right,” replied the track-walker. “I wish you would. You’ll have to move lively though; for if Number 8 is on time, as she generally is, you haven’t a moment to lose.”
“I’ll do my best,” said the boy, and a moment later he was hurrying down the track with his M. I. P. bag strapped to his shoulders, and with the dog so strangely committed to his care, clasped tightly in his arms. At the same time the track-walker, with his swinging lantern, was making equally good speed in the opposite direction. As Rod rounded a curve, and sighted the lights of the waiting freight train, he heard the warning whistle of Number 8 behind him, and redoubled his exertions. He did not stop even as the fast express whirled past him, though he was nearly blinded by the eddying cloud of dust and cinders that trailed behind it. But, if Number 8 was on time, so was he. Though Smiler had grown heavy as lead in his aching arms, and though his breath was coming in panting gasps, he managed to climb on the rear platform of the caboose, just as the freight was pulling out. How glad he was at that moment of the three weeks training he had just gone through with. It had won him something, even if his name was not to be engraved on the railroad cup of the Steel Wheel Club.
As the boy stood in the rear doorway of the caboose, gazing doubtfully into its interior, a young fellow who looked like a tramp, and who had been lying on one of the cushioned lockers, or benches, that ran along the sides of the car, sprang to his feet with a startled exclamation. At the same moment Smiler drew back his upper lip so as to display a glistening row of teeth, and, uttering a deep growl, tried to escape from Rod’s arms.
“What are you doing in this car! and what do you mean by bringing that dog in here?” cried the fellow angrily, at the same time advancing with a threatening gesture. “Come, clear out of here or I’ll put you out,” he added. The better to defend himself, if he should be attacked, the boy dropped the dog; and, with another fierce growl, forgetful of his hurts, Smiler flew at the stranger’s throat.
CHAPTER VII.
ROD, SMILER, AND THE TRAMP
“Help! Murder! Take off your dog!” yelled the young tramp, throwing up his arm to protect his face from Smiler’s attack, and springing backward. In so doing he tripped and fell heavily to the floor, with the dog on top of him, growling savagely, and tearing at the ragged coat-sleeve in which his teeth were fastened. Fearful lest the dog might inflict some serious injury upon the fellow, Rodman rushed to his assistance. He had just seized hold of Smiler, when a kick from the struggling tramp sent his feet flying from under him, and he too pitched headlong. There ensued a scene which would have been comical enough to a spectator, but which was anything but funny to those who took part in it. Over and over they rolled, striking, biting, kicking, and struggling. The tramp was the first to regain his feet; but almost at the same instant Smiler escaped from Rod’s embrace, and again flew at him. They had rolled over the caboose floor until they were close to its rear door; and now, with a yell of terror, the tramp darted through it, sprang from the moving train, and disappeared in the darkness, leaving a large piece of his trousers in the dog’s mouth. Just then the forward door was opened, and two men with lanterns on their arms, entered the car.
They were Conductor Tobin, and rear-brakeman Joe, his right-hand man, who had just finished switching their train back on the main track, and getting it again started on its way toward New York. At the sight of Rod, who was of course a perfect stranger to them, sitting on the floor, hatless, covered with dust, his clothing bearing many signs of the recent fray, and ruefully feeling of a lump on his forehead that was rapidly increasing in size, and of Smiler whose head was bloody, and who was still worrying the last fragment of clothing that the tramp’s rags had yielded him, they stood for a moment in silent bewilderment.
“Well, I’ll be blowed!” said Conductor Tobin at length.
“Me too,” said Brakeman Joe, who believed in following the lead of his superior officer.
“May I inquire,” asked Conductor Tobin, seating himself on a locker close to where Rod still sat on the floor, “May I inquire who you are? and where you came from? and how you got here? and what’s happened to Smiler? and what’s came of the fellow we left sleeping here a few minutes ago? and what’s the meaning of all this business, anyway?”
“Yes, we’d like to know,” said the Brakeman, taking a seat on the opposite locker, and regarding the boy with a curiosity that was not unmixed with suspicion. Owing to extensive dealings with tramps, Brakeman Joe was very apt to be suspicious of all persons who were dirty, and ragged, and had bumps on their foreheads.
“The trouble is,” replied Rod, looking first at Conductor Tobin and then at Brakeman Joe, “that I don’t know all about it myself. Nobody does except the fellow who just left here in such a hurry, and Smiler, who can’t tell.”
Here the dog, hearing his name mentioned, dragged himself rather stiffly to the boy’s side; for now that the excitement was over, his hurts began to be painful again, and licked his face.
SMILER DRIVES OFF THE TRAMP.—(PAGE 41.)
“Well, you must be one of the right sort, at any rate,” said Conductor Tobin, noting this movement, “for Smiler is a dog that doesn’t make friends except with them as are.”
“He knows what’s what, and who’s who,” added Brakeman Joe, nodding his head. “Don’t you, Smiler, old dog?”
“My name,” continued the boy, “is R. R. Blake.”
“Railroad Blake?” interrupted Conductor Tobin inquiringly.
“Or ‘Runaway Blake’?” asked Brakeman Joe who, still somewhat suspicious, was studying the boy’s face and the M. I. P. bag attached to his shoulders.
“Both,” answered Rod, with a smile. “The boys where I live, or rather where I did live, often call me ‘Railroad Blake,’ and I am a runaway. That is, I was turned away first, and ran away afterwards.”
Then, as briefly as possible, he gave them the whole history of his adventures, beginning with the bicycle race, and ending with the disappearance of the young tramp through the rear door of the caboose in which they sat. Both men listened with the deepest attention, and without interrupting him save by occasional ejaculations, expressive of wonder and sympathy.
“Well, I’ll be blowed!” exclaimed Conductor Tobin, when he had finished; while Brakeman Joe, without a word, went to the rear door and examined the platform, with the hope, as he afterwards explained, of finding there the fellow who had kicked Smiler off the train, and of having a chance to serve him in the same way. Coming back with a disappointed air, he proceeded to light a fire in the little round caboose stove, and prepare a pot of coffee for supper, leaving Rodman’s case to be managed by Conductor Tobin as he thought best.
The latter told the boy that the young tramp, as they called him, was billed through to New York, to look after some cattle that were on the train; but that he was a worthless, ugly fellow, who had not paid the slightest attention to them, and whose only object in accepting the job was evidently to obtain a free ride in the caboose. Smiler, whom he had been delighted to find on the train when it was turned over to him, had taken a great dislike to the fellow from the first. He had growled and shown his teeth whenever the tramp moved about the car, and several times the latter had threatened to teach him better manners. When he and Brakeman Joe went to the forward end of the train, to make ready for side-tracking it, they left the dog sitting on the rear platform of the caboose, and the tramp apparently asleep, as Rod had found him, on one of the lockers. He must have taken advantage of their absence to deal the dog the cruel kick that cut his ear, and landed him, stunned and bruised, on the track where he had been discovered.
“I’m
