“Freight stealing! Could that be it?”
On reporting for duty that evening Jack called Alex on the wire and asked if any freight had recently been reported missing from the Midway depot.
“No, but I understand some valuable stuff has been mysteriously disappearing at Claxton and Eastfield,” was the reply.
Jack was considerably disappointed; but before giving up this line of investigation he determined to study the freight records of the station, to discover whether any freight for the two places mentioned by Alex had passed through Midway. A few minutes’ search produced the record of a valuable shipment of silk to Claxton. A moment later he found another.
When presently he found still others, and several to Eastfield, he hurried back to the wire and calling Alex asked the nature of the goods lost track of at those stations, and breathlessly awaited the reply.
“I’ll ask,” said Alex—“Silverware and silk. Mostly silk.”
Jack uttered a shout. “Hurrah, Alex,” he whirred, “I’m on the track of our friend the ‘ghost.’ But keep mum.
“And now the question is,” he told himself, leaning back in his chair, “how do they work it?”
The answer to the query came very unexpectedly as Jack left the station office at daybreak. Strolling down the front platform, where several men already were at work unloading a car, he inadvertently got in the way of a loaded truck. On the sudden cry of the truckman he sprang aside, tripped, and fell headlong against a large, square packing-case. As he did so, he distinctly heard from within a sharp “Oh!”
Only with difficulty did Jack avoid crying out, and scrambling to his feet, hastened away, that his discovery might not be suspected by the man in the box.