THE TRAIN ROBBER LEARNS OF ROD’S ARREST.

“I tell you the man who did it all is lying back there in the road!” screamed Rod, furious with indignation at this outrage and almost sobbing with the bitterness of his distress. “He is a train robber, and I’m a passenger brakeman on the New York and Western road. He made an escape and I was chasing him.”

“Just listen to that now,” said one of the men jeeringly. “It’s more than likely you are the train robber yourself.”

“Looks like a brakeman, doesn’t he?” sneered another, “especially as they are all obliged to wear a uniform when on duty.”

“He’s a nice big party of men, he is. Just such a one as the railroad folks would collect and send in pursuit of a train robber,” remarked the leader ironically. “Oh, no, my lad, that’s too thin. If you must tell lies I’d advise you to invent some that folks might have a living chance of believing.”

“It’s not a lie!” declared Rod earnestly and almost calmly; for though his face was quite pale with suppressed excitement, he was regaining control of his voice. “It’s the solemn truth and I’m willing to swear to it.”

“Oh, hush, sonny, don’t swear. That would be naughty,” remonstrated one of the men, mockingly.

Without noticing him, Rod continued: “If you will only take me back about a mile on the road I will show you the real train robber, and so prove that part of my story. Then at Millbank I can prove the rest.”

“Look here, young fellow,” said the leader, harshly, “why will you persist in such nonsense? We have just came over that part of the road and we didn’t see anything of any man lying in it.”

“Because I dragged him to one side,” explained Rod.

“Oh, well, you’ll have a chance to show us your man if you can find him, for we are going to take you back that way anyhow. Come on, fellows, let’s be moving. The sooner we get this young horse-thief behind bolts and bars the sooner we’ll be rid of an awkward responsibility.”

So poor Rod, still bound, was placed on Juniper’s back, and, with one man on each side of him, two in front and two behind, rode unhappily back over the road that he had traversed on an errand of mercy but a short time before.

As the little group disappeared, the woman in whose front yard this exciting arrest had been made turned to hasten the preparations for her children’s breakfast that she might the sooner visit her nearest neighbors and tell them of these wonderful happenings. She was filled with the belief that she had had a most remarkable escape, and was eager to have her theory confirmed.

When she finally reached her neighbor’s house and burst in upon them breathless and unannounced, she was somewhat taken aback to see a strange young man, wearing a pair of smoked glasses and having a very pale face, sitting at breakfast with them. The woman of the house informed her in a whisper, that he was a poor theological student making his way on foot back to college in order to save travelling expenses, and though he had only stopped to ask for a glass of water they had insisted upon his taking breakfast with them.

Then the visitor unburdened herself of her budget of startling news, ending up with: “An’ I knew he was a desp’rate character the minit I set eyes onto him, for I’m a master-hand at reading faces, I am. Why, sir,” here she turned to the pale student by whose evident interest in her story she was greatly flattered, “I could no more take him for the honest lad he claimed to be than I would take you for a train robber. No, indeed. A face is like a printed page to me every time and I’m not likely to be fooled, I can tell you.”

“It is truly a wonderful gift,” murmured the young man as he rose from the table and started to leave the house, excusing his haste on the plea of having a long distance still to travel.

“What a saintly expression that young man has!” exclaimed the visitor, watching him out of sight, “and what a preacher he will make!”

At the same moment he of the smoked glasses was saying to himself: “So that is what happened while I lay there like a log by the roadside, is it? Well, it’s hard luck; but certainly I ought to be able to turn the information furnished by that silly woman to some good account.”

In the meantime poor Rod was far from enjoying a morning ride that under other circumstances would have proved delightful. The sun shone from an unclouded sky, the air was deliciously cool and bracing, and the crisp autumn leaves of the forest-road rustled pleasantly beneath the horses’ feet. But the boy was thinking too intently, and his thoughts were of too unpleasant a nature for him to take note of these things. He was wondering what would happen in case the train robber should not be found where he had left him.

He was not left long in suspense, for when they reached the place that he was certain was the right one there was no man, unconscious or otherwise, to be seen on either side or in any direction. He had simply regained his senses soon after Rod left him, staggered to his feet, and, with ever increasing strength, walked slowly along the road. He finally discovered a side path through the woods that led him to the farm-house where, on account of his readily concocted tale, he received and accepted a cordial invitation to breakfast.

As for Rod, his disappointment at not finding the proof of which he had been so confident was so great that he hardly uttered a protest, when instead of carrying him to Millbank or any other station on the line where he might have found friends, his captors turned into a cross-road from the left and journeyed directly away from the railroad.

In about an hour they reached the village of Center where the young brakeman, escorted by half the population of the place, was conducted through the main street to the county jail. Here he was delivered to the custody of the sheriff with such an account of his terrible deeds, and strict injunctions as to his safe keeping, that the official locked him into the very strongest of all his cells. As the heavy door clanged in his face, and Rod realized that he was actually a prisoner, he vaguely wondered if railroad men often got into such scrapes while attempting the faithful discharge of their duties.