Bart Stirlings Road to Success | Page 5

you're a capital gunner."
All eyes were now turned in a new direction--in that whither the muzzle of the cannon was pointed.
The grounds of the Harrington mansion were the scene of a vivid commotion. The porch lights had been abruptly turned on, and they flooded the lawn in front with radiance.
Bart gasped, thrilled, and experienced a strange qualm of dismay. He discerned in a flash that something heretofore always prominently present on the Harrington landscape was not now in evidence.
The wealthy colonel was given to "grandstand plays," and one of them had been the placing of a bronze pedestal and statue at the side of the driveway.
It bore the inscription "1812," and according to the colonel, portrayed a military man life-size, epaulettes, sword, uniform and all--his maternal grandfather as he had appeared in the battle scene where he had lost a limb.
Now, in effigy, the valiant warrior was prostrate. The colonel's servants were rushing to the spot where the statue had tumbled over on the velvety sward.
"See here!"--cried Bart stormingly, turning on Dale Wacker.
"Loaded," significantly observed the latter with a diabolical grin.
A rush of keen realization made Bart shiver. He recognized what the foolhardy escapade might have cost had that whirling cannon ball met a human, instead of an inanimate, target.
As it was, he easily calculated the indignation and resentment of the haughty village magnate who was given to outbursts of wrath which carried all before him.
"You've spoiled my Fourth," began Bart in a tumult. "I'll spoil your--"
"Cut for it, fellows! they're coming for us!"
"They" were the village officers. Bart had made a jump towards Dale Wacker, but the latter had faded into the vortex of pell-mell fugitives rushing away downhill to hiding.
Bart put after them, trying to single out the author of the scurvy joke that he knew had serious trouble at the end of it.
"Hold on!" gasped a breathless voice.
"Don't stop me!" shouted Bart, trying to tear loose from a frantic grip. "Oh, it's you--what do you want?"
He halted to survey the person who detained him--the man who haunted the freight tracks--to whom he had given money earlier in the evening.
"Come, quick!" the man panted. "Express shed--where your father is--trouble. Don't wait--not a minute."
"See here," challenged Bart, instantly startled into a new tremor of anxiety, "what do you mean?"
But the forlorn roustabout could not be coherent. He continued to gasp and splutter out excited adjectives, fragmentary sentences.
"Plot--get you into trouble--father--I heard 'em."
Then as his glance fell upon the people coming up the hill, the officers in their lead, his eyes bulged with terror, he grasped Bart's arm, let out an unearthly yell of fear, and by sheer force carried Bart pell-mell down the other side of the hill with him.
"See here," panted Bart, as, still running, they were headed in the direction of the railroad, "my business is here. Don't you hurry me off in this fashion unless there's something to it."
"Told you--express shed--robbers!"
"Robbers? You mean some one is stealing something there?"
"Yes!" gulped Bart's companion.
"Who is it?"
"Don't know."
"Why didn't you stop them?"
"I don't dare do anything," the man wailed. "I'm a poor, miserable object, but I'm your friend. I heard two fellows whispering on the tracks near the express shed. Said they were going to steal some fireworks. I ran to the shed to warn your father. He was asleep in his chair. They might see me--didn't dare do anything."
Bart now believed there might be some basis to the man's statements. He plunged forward alone, not conscious that he was outdistancing his late companion.
Reaching the tracks, Bart ran down a line of freights. The express shed was in view at last. It was lighted up as usual, the door stood open, and nothing suggested anything out of the ordinary.
"The fellow's cracked," reflected Bart. "Everything looks straight here--no, it doesn't!" He checked himself abruptly. "Here! what are you at?"
Sharp and clear Bart sang out. Approaching the express shed from the side, his glance shifted to the rear.
The little structure had one window there, lightly barred with metal strips. Two men stood on the platform beneath it. One of them had just pried a strip loose with some long implement he held in his hand. The other had just pushed up the sash by reaching through the convenient aperture thus made.
Bart bounded to the platform with a nimble spring. As his feet clamped down warningly on the boardway, the man who had pushed up the window turned sharply.
"It's young Stirling!" Bart heard him mutter. "Drop it, and run."
The speaker sprang to the ground and disappeared around the corner of the shed with the words.
His companion, who had been stooping on one knee in his prying operations, essayed to join him, slipped, tilted over, and before he could recover himself Bart was upon him.
"What are you about here?" demanded the latter.
The prisoner