STOP THIEF!

As Train Number 29 dashed up to the Millbank station and was brought to a stop almost as suddenly as a spirited horse is reined back on his haunches by a curb bit, the many flashing lanterns guarding all approaches, and the confused throng of dark forms on its platform told that Brakeman Tom had performed his duty and that its arrival was anticipated.

The abruptness of this unexpected stop caused the messengers in the several cars to open their doors and look out inquiringly. At the same time, and even before it was safe to do so, Conductor Tobin and Rod dropped to the ground and ran to the door of the money car. The glare of firelight streaming from it attracted others to the same spot. There were loud cries for buckets and water, and almost before the car wheels ceased to slide on the polished rails a score of willing hands were drenching out the fire of way-bills, other papers, and a broken chair that was blazing merrily in the middle of its floor. The flames were already licking the interior woodwork, and but for this opportune stop would have gathered such headway inside of another minute as would not only have destroyed the car but probably the entire train.

The moment the subsiding flames rendered such a thing possible, a rush was made for the inside of the car, but Conductor Tobin calling one of the express messengers and the engineman who had come running back, to aid him, and telling Rod to guard the door, sternly ordered the crowd to keep out until he had made an examination. From his post at the doorway Rod could look in at a sight that filled him with horror. The interior of the car was spattered with blood. On the floor, half hidden beneath a pile of packages, lay the messenger, still alive but unconscious and bleeding from half a dozen wounds. The brave right hand that had tried to pull the bell cord had been shattered by a pistol ball, and the messenger’s own Winchester lay on the floor beside him. Broken packages that had contained money, jewelry, and other valuables were scattered in every direction, while the open safe from which they had come was as empty as the day it was made.

The trainmen became furious as one after another of these mute witnesses told of the outrages so recently perpetrated, and swore vengeance on the robber when they should catch him. They ransacked every corner of the car, but search as they might they could discover no trace of his presence nor of the method of his flight. The man had left the car as he had entered it taking the precaution of removing his rope ladder as he went.

The baffled searchers had just reached the conclusion that he must have leaped from the train in spite of its speed and of Conductor Tobin’s watchfulness, when Rod, who from his position in the doorway could look over the heads of the crowd surrounding the car called out:

“Stop that man! The one with a leather bag slung over his shoulder! Stop him! Stop thief! He is the robber!”

In the glare of an electric light that happened to shine full upon him for a moment, Rod had seen the man walk away from the forward end of the car next ahead of the one they were searching as though he had just left it. He was not noticed by the bystanders as all eyes were directed toward the door of the money car. To the young brakeman his figure and the stout leather bag that he carried seemed familiar. As he looked, the man raised a kid-gloved hand to shift the position of his satchel, and from it shot the momentary flash of a diamond. With Rod this was enough to at once establish the man’s identity. Although he no longer wore smoked glasses Rod knew him to be the man who, pretending partial blindness, had first boarded the Express Special, then taken passage on the “Limited,” and whom he had seen on the platform of the last station at which they had stopped. How could he have reached Millbank? He must have come by the Express Special, and so must be connected with its robbery.

All these thoughts darted through Rod’s head like a flash of lightning, and as he uttered his shouts of warning he sprang to the ground with a vague idea of preventing the stranger’s escape. At the same moment the crowd surged back upon him, and when he finally cleared himself from it he saw the man backing down the platform, holding his would-be pursuers in check with a levelled pistol, and just disappearing from the circle of electric light.

A minute later two frightened men were driven at the point of a revolver from the cab of a freight locomotive that, under a full head of steam, was standing on the outer one of the two west-bound tracks. They had hardly left it in sole charge of the robber, by whom it had already been uncoupled from its train, before it sprang forward and began to move away through the darkness.

Rod, who was now well in advance of all other pursuers, instantly comprehended the situation. His own train stood on the inner west-bound track and he was near its forward end. The robber with his blood-stained plunder was disappearing before his very eyes, and if lost to view might easily run on for a few miles and then make good his escape. He must not be allowed to do so! He must be kept in sight!

This was Rod’s all-absorbing thought at the moment. Moved by it, he jerked out the coupling-pin, by which the locomotive of the Express Special was attached to its train, leaped into the cab, threw over the lever, pulled open the throttle, and had started on one of the most thrilling races recorded in the annals of railroading, before the astonished fireman, who had been left in charge, found time to remonstrate.

“Look here, young fellow! what are you about?” he shouted, stepping threateningly toward Rod.

“We are about chasing the train robber, who has just gone off with that engine on number four track, and you want to keep up the best head of steam you know how,” was the answer.

“Have we any orders to do so?”

“You have, at any rate, for I give them to you.”

“And who are you? I never saw you before to-night.”

“I am Rod Blake, one of Tobin’s trainmen, and if you don’t quit bothering me with your stupidity and go to work, I’ll pitch you out of this cab!” shouted Rod savagely, in a tone that betrayed the intensity of his nervous excitement.

The man had heard of the young brakeman and of his skill as a boxer, though he had never met him before that night, and his half-formed intention of compelling the lad to turn back was decidedly weakened by the mention of his name. Still he hesitated. He was a powerful fellow with whom in a struggle Rod could not have held his own for a minute, but he was clearly lacking in what railroad men call “sand.” Suddenly Rod made a movement as though to spring at him, at the same time shouting, “Do as I tell you, sir, and get to work at once!”