Chapter III: The Stolen Locomotive

“Well, Mr. Sumner, your assignment last night turned out larger than we expected,” the city editor said when Dick reported in the office next morning.

Dick had spent a miserable night, and he anticipated at least a severe lecture. But the editor’s manner was kind and reassuring.

“Yes, sir,” he answered, “the stonecutters had a very lively meeting, and I ought to have known that it was an important piece of news. I’ll try to use better judgment next time, sir.”

“Oh, I think you’ll soon learn,” the editor said. “We don’t expect you to have much experience on your first day. You see when I tell you to write four or five lines, that is with the expectation that the matter will be of no importance. Something unexpected may happen and make it worth two or three columns. You will find it a good plan always to tell your facts briefly to the night city editor when you come in, and he will tell you about how much to write.”

Several of the older reporters were ready to talk to Dick when he took his seat. It was easy for them to see that he was worried over his mistake, and they felt sorry for him.

“If you had told some of us what you had when you came in,” said Mr. Herrick, the reporter who had rewritten Dick’s article so skilfully, “we’d have put you on the right track. But don’t worry over it; you look as if you’d cried yourself to sleep.”

“Not quite as bad as that,” Dick answered with something of a smile. “But I did have a very bad night of it. You see I was kept so late that I missed my train for home, so I went to the Astor House and took a room. It’s a terrible noisy place over there.”

“It’s worse than noisy,” Mr. Herrick laughed, “it’s too expensive for a young reporter. You’re not living out of town, are you?”

Dick explained that he lived in Russellville with his mother and sister.

“Oh, that will never do!” Mr. Herrick exclaimed. “No reporter can hope to live out of town. Our hours are so irregular that you’ll miss your train about five nights a week. The best way is to rent a furnished room and live in the city. That’s the way most of us do. It leaves a man free to work at all hours.”

“Yes, that’s a reporter’s life,” said young Tom Brownell, who was only two or three years older than Dick. “A furnished room, meals in a Park Row beanery, and empty pockets on Saturday night. That’s all we can look forward to.”

“Don’t stuff the boy, Brownell,” said Mr. Banks, whose seat was near. “Brownell is a space man, Mr. Sumner, who makes about sixty dollars a week and boards in a hotel. But it is a fact that you’ll not be able to live out of town. You cannot do better than rent a little room for the present and take your meals in whatever restaurant you happen to be near.”

This was a new idea to Dick, and he had plenty of time to think it over while waiting for an assignment. Russellville was so near, it had not occurred to him that he would not be able to go home every night; but if he should be kept late often, and miss his train four or five nights a week, the hotel bills would soon use up his salary. Still, there was an objection to his living in a furnished room and restaurants.

“If I am to pay my way separately in the city,” he considered, “what am I going to have left for mother and Florrie? Fifteen dollars a week is a great deal of money, but money seems to disappear very fast here in the city.”

He had plenty to do on that second day, but it seemed to him that it was all work that an errand boy might have done. First he was sent to a steamship office to inquire about an overdue vessel, then down to Wall Street to carry a message to the financial reporter; and in the evening he had two little meetings to attend, but they were of no importance, and he had not a single line to write.

“It’s tough, isn’t it?” he said to Randall, when his last job was done and he was free to go home. “I’ve not had a line to write to-day.”

“Tough!” Randall exclaimed; “why, my boy, I’ve often worked for two weeks on a job and then had nothing to write. You can’t expect to write much at the start, and some men never do. You will soon see that all the reporting of any importance is done by about half a dozen men. They get all the long articles to write, because they know how to do it. The rest have to take what is left.

“Besides that,” Randall went on, “a new man has to wait for his opportunity. They’ll keep giving you this little work to do till some day a little thing turns out big, and then you’ll have a chance to show what stuff there is in you. That’s the way a new reporter gets a start.”

“Oh!” Dick gasped; “and I had just such a chance as that last night, and lost it!”

“Yes, you did,” Randall admitted; “but you can’t expect to do everything in a day. Another chance will come some day; watch for it.”

Watch for it! Dick did nothing but watch for it. No matter how small his assignment was, and for days and weeks they were all small, he went about it full of the hope that it might turn out to be of importance. Sometimes he was almost discouraged, particularly when he looked about him and saw how many older men in the office, men who had been reporters for years, got no better work to do than he. Some of these men, too, were much better men than he; he could not help seeing that. They had traveled everywhere, and were thoroughly educated, and spoke many languages, but still their opportunity had not come. Perhaps his chance might never come again either.

There were other things to make Dick feel uncomfortable. His mother had given him the best advice when he found that he must live in the city, and of course Dick had followed it, but he found himself very unsettled.

“If you must miss the train so often,” she said to him, “you will have to live in the city; but do nothing rash till you are sure of keeping your place in the office. Rent a little room somewhere for the present, and after a while Florrie and I will move in, if everything goes well, and we can take a tiny little flat, and all live together again.”

So Dick was cut off from his family, a young lone bachelor in New York; and the little hall bedroom was doleful, and the restaurant meals were growing monotonous, for he could not afford to go to the good restaurants; even the cheap ones swallowed up a large share of his salary.

“Here is a meeting of the Harbor Commissioners that you can attend this morning, Mr. Sumner,” the city editor said to him one day. “They never do anything worth printing. Last time we merely said of them ‘The Harbor Commissioners met yesterday and did nothing.’ There probably will not be more than a line or two to write about them.”

“Yes, sir,” said Dick, and he could not help adding mentally, “that’s the reason I get the job, I’m afraid, because it is of no account. But never mind; my chance will come some day, and then I’ll get better work.”

It was as small and unimportant an assignment as was given out that day in the office; but small as it looked it was destined to help Dick to a better standing on the Transport. The subject of tugboats running about the harbor without proper lights came up at the meeting, and one of the Commissioners told of a thrilling experience he had had a few nights before, while taking the Vice-President of the United States down the harbor in a Revenue Cutter. A tug carrying no lights lay directly in the cutter’s way in the Swash Channel, and the cutter almost ran her down in the darkness. The Vice-President’s life, the speaker said, and the lives of all on board the cutter were put in great danger.

This caught Dick’s attention at once.

“The Vice-President in danger because a New York tug carried no lights!” he said to himself. “It seems to me that ought to make a story that people would like to read. I wonder whether my chance has come at last. I’ll not miss it this time at any rate.”

He took full notes of the story, and as soon as the meeting was over he returned to the office and reported to the city editor, telling him briefly what he had heard.

“That’s good, Mr. Sumner, that’s good,” the editor replied. “We want that by all means. Write it up as fully as you think the facts will stand.”

Dick felt his hand shaking when he began to write. It was his first real chance since the night when he wrote an account of the governor’s accident--except, of course, the chance that he let slip. Besides, he had not written enough yet to forget that he was writing for more than a hundred thousand readers. But the excitement wore off as he grew more interested in the subject, and when he finished he had written a plain but exciting account of the Vice-President’s adventure, enough to fill about two thirds of a column in the paper.

It was almost exasperating to him to see the matter-of-fact way in which his copy was received; how it was laid under a paper-weight with a dozen other articles, to remain there unnoticed until the night city editor came and in its turn passed judgment upon it. He was sent out immediately on another mission, and it was not till late that night that he heard anything about it. Then it was the ever kindly Dr. Goode, the night editor, who mentioned it.

“O Sumner, see here a moment,” the doctor called, adjusting his two pairs of glasses.

As Dick approached his desk he saw that the proof the doctor held in his hand was headed in big letters, “The Vice-President’s Peril,” and that it was his own article.

“This is a good thing you have done here, Sumner,” the doctor said. “We like stories of this sort, and I’m going to put you on the first page.”

A few weeks earlier Dick would have stayed in the office till the paper went to press, for the sake of seeing his article in print, but being more experienced now, he wisely went home and to bed.

In the morning Dick found the city editor making remarks to the reporters, as usual, about their articles. “Well done, well done, Mr. Banks;” or perhaps, “You made too much of that burglary story, Mr. Black.” His turn came almost as soon as he entered the room.

“You did a good thing yesterday, Mr. Sumner,” was the greeting. “I see none of the other papers have your story about the Vice-President’s peril. I suppose there were other reporters at the meeting?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” Dick answered; “five or six others. We all heard the story at the same time, but perhaps none of the others used it.”

“Then you showed a better news sense than any of them,” Mr. Brown retorted, “for such a story as that is news.”

Dick was pleased with himself and all the world that morning, but it surprised him a little to find that he still got the same unimportant assignments--trivial meetings, things that an errand boy could have done equally well. This went on for so many days that he began almost to think there was not much use in taking advantage of an opportunity after all. But when he found such thoughts in his mind he held a little conversation with himself, for he did not like it.

“Now hold on to the ropes and keep pulling, Dick Sumner!” he said to himself. “Don’t be a baby. Better work is coming by-and-by. If one or two good pieces of work don’t bring it, then three or four will, or five or six. Do the best you can; and if you begin to grumble, I’ll be ashamed of you.”

He was always among the first to arrive at the office, perhaps because he had no great fancy for staying alone in his dismal little furnished room; and one morning when he entered he was the very first reporter, and only the city editor was at his desk.

“I thought you would be the first man here,” Mr. Brown said. “You are generally early, Mr. Sumner, and I am glad that this time your promptness is to be rewarded. I am going to give you an assignment of great importance this morning, because I know you will do it faithfully, and I think you will do it well. It is a job that would naturally go to Mr. Randall, because he does all our Sing Sing work; but he is out of town to-day, and I am going to entrust it to you.”

Dick merely answered “Yes, sir;” but the announcement filled him with wonder. An assignment of great importance! A job that would naturally go to Mr. Randall--to Jack Randall, the best reporter and best writer in the office! He could hardly believe that he was to have a chance at such work.

“Here is a dispatch just received from Sing Sing prison,” the city editor went on, “saying that four prisoners escaped this morning by stealing a locomotive. You understand that the New York Central Railroad runs through the prison grounds through a deep open cut in the rock. There are bridges across the cut, and every morning some of the prisoners are taken over the bridges to work in the quarry.”

“Yes, sir,” Dick repeated. He had read of this, though he had never visited Sing Sing.

“This morning, according to this dispatch,” Mr. Brown continued, “four of the prisoners broke away from their guards while a slow freight train was passing under the bridges, dropped from one of the bridges to the tender, drove the engineer and fireman off with revolvers, uncoupled the engine, and escaped. It is an exceedingly dramatic story and must be told fully. You must take the first train for Sing Sing and get all the facts. See the warden, go over to the quarries, look at the bridge and the position of the train, get the names and histories of the escaped convicts, and of course be on the lookout for their capture. Tell the story vividly, but do not exaggerate the facts. Now the sooner you reach Sing Sing the better.”

To go into the great Sing Sing prison, to talk with the warden, to go over the prison grounds, and to come back and describe one of the most remarkable prison escapes ever made! Dick could hardly believe that such a job had been put into his hands.

He knew that that day’s work would give him a standing in the office if he did it well, and he hurried down the stairs determined to put his whole heart and brain into it.

As he reached the head of the long flight leading into the publication office he saw that a man below was about to come up. The man had stopped for a moment to talk with one of the clerks, and his hand rested on the top of the newel post.

It was Jack Randall, the man who should have had this great Sing Sing story to write! He had returned unexpectedly, and in a minute more the city editor would see him.

Dick’s thoughts flew fast for a moment. If he went on down the stairs, he would immediately be swallowed up in the crowded streets and it would be too late to recall him. But would that be fair? The work must certainly have been given to Randall, if he had been in the office; it had gone to Dick only through a misunderstanding. His mind was made up in an instant, and he turned and ran quickly up the stairs.

“Mr. Randall is downstairs, sir,” he said to the city editor; “he will be up here in a moment.” It was like giving away half his chances in life, but he was sure it was the right thing to do.

Mr. Brown looked up squarely into Dick’s eyes as he answered.

“It was very thoughtful in you to come and tell me, Mr. Sumner,” he said, “but I shall not change the assignment. You go ahead and do the work.”

Dick was off like a flash for the Grand Central Station, exchanging salutations with Randall when he encountered him on the stairs. “How much better I can do the work now,” he thought, “than if I had gone ahead with a guilty conscience!”

In the train he met four other reporters, one of whom he knew. They were from the other morning newspapers, and before they reached Sing Sing he found that one of the party was the great Bailey of the Herald, one of the best-known reporters in New York, and another Henderson of the Tribune, whom he had heard spoken of as one of the finest writers on the press. It was a fresh feather in his cap to be sent to do the work that such men were doing. But could he compete with them, he wondered?

In Sing Sing the five reporters walked down to the prison together and were shown into the warden’s office, and Dick’s idea of the power of the press was vastly expanded when he saw how they were treated. The warden, the man in charge of all that great prison with its thousands of prisoners, whose word was law to scores of keepers, could not do enough for them. Did they smoke? A box of Havana cigars was passed about. Would they eat a bite of lunch? Just a taste of chicken salad and a little cold fruit? No? Then let him ring for a glass of wine, for they would have a hard day’s work. But that was precisely why they would not take the wine, for such reporters as the four Dick met, capable of doing the best work, do not drink wine because they have work before them.

The warden took them into the cell corridors, which made Dick shudder, and showed them the cells of the men who had escaped. Everything was open to them; the prison books, showing the records of these men; even the dark cell where one of them had been kept in manacles for misconduct a few weeks before. Then he told them the story of the escape, and an intensely interesting story it was.

“Three of the men are burglars under long sentences,” he said; “and the fourth is a five-year man for murder in the third degree. They are all old offenders and desperate characters. This morning they were taken as usual to their work in the quarries, guarded by two keepers armed with rifles. When the freight train came along, moving slowly through the cut under the bridges, these four men threw down their tools and ran for one of the bridges. The guards fired, but missed them; and the men dropped from the bridge to the tender behind the engine. In an instant they were in the cab, and with cocked revolvers in their hands they ordered the engineer and fireman to jump off. We do not know how they got the revolvers. The railroad men were compelled to obey, and as soon as the convicts were alone on the engine they uncoupled it from the train and pulled open the throttle.

“Now comes the strangest part of the story,” the warden continued. “Not one of those men knew anything about running an engine, and they pulled the throttle wide open. To do that suddenly is very dangerous, and almost on the instant the engine blew off one of her cylinder heads. That was all that saved the men’s lives, for guards in the sentry boxes were firing at them with rifles. But so much steam escaped from the disabled cylinder that they were completely enveloped, and the guards could not aim. The rascals literally rolled out of range in a cloud of steam, and were away before we could reach them.

“However,” the warden went on, “they had not gone more than four or five miles before the other cylinder head blew out, and the engine of course came to a stop. Then the men jumped off and took to the woods. They are still in convict clothes, and I have twenty men hunting them. We shall soon have them back.”

“What a story to write!” Dick exclaimed when the warden concluded. “It’s better than fiction.”

“Fiction!” sneered Henderson of the Tribune; “our facts beat fiction every day. There would be no fiction if there were no facts, Mr. Sumner.”

Dick did not stop to ponder over this remarkable proposition; he was too anxious to go out over the bridge to the quarry and see the scene of the escape, so that he could describe it accurately. The warden took the reporters all over the ground, and after that they separated, each one to pick up whatever additional information he could.

It occurred to Dick that the railroad people would have something to say about this summary mode of taking one of their engines, and he knew that the more people he saw who were in any way connected with the escape, the better story he could make. He went first to see the telegraph operator at Sing Sing, for something must have been done by wire. He soon made friends with the operator and had a long talk with him.

“There’s a telegraph office at the prison, you know,” said the operator, “and while the thing was happening they wired me, ‘Four convicts stolen engine of 89, and running down the track with it.’ Eighty-nine is the number of the freight train, and they knew it. Well, sir, you can just believe that gave me a start. An engine running wild down the track! There was no telling what they might run into, nor what lives or property they might destroy. My business was to send the news to the superintendent in the Grand Central Station and I did that just as quick as these jars of lightning would let me.”

That was as much as the operator knew about it, but a word that he dropped gave Dick a hint of something better to come. To work out this new clew, however, it was necessary for him to go to Tarrytown, and he took the next train for that place, which is the next station below Sing Sing. In a few minutes he was talking with the Tarrytown station agent.

“I am a reporter for The Daily Transport, sir,” he said to the agent. “Will you please tell me what orders you received about 89 this morning?”

“My boy,” said the agent with great emotion, “I will tell you, but it makes my breath stop to think of it. You must understand that we have a siding here which ends on the wharf, and a fast train run on to that siding would inevitably be thrown into the river. The switch that controls it we call the north switch. Eighty-nine was due here in less than a minute when the telegraph operator handed me an order from the train dispatcher in New York. The order read:--

“‘Open the north switch and throw 89 into the river.’”

“Well, sir,” the agent went on, “my heart stopped beating and my knees trembled. How many lives would I destroy if I obeyed that order? But it was only for a second. Only one man runs these trains, and that is the train dispatcher.”

“And you opened the switch?” Dick asked, almost breathless with interest.

“I opened the north switch,” the agent replied. “It was my duty to do it; there was the order. I hope I may never have to endure such agony again, my boy, for I expected the next minute to see the train plunged into the river and everybody in it killed. Thank God, the engine blew out both her cylinder heads before she got here, and of course stopped. The train dispatcher, you see, knew that the convicts were running wild down the road, and he ordered the switch opened to prevent the much greater damage they might do further on.”

When Dick mentally laid out his story in the train returning to the city, this incident seemed to him the most dramatic thing in it.

“It’s worth a year’s salary to talk to such a man,” he said to himself. “I thought I knew something about obeying orders, but I understand it better now. And I don’t believe that any of the other fellows have got hold of this part of the story. Oh, if only they haven’t!”

Jack Randall was in the office when Dick returned and sat down to write.

“Do you mind my looking over your copy?” he asked, after a few pages were written. “I know everybody up there, so I’m interested.”

“I should be delighted,” Dick answered; “and I hope you’ll tell me if you see anything wrong.”

It was a long evening’s work writing the article, for the pages made a thick pile--enough to fill two and a half columns of the paper. Dick had done a tremendous day’s work, but the excitement prevented his feeling yet the exhaustion that was sure to follow.

“Do you find any bad breaks?” he asked, after Randall had read the last page.

“Bad breaks!” Randall repeated; “why, Sumner, it’s a classic. I thought you had some stuff in you, but I didn’t believe you could write like this. That ‘open the north switch and throw 89 into the river’ is worthy of Dickens; there’s a touch of the Sidney Carton in it. You’ll not be doing any more half-stick meetings and five-line fires after this, Sumner.”

“I’m in hopes that I have that exclusive,” Dick said. “I didn’t meet any of the other fellows while I was getting it.”

“It’s the best part of the story,” Randall replied, “though the whole thing is remarkable. You don’t want to go home yet, do you? I mean to that hall-room cell of yours. A fellow always feels a little excited over a good subject like that, and wants somebody to talk to when it’s done. I know how it is. Come around to the Scribble Club with me for an hour or two and meet some good fellows.”

“The Scribble Club?” Dick repeated. “I haven’t heard of that.”

“No,” said Randall, “it’s not a big affair, like the Press Club; just a quiet little club, very sociable and homelike. All newspaper boys, of course.”

Randall had described Dick’s condition exactly. He was excited, wrought up to the highest pitch by his work, and the idea of going alone to his little room and trying to sleep was very repugnant. He was glad to accept the invitation and make the acquaintance of the Scribble Club.

The club room was an apartment of good size, up one flight, over a restaurant in Duane Street. Its founders had doubtless had in mind the convenience of the situation, for it was connected by an electric bell with the restaurant below, and a push of the button summoned a waiter to take orders for anything desired. The room was comfortably furnished with armchairs and one large and several small tables; the floor was carpeted, and files of the daily newspapers hung upon the walls.

There were four young men in the room when Dick and Randall entered, all reporters engaged on various newspapers, and the entrance of Randall was the signal for a shout.

“You’re just in time, Randall; we want to start a game of poker, and you’re the fifth man. The fellows don’t care to play four-handed.”

“I don’t mind, if it’s a small limit,” Randall answered. “You can draw up a chair and watch us, Sumner. Gentlemen, this is Mr. Sumner, of the Transport.”

“Oh, just the usual,” was the reply as all the men spoke to Dick. Several of them he had met before in reporting. “Five cents ante; quarter limit.”

The five seated themselves around one of the small tables and began the game. Dick had never seen cards played for money before, and it shocked him; but he reflected that he had nothing to do with it, and could not prevent it if he would. He drew up his chair behind Randall and watched the play, and it was not long before he understood the principles of the game.

After watching for some time he took from his pocket a letter from his mother that he had found in the office and opened it. It contained the first request for money that she had made. “I do not like to ask for your little savings, my dear boy,” she wrote, “and I know how expensive you find everything in the city. But I am down almost to the last cent of my quarterly income and have several bills to pay. I do not know how we will manage unless you can send me twenty dollars.”

“How lucky that I have been very careful!” Dick said to himself. “I have twenty-five dollars, and five dollars will easily take me through till next payday. I will go out early in the morning and take mother the money. I can show her my Sing Sing story, too, and I know she’ll be proud of that.”

“The game’s getting rather dry,” Dick heard one of the players say as he returned the letter to his pocket. “Let’s moisten it a little;” and the speaker arose and pushed the button.

“A Santa Cruz sour will about fit me,” Randall said when the waiter came and the others had ordered various drinks. “What will you take, Sumner?”

“I never drink anything, thank you,” Dick answered. He might have added that he had been invited many times to drink since his arrival in New York.

“But you need a drop of something to-night, Sumner; you really do. You’re as pale as a ghost. You’re all used up, man, and a sour will be just the thing for you. It’s only a dash of rum in a glass of lemonade, you know.”

“I certainly feel pretty tired,” Dick admitted. “If I thought it would give me a little strength, I would take it--as a medicine.”

“Of course it will,” Randall laughed; “it would give grace and vivacity to a bronze statue. Make it two sours, waiter.”

Dick took his first drink of liquor, not without some misgivings, and in a few minutes he felt much refreshed. He was thinking of starting for his room when one of the players announced that he had a midnight assignment and must go.

“Then you take his place, Mr. Sumner,” one of the others said. “It’s only a five-cent game, you know; you can’t lose anything at it, and we can’t well play without five.”

Dick was on the point of saying that he did not understand the game, when Randall began to urge him.

“Take a hand for a few minutes, to oblige us, Sumner,” he said. “We’ll not play more than half an hour longer.”

If it had not been for the liquor, Dick certainly would have refused to gamble. But that one glass of rum not only made him feel stronger, but somehow made him careless of what he did; and he took the vacant place.

Gambling games rarely stop at the time appointed, and at the end of an hour Dick was still playing. He had lost several dollars by that time, which was inconvenient, and had taken another Santa Cruz sour, which was worse. He felt strong enough now, and determined to recover his money. Two of the other players had lost far more than he; and they had, as they expressed it, “a mission to get even.”

“Well, suppose we raise the limit to a dollar to give the losers a chance,” some one suggested.

“I’m willing,” Randall said; “they re entitled to a chance.”

All the others were willing, even Dick, who was reckless enough now for most anything, and anxious to win back what he had lost.

At the end of another hour Dick was in the position that many a young reporter has found himself in to his sorrow. He had lost all his money except a little small change that jingled in his vest pocket, and he felt confused and wretched. There was no money left to take to his mother, not even money to pay his expenses through the week; and over all was the terrible consciousness that he had been drinking and gambling and had disgraced himself.

“Never mind, old fellow,” Randall said, slapping him on the shoulder when the game was over. He saw the anguish in Dick’s face and felt sorry for him. “Never mind; you’ve done a beautiful piece of work to-day.”

“Yes, I have!” Dick answered with deep sarcasm in his voice; “a beautiful piece of work!”