down here in time for the race.”

“Do you mean to insinuate—” began Rod hotly; but controlling himself, he continued more calmly, “I didn’t know that you had given Dan any orders, and I sent him over to the house on an errand a few minutes ago. Never mind, though, I’ll go for your machine myself, and have it here by the time you are dressed.”

Without waiting for a reply, the young captain started off on a run, while his adopted cousin began leisurely to undress, and get into his racing costume. By the time he was ready, Rod had returned leading the beautiful machine, which he had not ridden for fear lest some accident might happen to it.

Then the race was called, and a pistol shot sent the five young athletes bending low over their handle-bars spinning down the course. They all wore the club colors of scarlet and white; but from Rod’s bicycle fluttered the bit of blue ribbon that Dan had been sent to the young captain’s room to get, and which he had hastily knotted to the handle-bar of his machine just before starting. Eltje Vanderveer smiled and flushed slightly as she noticed it, and then all her attention was concentrated upon the varying fortunes of the flying wheelmen.

It was a five-mile race, and therefore a test of endurance rather than of strength or skill. There were two laps to the mile, and for seven of these Snyder Appleby held an easy lead. His name was heard above all others in the cheering that greeted each passing of the grand stand, though the others were encouraged to stick to him and not give it up yet. That two of them had no intention of giving it up, was shown at the end of the eighth lap, when the three leading wheels whirled past the grand stand so nearly abreast that no advantage could be claimed for either one.

Now the cheering was tremendous; but the names of Rod Blake and Billy Bliss were tossed from mouth to mouth equally with that of Snyder Appleby. At the end of nine laps the champion of two years had fallen hopelessly behind. His face wore a distressed look, and his breath came in painful gasps. Cigarettes had done their work with him, and his wind was gone. The two leaders were still abreast; but Rod had obtained the inside position, and if he could keep up the pace the race was his.

Eltje Vanderveer’s face was pale, and her hands were clinched with the intense excitement of the moment. Was her champion to win after all? Was her bit of blue ribbon to be borne triumphantly to the front? Inch by inch it creeps into a lead. Now they are coming down the home stretch. The speed of that last spurt is wonderful. Nothing like it has ever been seen at the wind-up of a five-mile race on the Euston track. Looking at them, head on, it is for a few seconds hard to tell which is leading. Then a solitary shout for Rod Blake is heard. In another moment it has swelled into a perfect roar of cheering, and there is a tempest of tossing hats, handkerchiefs, and parasols.

ROD BLAKE WINS BY A LENGTH.—(PAGE 15.)

Rod Blake has won by a length, Billy Bliss is second, Snyder Appleby was such a bad third that he has gone to the dressing-room without finishing, and the others are nowhere.

The speed of the winning wheels cannot be checked at once, and as they go shooting on past the stand, the exhausted riders are seen to reel in their saddles. They would have fallen but for the willing hands outstretched to receive them. Dan is the first to reach the side of his adored young master, and as the boy drops into his arms, the faithful fellow says:

“You’ve won it, Mister Rod! You’ve won it fair and square; but you want to look out for Mister Snyder. I heerd him a-saying bad things about you when he passed me on that last lap, and I’m afeard he means some kind of mischief.”

CHAPTER III.
A CRUEL ACCUSATION

The attention of the spectators, including the club members, was so entirely given to the finish of the famous race for the Railroad Cup, that, for a few minutes Snyder Appleby was the sole occupant of the dressing-room. When a group of the fellows, forming a sort of triumphal escort to the victors, noisily entered it, they found him standing by his machine. It was supported by two rests placed under its handle bars, and he was gazing curiously at the big wheel, which he was slowly spinning with one hand.

“Hello, ‘Cider’!” cried the first of the new-comers, “what’s up? Anything the matter with your wheel?”

“I believe there is,” answered the ex-captain, in such a peculiar tone of voice that it at once arrested attention. “I don’t know what is wrong, and I wouldn’t make an examination until some of you fellows came in. In a case like this I believe in having plenty of witnesses and doing everything openly.”

“What do you mean?” asked one of the group, whose noisy entrance was now succeeded by a startled silence.

“Turn that wheel and you’ll see what I mean,” replied Snyder.

“Why, it turns as hard as though it were running on plain bearing that had never been oiled!” exclaimed the member who had undertaken to turn the wheel as requested.

“That’s just it, and I don’t think it’s very surprising that I failed to win the race with a wheel in that condition, do you?”

“Indeed I do not. The only surprising thing is that you held the lead so long as you did, and managed to come in third. I know I couldn’t have run a single lap if I’d been on that wheel. What’s the matter with it? Wasn’t it all right when you started?”

“I thought it was,” replied Snyder, “but I soon found that something was wrong, and before I left the track it was all I could do to move it. Now, I want you fellows to find out what the matter is.”

A few moments of animated discussion followed, while several of the fellows made a careful examination of the bicycle.

“Great Scott!” exclaimed one; “what’s in this oil cup? It looks as though it were choked with black sand.”

“It’s emery powder!” cried another, extracting a few grains of the black, oil-soaked stuff on the point of a knife blade. “No wonder your wheel won’t turn. How on earth did it get there?”

“That is what I would like to find out,” answered the owner of the machine. “It certainly was not there when I left the club house; for I had just gone over every part and assured myself that it was in perfect order. Since then but two persons have touched it, and I am one of them. I don’t think it likely that anybody will charge me with having done this thing, seeing that my sole interest was to win the race, and that if I so nearly succeeded with my wheel in this condition, I could easily have done so had it been all right. Nothing could be more painful to me than to bring a charge against one who lives under the same roof that I do; but you all know who had the greatest interest in having me lose this race. I think you all know, too, that he is the only person besides myself who handled my wheel immediately before it. The one whom I trusted to bring it here in safety was sent off by this person on some frivolous errand at the last moment. Then, neglecting other and important duties, he volunteered to get the machine himself. He was gone before I had a chance to decline his offer. That is all I have to say upon this most unpleasant subject, and I should not have said so much had not my own reputation, both as a racing man and a gentleman, been at stake. Now I place the whole affair in the hands of the club, satisfied that they will do me justice.”

Rod Blake, seated on a camp-stool, with a heavy “sweater” thrown over his shoulders, and slowly recovering from the exhaustion of the race, had observed and listened to all this with a pained curiosity. He could not believe any member of the club guilty of such a cowardly act. When Snyder began to charge him with having committed it, his face became deadly pale, and he gazed at his adopted cousin with an expression akin to terror. As the latter finished, the young captain sprang to his feet, exclaiming:

“Snyder Appleby, how dare you bring such an accusation against me? You know I am incapable of doing such a thing! Your wheel was in perfect condition when I delivered it to you, and you know it was.”

“I can easily believe that the fellow who would perform the act would be equally ready to lie out of it,” replied Snyder.

“Do you mean that I lie?”

“That is about the size of it.”

This was more than the hot-tempered young athlete could bear; and almost before the words were out of Snyder’s mouth, a blow delivered with all the nervous force of Rodman’s right arm sent him staggering back. It would have laid him on the floor, had not several of the fellows caught him in their arms.

He was furious with rage, and would have sprung at Rodman had he not been restrained. As it was, he hissed through his clinched teeth, “I’ll make you suffer for this yet, see if I don’t.”

Immediately after delivering the blow, Rod turned, without a word, and began putting on his clothes. The fellows watched him in silence. A minute later he was dressed, and stood in the doorway. Here he turned and said:

“I am going home, fellows, and I shall wait there just one hour for an assurance that you have faith in me, and do not believe a word of this horrible charge. If such a message, sent by the whole club, reaches me within that time, I will undertake to prove my innocence. If it does not come, then I cease, not only to be your captain, but a member of the club.”