Joe the Hotel Boy; Or, Winning out by Pluck, Pluck by Jr. Horatio Alger [ereader android txt] 📗
- Author: Pluck by Jr. Horatio Alger
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“Eight o'clock.”
“What!” Maurice Vane started up. “I've certainly slept fast enough this trip. Are you getting hungry waiting for me?”
“I just woke up myself.”
“Oh!” Maurice Vane stretched himself. “My, how dizzy I am.”
“I am dizzy too, sir. It must be from the motion of the car.”
“Probably, although I rarely feel so, and I ride a great deal. I feel rather sick at my stomach, too,” went on the gentleman, as he began to dress.
Joe had just started to go to the lavatory to wash up when he heard his employer utter an exclamation.
“Joe!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Did you see anything of my satchel?”
“You took it into the berth with you.”
“I don't see it.”
“It must be somewhere around. I saw it when you went to bed.”
“Yes, I put it under my pillow.”
Both made a hasty search, but the satchel could not be found. The dress-suit case stood under the seat and Joe's was beside it.
“This is strange. Can I have been robbed?”
“Was there much in that satchel, Mr. Vane?”
“Yes, those mining shares and some other articles of value.”
“Then we must find the satchel by all means.”
“I'll question the porter about this.”
The colored man was called and questioned, but he denied having seen the bag. By this time quite a few passengers became interested.
“Has anybody left this car?” asked Maurice Vane.
“The gen'men that occupied Numbers 9 and 10, sah,” said the porter.
“When did they get off?”
“'Bout three o'clock, sah—when de train stopped at Snapwood.”
“I haven't any tickets for Snapwood,” said the conductor, who had appeared on the scene.
“Then they must have had tickets for some other point,” said Joe.
“That looks black for them.”
The porter was asked to describe the two men and did so, to the best of his ability. Then another search was made, and in a corner, under a seat, a bottle was found, half filled with chloroform.
“It's as plain as day to me,” said Maurice Vane. “Joe, I was chloroformed.”
“Perhaps I was, too. That's what gave us the dizzy feeling.”
“And those two men—”
“Must have been Caven and Malone in disguise,” finished our hero.
CHAPTER XXVII.
JOE MAKES A DISCOVERY.
“Who are Caven and Malone?” asked the conductor of the train, while a number of passengers gathered around, to hear what Maurice Vane and our hero might have to say.
“They are two rascals who are trying to do me out of my share of a mine,” explained Maurice Vane. “I had my mining shares in that satchel.”
“If you wish I'll telegraph back to Snapwood for you,” went on the train official.
“How many miles is that?”
“A little over two hundred.”
“What is the next stop of this train?”
“Leadington.”
“When will we get there?”
“In ten minutes.”
A telegram was prepared and sent back to Snapwood as soon as Leadington was reached. The train was held for five minutes and it was learned that nobody had been seen at the station there at three in the morning, as the night operator and station master were away, there being no passengers to get on the train bound West.
Maurice Vane was much disturbed and did not know what to do.
“To go back and look for them at Snapwood may be a mere waste of time,” said he. “On the other hand, I don't feel much like going on while the shares are out of my possession.”
“If you wish it, Mr. Vane, I'll go back,” said Joe. “You can go ahead, and if anything turns up I will telegraph to you.”
This pleased the gentleman, and he said Joe could go back on the very next train. The conductor was again consulted, and our hero left the train bound West a quarter of an hour later.
“Here is some money,” said Maurice Vane on parting. “You'll need it.” And he handed over two hundred dollars.
“Oh, Mr. Vane! will I need as much as this?”
“Perhaps. If you see those rascals you may have a long chase to capture them. Do not hesitate to spend the money if it appears necessary to do so.”
Long before noon our hero was on the way East on a train scheduled to stop at Snapwood. He went without his dress-suit case and carried his money in four different pockets.
The train was almost empty and the riding proved decidedly lonely. In a seat he found an Omaha paper, but he was in no humor for reading. When noon came he took his time eating his dinner, so that the afternoon's ride might not appear so lasting.
About half-past two o'clock the train came to an unexpected halt.
Looking out of the window Joe saw that they were in something of a cut, close to the edge of a woods.
The delay continued, and presently one passenger after another alighted, to learn the meaning of the hold-up. Joe did likewise, and walked through the cut toward the locomotive.
The mystery was easily explained. On one side of the cut the bank had toppled over the tracks, carrying with it two trees of good size. A number of train hands were already at work, sawing the trees into pieces, so that they might be shifted clear of the tracks.
Joe watched the men laboring for a few minutes and then walked up the bank, to get a look at the surroundings. Then he heard a whistle and saw a train approaching from the opposite direction. It came to a halt a few hundred feet away.
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