CHAPTER VI.

A MISSION OF PEACE.

I could not exactly see that I was a traitor to the Toppletonian interest because I believed that a steamer could successfully compete even with a “lightning express.” I intended to serve my employers faithfully, and believed that I had done so. Perhaps it was imprudent for me to express an opinion; but I knew that Colonel Wimpleton was a man of energy and determination, and that he would not be content to remain long in the shade.

I observed that Lewis Holgate listened very attentively to all that was said, though he made no remarks. Since his father had run away with the money he had stolen, the family were hard pressed to get a living. Lewis was about my own age, and was regarded as a smart fellow. The intimacy between our families had brought us together somewhat, and I knew that he aspired to be a “young engineer.” He had worked with his father a great deal, and knew an engine very well. It was necessary for him to go to work, to assist in supporting his mother and his brothers and sisters. He had told me how sorry he was for what his father had done, and I pitied him. Through my influence he had obtained the place to “fire” on the new locomotive, and now received a salary of three dollars a week.

Lewis worked with me a while on the dummy, and was competent to run it. The crime of his father had to some extent broken his spirit, and thus far he had behaved very well, better than his antecedents led me to expect--for he had been rather noted in Ucayga as a bad boy. My mother commended me warmly for what I had done to help him, and declared she was very glad to see me manifest a Christian spirit towards him. My father said I was foolish to try to serve such a fellow; but I was best satisfied with the judgment of my mother.

Something had already been said about another locomotive, and an additional number of freight and passenger cars, which the business of the road would eventually demand. Lewis Holgate gave me to understand that the height of his ambition was to be the engineer of the new locomotive when it came. I assured him that if he did his duty faithfully, I would do all I could to further his purpose. We were, therefore, good friends, and I gave him every facility for learning the business. If I had had any doubts about the propriety of what I had said to Faxon, for which he had accused me of being a Wimp, I should not have restrained my speech on account of the presence of Lewis; for, after all I had done for him, I did not think him capable of injuring me.

“The tug steamer is not here,” said Faxon, as I shut off the steam when the train approached Grass Springs.

“It isn’t eight o’clock yet. We have been only half an hour on the road,” I replied.

“I don’t believe it will be here,” added Faxon, anxiously, as he looked out upon the waters of the lake. “There is a stiff breeze now, and the Wimps will be here by nine o’clock.”

I could not see why my partisan friend should manifest any anxiety, since he and the rest of the Toppletonians, with a few exceptions, were absolutely spoiling for a fight with their rivals on the other side of the lake. The train approached the Grass Springs station, and I whistled to put on the brakes. As soon as we stopped, Faxon left the engine, and the battalion came out of the cars. The two companies formed on the wharf, and I heard sharp and imperative orders of Major Tommy, which led me to conclude that his experience in the stockholders’ meeting had not been very profitable to him, though some of the harshness of his tones was doubtless attributable to his military enthusiasm.

From my place in the cab I could see the end of the lake, with the steeples of Ucayga in the distance; but the steamer was not on the way; she had not even started for the Springs. The Horse Shoe was two miles from the shore. The wind had freshened a little, and was fair for boats coming down the lake. The battalion from Centreport must arrive in an hour, or an hour and a half at the farthest, for the boats had had only ten miles to make half an hour before. Major Tommy had formed his lines; the quartermaster had placed all the baggage and stores on the wharf, and everything was in readiness to embark. It was eight o’clock by this time, and the steamer had not yet appeared. The Toppleton boats had probably been left at the island, for they were not to be found at the main shore, and the steamer could have left them with less delay than at the Grass Springs Wharf.

“What’s to be done?” asked Major Tommy, impatiently, after he had surveyed the ground over and over again.

“We must get to the island some how or other,” replied Faxon.

“That steamer won’t be here for an hour,” growled the commander of the battalion. “Father said it might be late; but he didn’t understand exactly what was up.”

“The Wimps are coming,” shouted an officer in the line.

“They are five miles off,” replied Faxon, as he looked up the lake. “I want to be on the island when they come.”

“So do I,” replied Tommy, casting an anxious glance at the approaching enemy.

“Can’t you help us out, Wolf?” asked the major, jumping on the foot-board of the engine.

Of course I was well pleased to be called upon in the emergency, for it was manifesting a great deal of confidence to ask advice of a boy who was not a member of the battalion. The Toppletonians had the legal right to use the Horse Shoe; and it seemed to me that, if they had possession of the island when the Wimpletonians arrived, the anticipated fight, at least as a brutal struggle, might be averted. Both bodies were armed with small muskets, having bayonets upon them; and though they were not allowed any ammunition, they might make the combat more dangerous than they intended. The interests of peace, therefore, appeared to require that our battalion should be transported to the island without delay.

“I hope you are not going to get up a fight over there,” I ventured to say.

“Of course we are not, if the Wimps let us alone,” replied Tommy. “If they don’t let us alone, it will be the worse for them. I want to get over there before they do, and that steamer, confound it, won’t be here this hour.”

“If I were you, Tommy, I would send one company over to the island, and take possession of it, leaving the baggage and tents to be carried over when the steamer comes.”

“How can I send one company over?” snapped Tommy. “We haven’t a boat, or even a mudscow.”

“There comes the ferry-boat,” I replied, pointing to a sloop-rigged craft which was now approaching the shore from Ruoara, on the other side and above the island.

“That’s the idea!” exclaimed Tommy, as he leaped down from the cab, and ran with a speed entirely beneath the dignity of the major of a battalion to the ferry pier.

In three minutes more he had made a trade with the ferryman to land as many of the force as his boat would accommodate on the Horse Shoe. The craft was one peculiar to the lakes in that region. It was an ordinary sloop, though rather longer than similar vessels are built; but the stern was open just above the water-line, so that teams could be driven on board. It depended upon the wind as its propelling agent, though it was provided with a pair of steamboat wheels, with a horse-power machine to turn them, which could be used when the wind was not available.

Major Tommy ordered Captain Briscoe, with Company A, to embark in this ferry-boat, and to hold the Horse Shoe, at any peril, until the other company could be sent over. I was sorry to leave the exciting scene; but I had to run the trip from Middleport at nine o’clock. Satisfied that the Toppletonians would secure possession of the island before the arrival of the enemy, I turned the locomotive, and ran back to the other terminus. The fleet of boats was off the South Shoe, not more than a mile from the Horse Shoe, when the train went through Spangleport; but the ferry-boat was within half that distance of its destination.

We did not yet run the new locomotive and cars on the regular trips, because the travel was light, and the dummy could be used at half the expense. We housed the engine and cars, and, firing up the dummy, we had steam enough to start her at the appointed hour. Just before we left, Major Toppleton came into the station, and asked me what had become of the students. I told him I had conveyed them to Grass Springs.

“I did not know they were going so early,” added he.

“They were in a hurry,” I replied, with a smile, when I saw that the great man did not comprehend the strategy of the battalion, “My orders from Major Tommy were to start at seven o’clock; and I set them down on the wharf at the Springs at half past seven.”

“You look wiser than you speak, Wolf,” said the major, gazing earnestly into my face. “Is there any mischief brewing?”

“I think there is,” I replied, candidly, though I could not help smiling at the puzzled look of the magnate of Middleport.

“What is it? Why didn’t you tell me about it? They say the students of the Wimpleton Institute went down the lake this morning.”

“Yes, sir; we passed them on the way, and the students of both Institutes are bound to the same place.”

“Then there will be a quarrel!” exclaimed the major; but I think he would not have cared if he had been sure that his side of the lake would be victorious.

“I am afraid there will; but the Toppletonians have the weather-gage, both on the rights of the case and in the situation.”

I explained fully what had transpired at the meeting of the battalion on Saturday, and the state of the affair when I left Grass Springs, an hour before.

“Why didn’t they tell me what they were doing?” demanded the major. “I did not know they were in a hurry; if I had, the steamer should have been at Grass Springs without fail. If our boys have hired the Horse Shoe, and pay for it, they have a right to use it.”

The great man was unequivocally on the side of the boys, and they might just as well have taken him into their confidence. I was sorry to see him so willing to permit a collision, even while our students had the letter of the law in their favor.

“Wolf, don’t you want a vacation?” said the major, suddenly turning to me, after musing on the facts I had given him.

“No, sir; I don’t care about any,” I replied.

“But I prefer that you should take one. Your pay shall go on as usual,” he continued; and of course it was of no use for me to protest. “Can Lewis run the dummy?”

“Yes, sir; he understands it very well.”

“All right, Wolf; I want you to be with those boys. You have an influence with them, and they want some help such as you can give them.”

“Am I to fight with them, sir?” I asked, laughing; for I did not exactly relish the kind of vacation he intended to give me.

“Certainly I don’t want any fighting if it can be avoided. I want you to help keep the peace. If things don’t work well, or any help is needed, come to me at once.”

I started the dummy, and then gave it up to Lewis. I did not exactly like my mission; for, though I was sent to keep the peace, I knew that the major simply expected me to see that the Toppletonians were not whipped in the expected encounter.