CHAPTER

  I. The third of July
  II.  “Waking the natives”
  III.  Counting the cost
  IV.  Blind for life
  V. Ready for business
  VI.  Getting “Satisfaction”
  VII.  Waiting for trouble
  VIII.  The young express agent
  IX.  Colonel Jeptha Harrington
  X. Queer comrades
  XI.  “Forget it!”
  XII.  The mysterious Mr. Baker
  XIII.  “Higher still!”
  XIV.  Mrs. Harrington’s trunk
  XV.  An early “Call”
  XVI.  At fault
  XVII.  A faint clew
  XVIII.  A dumb friend
  XIX.  Fooling the enemy
  XX.  Bart on the road
  XXI.  A limb of the law
  XXII.  Bart Stirling, auctioneer
  XXIII.  “Going, going, gone!”
  XXIV.  Mr. Baker’s bid
  XXV.  A night message
  XXVI.  On the midnight express
  XXVII.  Late visitors
  XXVIII.  Thirty seconds of twelve
  XXIX.  Brought to time
  XXX.  “Still higher!”

* * * * *

BART STIRLING’S ROAD TO SUCCESS

CHAPTER I

THE THIRD OF JULY

“You can’t go in that room.”

“Why can’t I?”

“Because that’s the orders; and you can’t smoke in this room.”

Bart Stirling spoke in a definite, manly fashion.

Lemuel Wacker dropped his hand from the door knob on which it rested, and put his pipe in his pocket, but his shoulders hunched up and his unpleasant face began to scowl.

“Ho!” he snorted derisively, “official of the company, eh?  Running things, eh?”

“I am—­for the time being,” retorted Bart, cheerfully.

“Well,” said Wacker, with an ugly sidelong look, “I don’t take insolence from anyone with the big head.  I reckon ten year’s service with the B. & M. entitles a man to know his rights.”

“Very active service just now, Mr. Wacker?” insinuated Bart pleasantly.

Lem Wacker flushed and winced, for the pointed question struck home.

“I don’t want no mistering!” he growled.  “Lem’s good enough for me.  And I don’t take no call-down from any stuck-up kid, I want you to understand that.”

“You’d better get to the crossing if you’re making any pretense of real work,” suggested Bart just then.

As he spoke Bart pointed through the open window across the tracks to the switch shanty at the side of the street crossing.

A train was coming.  Mr. Lemuel Wacker was “subbing” as extra for the superannuated old cripple whose sole duty was to wave a flag as trains went by.  To this duty Wacker sprang with alacrity.

Bart dismissed the man from his mind, and, whistling a cheery tune, bent over the book in which he had been writing for the past twenty minutes.

This was the register of the local express office of the B. & M., and at present, as Bart had said, he was “running it.”