CHAPTER III. A TERRIBLE RESPONSIBILITY.

“Grant, you may go over to the other farm and ask Luke Weldon for the pitchfork he borrowed of me last week. There’s no knowing how long he would keep it if I didn’t send for it.”

“All right, sir.”

“Rodney can walk with you if he wants to.”

“Thank you,” said Rodney, shrugging his shoulders, “but I don’t care to walk a mile and a half for a pitchfork. I’ll go part way, though, to the village.”

The two boys started out together. Rodney looked askance at his companion’s poor clothes.

“You’re foolish not to take the suit I offered you,” he said. “Its a good deal better than yours.”

“I presume it is.”

21“Then why don’t you want it?”

“Because it will prevent your grandfather buying me a new one.”

“Have you asked him?”

“Yes, I asked him this morning.”

“What did he say?”

“That he would buy a new one for himself, and have his best suit cut down for me.”

Rodney laughed.

“You’d look like a fright,” he said.

“I think so myself,” assented Grant with a smile.

“You’d better take mine than his. Grandfather isn’t much like a dude in dress.”

“No; he tells me that I dress as well as he.”

“So you do, nearly. However, it does not make much difference how an old man like him dresses.”

Rodney rather approved of his grandfather’s scanty outlay on dress, for it would enable him to leave more money to his mother and himself.

“Do you know how old grandfather is?” asked Rodney.

22“I believe he is sixty-nine.”

“That’s pretty old. He won’t live many years longer probably. Then the property will come to mother and me.”

“Shall you come to live on the farm?”

“Not much. Mother says she’ll sell both farms, and then we may go to Chicago to live.”

Grant did not like Mr. Tarbox, but he was rather disgusted to hear his grandson speculate so coolly about his death.

“Don’t you think grandfather is failing?” continued Rodney.

“I don’t know that he is,” answered Grant coldly.

“Mother thinks he’s got kidney disease. Old men are very apt to have that trouble.”

“I never heard him complain of being sick.”

By this time the two boys had reached the village.

“I think I’ll drop into the drug store,” said Rodney. “They keep cigarettes there, don’t they?”

“I believe so.”

23“Mother don’t like me to smoke, but I do it on the sly. I’ll give you a cigarette, if you want one,” he said, in an unusual fit of generosity.

“Thank you, but I don’t smoke.”

“It’s just as well, for you are poor and couldn’t afford to buy cigarettes. Well, I suppose you’ve got to go on.”

“Yes.”

So the two boys parted. Rodney entered the drug store, and not only bought a package of cigarettes, but drank a glass of soda water. It did not occur to him to offer Grant soda water, for that would have cost a nickel, while a cigarette was inexpensive.

“Somehow I don’t like Rodney,” said Grant to himself as he walked along. “He seems anxious to have his grandfather die in order to get hold of the property. I wouldn’t want to feel that way about anybody, though money would be very acceptable.”

Grant walked a mile farther till he reached the farm. Luke Weldon, who had taken it on shares, was in the yard.

“Well, Grant, have you come to see me?” he asked with a good-natured smile.

24“Yes, Mr. Weldon. Mr. Tarbox wants his pitchfork, which you borrowed last week.”

“Was the old man afraid he wouldn’t get it back?”

“Perhaps so.”

“He doesn’t mean to let anybody get the advantage of him. Well, come to the barn with me, and I’ll give it to you.”

Grant followed Luke to the barn, and received the borrowed article.

“It beats all how suspicious Seth Tarbox is,” continued Luke. “You know I run this farm on shares. The old man is dreadfully afraid I shall cheat him in the division of the crop. He comes over spying round from time to time. How do you like working for him?”

“Not at all,” answered Grant bluntly.

“Does he pay you any wages?”

“I work for my board and clothes, but I don’t get any clothes. Look at me.”

“The old man is awful close. I sometimes ask myself how it is all to end. He stints himself and his family, and all his money will go to his daughter Sophia and her boy.”

“They are over there to-day.”

25“How do you like the boy?”

“About as much as his grandfather.”

“He’s a disagreeable young cub, and about as mean as the old man.”

“He offered me a cigarette this morning,” said Grant smiling.

“Did you accept?”

“No, I do not smoke. He offered me one of his old suits, too, but it was only to save his grandfather the expense of buying me a new one.”

“I suppose you accepted that.”

“No, I didn’t. I will have a new suit or none at all.”

“I like your spirit. I wish I could have you to work for me.”

“I would rather work for you than for Mr. Tarbox, but there is one thing I would like better still.”

“What is that?”

“To go to California.”

“What put that into your head?”

“Mrs. Bartlett was mentioning that John Heywood had just got back, bringing ten thousand dollars in gold.”

26“Sho! You don’t say so.”

“And he bought a farm and is going to put up a new house.”

“Some men are lucky, that’s a fact. Ten thousand dollars, and he’s only just turned thirty. Well, I wish I were in his shoes.”

“I mean to go to California some time.”

“But how will you go? It costs money to go so far.”

“That’s true, and I don’t know where the money is coming from, but I mean to get there all the same.”

“If you had the money Seth Tarbox wouldn’t let you use it for that.”

“I’d like to see him stop me!” said Grant, nodding his head with emphasis.

“Well, I wish you luck, Grant, but I reckon it’ll be a good many years before you get to California.”

Privately Grant was of the same opinion, but the idea had entered his mind, and was not likely to be dislodged.

There were two ways of going home, one through the village, the same way he came, and the other across the railroad and over the 27fields. This was no shorter, but there was a variety in it, and Grant decided that he should take it.

A hundred feet from the place where he crossed the railroad there was a bridge spanning the creek, not wide, but lying some twenty feet below. The bridge was about fifty feet long.

As Grant gave a careless glance at the structure, which he was not intending to cross, he saw something that startled him. The supports of the further end of the bridge had given way, and it hung, partially fallen, supported only from the other end. It was clear that no train could pass over it in its present condition without being precipitated into the creek below.

“Good Heavens,” thought Grant, “there’ll be an accident! I wonder what could have weakened the bridge.”

It was useless speculating about this point. The danger was imminent, for in less than ten minutes a train was due.

Grant thought of going to the village and giving the alarm, but there was no time. 28Before he could return the train would have arrived, if on time, and the accident would have happened.

“What shall I do?” Grant asked himself in excitement. “The engineer will have no warning, and the train will push on at its usual speed.”

A vision of the wrecking of the train and the death of innocent and unsuspecting passengers rose before Grant’s mind, and he felt that the catastrophe must be averted if possible. If only some one would come along with whom to consult. But he was alone, and on his young shoulders rested a terrible responsibility.

What could he do?