The Steel Horse: The Rambles of a Bicycle

by Harry Castlemon

"And where will we come in? Look here, Bub," exclaimed Roy, shaking his finger at Joe. "When you took that unworthy revenge upon Art and me, and told your mother what we have done and suffered since we have been on the road, you told her that we laid in the bushes and heard all Matt and his fellow rascals had to say, didn't you? I thought as much. Well, that will be sure to come out, with all the rest of the things, and the last one of us will be subp[oe]naed. If any one of us spread ink too freely, you are the man."

"I didn't see Matt that night," protested Joe, "for it was so dark I couldn't see anybody."

"No matter, you heard his voice. You will be called upon to tell how you knew it was his voice, and all that, and the first thing you know there'll be something wormed out of you that you don't mean to tell."

Joe Wayring did not like to think about that, but still he did not eat or sleep any the less for fear of it. He enjoyed the homeward run and so did his friends, for they had done what they set out to do, and more too. They stopped for one night at the Lafayette House, and spent the evening at the Academy of Music; but there was no detective waiting to take one of them by the arm when they came out, and neither did they meet any one who could give them any information concerning Rowe Shelly. They sent a despatch to their parents, telling where they were, and when they would be home, and the result was that about three miles out of Mount Airy they found a delegation of wheelmen waiting for them. Of course the drug-store crowd was not represented, but Tom Bigden and his cousins were there. Joe thought he knew what Tom had come for, and was made sure of it when Tom ranged alongside of him, after a short halt had been made and the hand-shaking was over, and in a roundabout way began making inquiries concerning Matt Coyle. Joe was sorry he couldn't tell much about him, but he said enough to set Tom's fears at rest. He declared—not as if he thought Tom had the least interest in the matter, but merely as an item of news—that he would not prosecute Matt for stealing his canoe or tying him to a tree, because he would have enough to answer for when he was brought up for putting that rock on the railroad track. Joe was not revengeful, but he did want to see the squatter punished for that.

It is hardly necessary to add that Tom Bigden breathed easier after his talk with Joe, and when he left the latter at his gate and told him he was glad he and his friends had had an enjoyable run and come safely home, in spite of everybody and everything that had tried to hinder them, the words came from his heart. Tom had been on nettles ever since he read in the papers that Matt was still alive, and in a fair way to be brought to justice, and although he felt relieved, he knew he would not sleep soundly until Matt's trial was over and prison doors had closed upon him.

"Six hundred and forty-two miles in thirty-five days," said Joe, when he had kissed his mother and shaken hands with every one who was on the back porch. "A little over eighteen miles a day. That wouldn't be anything to brag of if the roads had been good all the way; but when you take the mountains and long patches of sand into consideration—"

"And Matt Coyle and the train-wreckers," added Uncle Joe.

"They didn't delay us any to speak of," replied the young wheelman, "but that Roy Sheldon, with his black eyes and lame arm, did. Well, I'm glad to get back, and why don't you say you are glad to see me?"

Every one of them had said so more than once, for I had heard them, and besides, they showed it very plainly by their actions. Everybody in town was glad to see him, and he had so much visiting to do that for a time I was entirely neglected. One morning I had a chance to say "hello!" to the Canvas Canoe and Fly-rod as they were carried across the porch and down the path that led to the lake, and when they returned at dark I exchanged a few words with them before they were taken up-stairs. In as few words as possible I told them where I had been and what I had seen during my long absence, and in return Fly-rod told me that he had that day seen two old acquaintances; or as he expressed it, "the whole of one and a part of the other."

"In the show-case in which I stood before Joe Wayring bought me, were a couple of high-priced lads, a split-bamboo and a double-barrel shot-gun, who wouldn't say a civil word to me because I was worth only six dollars and a half," said Fly-rod, with a ring of triumph in his tones. "The gun was purchased by a dude who went into the woods because it was fashionable, and the bamboo became the property of one of the handsomest little girls you ever saw. Well, I saw that rod to-day lying flat in the mud, while his owner was paddling in the water with bare feet. He was rusted all over where there was any thing to rust, and you could see daylight between his ribs where they had been glued together. He was ashamed to speak to me, for he had boasted that he was going to Canada to do battle with the lordly salmon. A little while afterward we heard a booming up the lake and saw a commotion in a boat whose crew were engaged in shooting wood-ducks. The Canvas Canoe took us up there in a hurry, and we found that a gun had burst in the hands of one of the party—the very dude who bought that double-barrel shot-gun. There wasn't much left of the gun, nothing but the stock and locks, in fact, but I knew him. The dude wasn't hurt, for a wonder, but he was mad, and the minute he recovered from the fright into which he had been thrown, he grabbed the wreck of that gun and sent it as far as he could into the bushes. Here I am, sound as a dollar, thanks to the good treatment I have received, supple as ever and ready to catch another black bass any time I am called upon."