The Speculations of Jack Steele. Robert Barr

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СКАЧАТЬ man was sprawling on two seats, with a newspaper over his head, as the station-master had predicted.

      "Hallo!" he echoed, sitting up and shaking away the sheet of paper, "what's the matter?"

      "Nothing, except that if the spirit should move you to get over to Bunkerville with this ancient combination, five dollars will be transferred from my pocket into yours."

      "’Nough said," cried Joe, rising to his feet. "It'll take me about twenty minutes to get the pot boiling again. You don't happen to have the fiver about you, I suppose? I haven't seen one for a couple of years."

      "Here you are," replied Steele, drawing a crisp bill from his purse.

      The engineer thrust it into the pocket of his greasy overall.

      "I'll toot the whistle when I'm ready," he said.

      This financial operation accomplished, John Steele returned to the station. The station-master was standing by the door of the waiting-room conversing pleasantly with someone within. Jack Steele pushed past him and was amazed to see so pretty a girl sitting on the bench that ran round the bare walls of the uninviting room.

      "Will you introduce me?" inquired the city man, handing his card to the station-master.

      "Miss Slocum," said the latter, "this is Mr. John Steele, of Chicago."

      The young man removed his fashionable straw hat.

      "Miss Slocum," he said, "I desire to apologise to you. I'm afraid that when I found myself stranded on the platform outside, I used language which can hardly be justified, even in the circumstances. But I had no idea at the time that there was a lady within miles of us."

      "I was much interested in my book," replied the girl, with a smile, "and was not paying attention to what was going on outside."

      She held up a book, between whose leaves her forefinger was placed.

      "Well, Miss Slocum. it must have been a pretty absorbing story, and I am deeply grateful to it for acting as a non-conductor between my impulsive observations and your hearing. Nothing excuses intemperate language, as the station-master here has taught me through the force of a benign example. Still, if anything could exculpate a man, I should think it would be the exasperating conduct of this Farmers' Railroad, as they call it."

      "Indeed," said Miss Dorothy archly, "the book had really no right to interfere, because I am one of the owners of the railway, and so perhaps it was my duty to listen to complaints of a passenger. Not that I have anything to do with the management of the line; I am compelled to pay my fare just like the rest."

      "I should be delighted if you would accept a ride on your own road as free as if you carried a superintendent's pass. I am going to Bunkerville in my own private car, as I shall feel honoured if I may extend the courtesies of the same."

      "The station-master has just told me you were kind enough to offer a poor vagrant a lift to Bunkerville. I wished to buy a ticket, but this haughty official of the main line so despises our poor little road that he will not sell me one."

      "Indeed," said the station-master, "I haven't the power, nor the tickets. They don't entrust me with any business so tremendous. Joe starts his rickety engine going, then leaves it to jog along as it likes, and comes through the car to collect the fares. They have no tickets, and perhaps that's why the road has never paid a dividend."

      "Oh, you mustn't say that!" protested the girl. "Poor Joe has not got rich out of his occupation, any more than the shareholders have made money on their shares. If you will permit me to pay my fare to Joe, Mr. Steele, I shall be only too happy to take this early opportunity of getting to Bunkerville."

      "I couldn't think of it, Miss Slocum; in fact, I must prohibit any communication between Joe and yourself, fearing you, as an owner of the road, may learn by what corrupt practices I induced Joe to make the trip."

      The girl laughed, but before she could reply, a wheezy "Toot-toot!" outside announced that Joe had already got steam up.

      "I'll carry your valise across," said the obliging station-master, while Miss Dorothy Slocum picked up her lighter belongings and accompanied Mr. John Steele to the shabby little passenger-car. Joe was leaning out with a grin on his smeared face, which was there probably because of the five-dollar bill in his trousers pocket. The station-master placed the valise in the baggage section of the car, and raised his tattered hat as the little train started gingerly out for the open country.

      It was a pretty landscape through which they passed, with little to indicate that the prairies were so near at hand. The line ran along a shallow valley, well wooded, especially by the banks of the stream that wandered through it, which even at this parched season of the year was still running its course with dear water in it, and Miss Slocum informed the Chicago man that it flowed from a never-drying spring some ten miles on the other side of the main line. The little road was as crooked as possible, for the evident object of its constructors had been to avoid bridging the stream, piling up any high embankments, or excavating deep cuttings. The pace, therefore, was exceedingly slow; nevertheless, John Steele did not find the time hang heavily on his hands. At first the girl seemed somewhat shy and embarrassed to find herself the only passenger except this gallant young business man; but he tactfully put her at her ease by pretending much interest in the history of the road, with which he soon learned she was somewhat unfortunately familiar.

      "Yes," she said, "the building of this road was the greatest financial disaster that ever occurred in this section of the country. My father was one of its chief promoters. When the Wheat Belt Line, by which you came here from Chicago, was surveyed through this part of the State, those interested in the neighbourhood expected that it would ran through Bunkerville, which would become a large town. The railway people demanded a large money bonus, which Bunker county refused, because Bunkerville was in the direct line, and they thought the railway must come through there, whether a bonus were paid or not. In fact, the first survey passed just north of Bunkerville. But our poor little village was not so important as its inhabitants imagined, and the next line surveyed was twenty miles away. For once the farmers were too shrewd. They thought, as they put it, that the new line was a bluff, and did not realise their mistake until too late. My father had been in favour of granting the bonus, but he was out-voted. Perhaps that is why the railway people called their station Slocum instead of Bunkerville, which was twenty miles distant. The next nearest railway line was forty-five miles away, and two years after the Wheat Belt Line began operations, it was proposed to organise a local company to construct a railway from Slocum, through Bunkerville to Jamestown, on the other line. Bonuses were granted all along the route, and besides this the State legislature gave a subsidy, and, furthermore, passed a Bill to prevent competition, prohibiting any railway to parallel the Farmers' Road for sixty miles on either side."

      "Does that law still stand on the statute books of the State?" asked Steele, with increasing interest.

      "I think so. It has never been repealed to my knowledge."

      "Well, I should doubt its being constitutional. Why, that ties up more than seven thousand square miles of the State into a hard knot, and prevents it from having the privilege of further railway communication."

      "In a measure it does," said the girl. "You may run as many lines as you like north and south, but not east and west."

      "It's a wonder the Wheat Belt Line didn't contest that law," said Steele.

      "Well, I've been told that this law is entirely in the interests of the Wheat Belt Line, although the farmers didn't think so when they voted for the Bill. You СКАЧАТЬ