"Yes, I have, Robert," answered the old lady, calmly; "and but for the others I would have left the corridor-door unlocked also. I was mindful of them, though, and of thy reputation."

"I'm thankful you had that much common-sense," muttered her son; "and now, with your permission, I will take that cup of coffee, which I suppose you intend for your young _protege_, up to him myself."

"And thee'll speak gently with him?"

"Oh, yes. I'll talk to him like a Dutch uncle."

Thus it happened that when the door at the end of the jail corridor was swung heavily back on its ma.s.sive hinges, and Rod Blake, who had been gazing from one of the corridor windows, looked eagerly toward it, he was confronted by the stern face of the sheriff instead of the placidly sweet one of the old lady, whom he expected to see.

"What are you doing out here, sir? Get back into your cell at once!"

commanded the sheriff in an angry tone.

"Oh, sir! please don't lock me in there again. It doesn't seem as though I could stand it," pleaded Rod.

The sheriff looked searchingly at the lad. His face was certainly a very honest one, and to one old lady at least he had been kindly considerate.

At the thought of the ready help extended by this lad to his own dearly-loved mother in the time of her perplexity, the harsh words that the sheriff had meditated faded from his mind, and instead of uttering them he said:

"Very well; I will leave your cell-door open, if you will give me your promise not to attempt an escape."

And Rod promised.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

LIGHT DAWNS UPON THE SITUATION.

On leaving Rodman the sheriff was decidedly perplexed. His prisoner's honest face had made a decided impression upon him, and he had great confidence in his mother's judgment concerning such cases, though he was careful never to admit this to her. At the same time all the circ.u.mstances pointed so strongly to the lad's guilt that, as he reviewed them there hardly seemed a doubt of it. It is a peculiarity of sheriffs and jailers to regard a prisoner as guilty until he has been proved innocent.

Nevertheless this sheriff gave his mother permission to visit Rod as often as she liked; only charging her to lock the corridor-door both upon entering and leaving the jail. So the dear old lady again toiled up the steep stairway, this time laden with books and papers. She found the tired lad stretched on his hard pallet and fast asleep, so she tiptoed softly away again without wakening him.

While the young prisoner was thus forgetting his troubles, and storing up new strength with which to meet them, the sheriff was scouring the village and its vicinity for traces of any stranger who might be the train robber.

But strangers were scarce in Center that day and the only one he could hear of was the reporter who had interviewed him that morning. He had gone directly to the telegraph office where he had sent off the despatch of which he had spoken, to the New York paper he claimed to represent. In it he had requested an answer to be sent to Millbank, and he had subsequently engaged a livery team with which he declared his intention of driving to that place.

Center, though not on the New York and Western railway, was on another that approached the former more closely at this point than at any other.

To facilitate an exchange of freight a short connecting link had been built by both roads between Center and Millbank. Over this no regular trains were run, but all the transfer business was conducted by specials controlled by operators at either end of the branch. Consequently the few travellers between the two places waited until a train happened along or, if they were in a hurry, engaged a team as the reporter had done.

Soon after noon the owner of Juniper, the stolen horse, accompanied by the thick-headed young farm hand from whom the animal had been taken, appeared at the jail in answer to the sheriff's request for his presence. These visitors were at once taken to Rod's cell, where the young prisoner greatly refreshed by his nap, sat reading one of the books left by the dear old lady. His face lighted with a glad recognition at sight of Juniper's owner, and at the same moment that gentleman exclaimed:

"Why, sheriff, this can't be the horse-thief! I know this lad. That is I engaged him not long since to bring that very horse up here to my brother's place where I am now visiting. You remember me, don't you, young man?"

"Of course I do so, sir, and I am ever so glad to see some one who knew me before all these horrid happenings. Now if you will only make that fellow explain why he said I was the one who threatened to shoot him, and stole Juniper from him, when he knows he never set eyes on me before I was arrested, I shall be ever so much obliged."

"How is this, sir?" inquired the gentleman, turning sharply upon the young farm hand behind him. "Didn't you tell me you were willing to take oath that the lad whom you caused to be arrested and the horse-thief were one and the same person?"

"Y-e-e-s, s-i-r," hesitated the thick head.

"Are you willing to swear to the same thing now?"

"N-n-o, your honor,--that is, not hexactly. Someway he don't look the same now as he did then."

"Then you don't think he is the person who took the horse from you?"

"No, sir, I can't rightly say as I do now, seeing as the man with the pistols was bigger every way than this one. If 'e 'adn't been 'e wouldn't got the 'orse so heasy, I can tell you, sir. Besides it was so hearly that the light was dim an' I didn't see 'is face good anyway. But when we caught him 'e 'ad the 'orse an' the bag an' the pistols."

"When you caught who?"

"The 'orse-thief. I mean this young man."

"And you recognized him then?"

"Yes, sir, I knowed 'im by the bag, an' the 'orse."

"But you say he was a much larger man than this one."

"Oh, yes, sir! He was more 'n six foot an' as big across the shoulders as two of 'im."

Rod could not help smiling at this, as he recalled the slight figure of the train robber who had appropriated Juniper to his own use.

"This is evidently a badly-mixed case of mistaken ident.i.ty," said the gentleman, turning to the sheriff, "and I most certainly shall not prefer any charge against this lad. Why, in connection with that same horse he recently performed one of the pluckiest actions I ever heard of." Here the speaker narrated the story of Rod's struggle with Juniper in utter darkness and within the narrow limits of a closed box-car.

At its conclusion, the sheriff who was a great admirer of personal bravery, extended his hand to Rod, saying: "I believe you to be the honest lad you claim to be, and an almighty plucky one as well. As such I want to shake hands with you. I must also state that as this gentleman refuses to enter a complaint against you I can no longer hold you prisoner. In fact I am somewhat doubtful whether I have done right in detaining you as long as I have without a warrant. Still, I want you to remain with us a few hours more, or until the arrival of certain parties for whom I have sent to come and identify the train robber."

"Meaning me?" asked Rod, with a smile. He could afford to smile now. In fact he was inclined to laugh and shout for joy over the favorable turn his fortunes appeared to be taking.

"Yes, meaning you," replied the sheriff good-humoredly. "And to show how fully persuaded I am that you are the train robber, I hereby invite you to accompany us down-stairs in the full exercise of your freedom and become the honored guest of my dear mother for whom you recently performed so kindly a service. She told me of that at the time, and I am aware now, that I have not really doubted that you were what you claimed to be, since she recognized you as the one who then befriended her. I tell you, lad, it always pays in one way or another, to extend a helping hand to grandfathers and grandmothers, and to remember that we shall probably be in need of like a.s.sistance ourselves some day."

CHAPTER XXIX.

AN ARRIVAL OF FRIENDS AND ENEMIES.

Thus it happened that although Rod had eaten his breakfast that morning in a prison cell he ate his dinner in the pleasant dining-room of the sheriff's house with that gentleman, the dear old lady, and Juniper's owner, for company. It was a very happy meal, in spite of the fact that the real train robber was still at large, and as its conversation was mostly devoted to the recent occurrences in which Rod had been so prominent an actor, his cheeks were kept in a steady glow by the praises bestowed upon him.

Directly after dinner Juniper's owner took his departure and soon afterwards a special train arrived from Millbank. It consisted of a locomotive and a single pa.s.senger coach in which were a number of New York and Western railroad men. They came in answer to the sheriff's request for witnesses who might identify the train robber. Among these new arrivals were Snyder Appleby who had been sent from New York by Superintendent Hill to investigate the affair, Conductor Tobin who, after taking the Express Special to the end of his run, had been ordered back to Millbank for this purpose, his other brakeman who had hurried ahead at the first opportunity from the station at which he had been left, the fireman of the locomotive with which Rod had chased the robber, and several others.

As this party was ushered into the sheriff's private office its members started with amazement at the sight of Rod Blake sitting there as calmly, as though perfectly at home and waiting to receive them.

Upon their entrance he sprang to his feet filled with a surprise equal to their own, for the sheriff had not told him of their coming.

"Well, sir! What are you doing here?" demanded Snyder Appleby, who was the first to recover from his surprise, and who was filled with a sense of his own importance in this affair.

"I am visiting my friend, the sheriff," answered Rod, at once resenting the other's tone and air.

"Oh, you are! And may I ask by what right you, a mere brakeman in our employ, took it upon yourself to desert your post of duty, run off with one of our engines, endanger the traffic of the line and then unaccountably disappear as you did last night or rather early this morning?"