“I’ll get Harry to ride with me,” Reade thought, but he found his chum engaged in testing a stretch of rails near the station, a dozen of the college students with him.
“Pshaw! I’m strong enough to ride five miles alone,” muttered Tom. “Thank goodness my horse hasn’t been used up. Never mind, Tom Reade. To-morrow you can ride as far as you like on the railroad, with never a penny of fare to pay, either!”
Unnoticed, the young chief engineer untied his horse in the dark, mounted and rode away.
How dark and long the way seemed. Truth to tell, Tom Reade was very close to the collapse that seemed bound to follow the reaction once his big task was safely over. Only his strength of will sustained him. He gripped the pony’s sides with his knees.
“I wouldn’t want anyone to see me riding in this fashion!” muttered the lad. “I must look worse than a tenderfoot. Why, I’ll be really glad if Dave Fulsbee can ride back with me. I had no idea he was so near. I believed him to be at least fifty or sixty miles down the line.”
Tom was nearing the place appointed when a sudden whistle rang out from the brush beside the track.
Then half a dozen men leaped out into view in the darkness, two of them seizing the bridle of his horse.
“Good evening, Reade!” called the mocking voice of ’Gene Black. “Down this way to see your first train go through? Stay with us, and we’ll show you how it doesn’t get through—-not tonight!”
CHAPTER XXII
“CAN YOUR ROAD SAVE ITS CHARTER NOW?”
“Oh, I guess the train will go through, all right,” replied Tom Reade, with much more confidence expressed in his tone than he really felt.