CHAPTER VI--SOMEBODY AHEAD OF THEM
Even Miss Cullam--in her dressing gown--trailed out of the car after Tom.The sky was alight from the blazing bridge. It was a wooden structure,and burned like a pine knot.
Beyond the rolling cloud of smoke they could see dimly the lamps of theforward half of the train. The coupling having broken between twoPullmans, the engine had attached to it only the baggage and mailcoaches, the dining car and one sleeping car.
The other Pullmans and the observation coach were stalled on the eastside of the river.
"And no more chance of getting over to-night than there is of flying," abrakeman confided to Tom and the girls. "That bridge will be a charredwreck before midnight."
"Oh, goodness me! What _shall_ we do?" was the cry. "Can't we get overin boats?"
"Where will you get the boats?" sniffed Miss Cullam.
"And the water's low in the river at this season," said the brakeman."Couldn't use anything but a skiff."
"What then?" Tom asked, feeling responsibility roweling him. "We're notdestined to remain here till they rebuild the bridge, I hope?"
"The conductor is wiring back for another engine. We'll pull back toJanesburg and from there take the cross-over line and go on by theNorthern Route. It will put us back fully twelve hours, I reckon."
"Good-_night!_" exploded Tom.
"Why, what does it matter?" asked Helen, wonderingly. "We have all thetime there is, haven't we?"
"Presumably," Miss Cullam said drily.
"But I telegraphed ahead to Yucca for rooms at the hotel," Tomexplained, slowly, "and sent a long message to that guide Mr. Hammondtold you about, Ruth."
"Oh!" cried Helen, giggling. "Flapjack Peters--such a romantic name. Mr.Hammond wrote Ruth that he was a 'character.'"
"'H. J. Peters,'" Tom read, from his memorandum. "Yes. I told him justwhen we would arrive and told him that after one night's sleep at thehotel we'd want to be on our way. But if we don't get there----"
"Oh, Tom, there's Ann, too!" Ruth exclaimed. "She will be at Yucca tooearly if we are delayed so."
"I'll send some more telegrams when we get to Janesburg," Tom promisedRuth and his sister. "One to Ann Hicks, too."
"Those people in the forward Pullman will get through on time," JennieStone said. "I'm always losing something. ''Twas ever thus, sincechildhood's hour, my fondest hopes I've seen decay,' and so forth!"
Tom whispered to Ruth: "That sophomore from Ardmore will get ahead ofus. She's in the forward Pullman."
"Oh, Edith!" murmured Ruth. "She was in that car, wasn't she?"
They were all in bed, as were the other tourists in the delayedPullmans, before the extra locomotive the conductor had sent forarrived. It was coupled to the stalled half of the train and startedback for Janesburg without one of the party bound for Yucca being thewiser.
Tom Cameron meant to send the supplementary telegrams from that junctionas he had said. Indeed, he had written out several--one to his father torelieve any anxiety in the merchant's mind should he hear of theaccident to their train; one to the guide, Peters; one to Ann Hicks tosupplement the one already awaiting her at Yucca; and a fourth to thehotel.
But as he wished to put these messages on the wire himself, Tom did notentrust them to the negro porter. Instead he lay down in his berth withonly his shoes removed--and he awoke in the morning with the sun floodingthe opposite side of the car where the porter had already folded up theberths!
"Good gracious, Agnes!" gasped Tom, appearing in the corridor with hisshoes in his hand. "What time is it? Eight-thirty? Is my watch right?"
"Ah reckon so, boss," grinned the porter. "'Most ev'rybody's up an'dressin'."
"And I wanted to send those telegrams from Janesburg."
"Oh Lawsy-massy! Janesburg's a good ways behint us, boss," said theporter. "Ef yo' wants to send 'em pertic'lar from dere, yo'll have towait till our trip East, Ah reckon."
Tom did not feel much like laughing. In fact, he felt a good deal ofannoyance. He made some further enquiries and discovered that it wouldbe an hour yet before the train would linger long enough at any stationfor him to file telegrams.
They spent one more night "sleeping on shelves," as Jennie Stoneexpressed it, than they had counted upon. Miss Cullam went to her berthwith a groan.
"Believe me, my dears," she announced, "I shall welcome even a saddle asa relief from these cars. You are all nice girls, if I do say it, whoperhaps shouldn't. I flatter myself I have had something to do withmolding your more or less plastic minds and dispositions. But I mustlove you a great deal to ever attempt another such long journey as thisfor you or with you."
"Oh, Miss Cullam!" cried Trix Davenport, "we will erect a statue to youon Bliss Island--right near the Stone Face. And on it shall be engraved:'Nor granite is more enduring than Miss Cullam.'"
"I wonder," murmured the teacher, "if that is complimentary orotherwise?"
But they all loved her. Miss Cullam developed very human qualitiesindeed, take her away from mathematics!
The party was held up for two hours at Kingman, waiting for a localtrain to steam on with them to their destination. And there Tom learnedsomething which rather troubled him.
Telegrams were never received direct at Yucca. The railroad business wasdone by telephone, and all the messages sent to Yucca were telephonedthrough to the station agent--if that individual chanced to be on hand.Otherwise they were entrusted to the rural mail carrier. One couldalmost count the inhabitants of Yucca on one's fingers and toes!
"Jiminy!" gasped Tom, when he learned these particulars. "I bet I'vemade a mess of it."
He tried to find out at the Kingman station what had become of the finalmessages he had sent. The operator on duty when they arrived was now offduty, and he lived out of town.
"If they were mailed, son," observed the man then at the telegraphtable, "you will get to Yucca about two hours before the mail getsthere. Here comes your train now."
Had the girls not been so gaily engaged in chattering, they must havenoticed Tom's solemn face. He was disturbed, for he felt that thecomfort of the party, as well as the arrangements for the trip into thehills, was his own particular responsibility.
It was late afternoon when the combination local (half baggage andfreight, and half passenger) hobbled to a stop at Yucca. Besides a dustylooking individual in a cap who served the railroad as station agent,there was not a human being in sight.
"What a jolly place!" cried Jennie Stone, turning to all points of thecompass to gaze. "So much life! We're going to have a gay time in Yucca,I can see."
"Sh!" begged Trix. "Don't wake them up."
"Awaken whom, my dear?" drawled Sally Blanchard.
"The dead, I think," said Helen. "This place must be the understudy fora graveyard."
At that moment a gray muzzle was thrust between the rails of a corralbeside the track and an awful screech rent the air, drowning the soundof the locomotive whistle as the train rolled away.
"For goodness' sake! what is that?" begged Rebecca, quite startled.
"Mountain canary," laughed Helen. "That is what will arouse you atdawn--and other times--while we are on the march to Freezeout."
"You don't mean to say," demanded Trix, "that all that sound came out ofthat little creature?" And she ran over to the corral fence the betterto see the burro.
"And he didn't need any help," drawled Jennie. "Oh! you'll get used tolittle things like that."
"Never to that little thing," said Miss Cullam, tartly. "Can't he bemuzzled?"
Meanwhile Tom had seized upon the station agent. He was a long, lean,"drawly" man, with seemingly a very languid interest in life.
"What telegrams?" he drawled.
Tom explained more fully and the man referred to a memorandum book hecarried in the breast pocket of his flannel shirt.
"Yep. Three messages received over the 'phone from Kingman station. Alldelivered."
"Good!" Tom exclaimed, with vast relief.
"Four days
ago," added the station agent.
That was a dash of cold water. "Didn't you receive other telegrams inthe same way yesterday?"
"Not a one."
"Where have they gone, then?"
"I wouldn't be here 'twixt eight and 'leven. They'd come over the wireto Kingman, and the op'rator there would mail 'em. Mail man's due anytime now."
"Well," groaned Tom, "let's go up to the hotel and see if they'vereserved the rooms for us, if we are late."
"And where's Jane Ann Hicks?" queried Ruth, in some puzzlement. "_She_ought to be here to greet us."
"What about that guide--the Flapjack person?" added Helen. "Didn't youtelegraph him, Tommy?"
"Who d'you mean--Flapjack Peters?" asked the station agent, interested."Why, he lit out for some place in the Hualapai this forenoon, beauin' aparty of these here tourists--or, so I heard tell."
There were blank faces among the newly arrived visitors from the East.But only Tom Cameron really felt disturbed. It looked to him as thoughsomebody had got ahead of them!