"Emerson, Alice B - Ruth Fielding Of The Red Mill" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emerson Alice B)

True could have wished. But Miss True was poor; most of the Darrowtown friends
had been poor people. Ruth had felt that she could not remain a burden on them.
Somehow she did not have to explain all this to Doctor Davison. He seemed to
understand it when he nodded and his eyes twinkled so glowingly.
"Cheslow is a pleasant town. You will like it," he said, cheerfully. "The
Red Mill is five miles out on the Lake Osago Road. It is a pretty country. It
will be dark when you ride over it to-night; but you will like it when you see
it by daylight."
He took it for granted that Uncle Jabez would come to the station to meet
her with a carriage, and that comforted Ruth not a little.
"You will pass my house on that road," continued Doctor Davison. "But when
you come to town you must not pass it."
"Sir?" she asked him, surprised.
"Not without stopping to see me," he explained, his eyes twinkling more than
ever. And then he left her and went back to his seat.
But Ruth found, when he had gone, that the choke came back into her throat
again and the sting of unshed tears to her eyes. But she would not let those
same tears fall!
She stared out of the plate-glass window and saw that it was now quite dark.
The whistle of the fast-flying locomotive shrieked its long-drawn warning, and a
group of signal lights flashed past. Then she heard the loud ringing of a gong
at a grade crossing. They must be nearing Cheslow now.
And then she saw that they were on a curve quite a sharp curve, for she saw
the lights of the locomotive and the mail car far ahead upon the gleaming rails.
They began to slow down, too, and the wheels wailed under the pressure of the
brakes.
She could see the signal lights along the tracks ahead and then--with a
start, for she knew what it meant--a sharp red flame appeared out of the
darkness beyond the rushing engine pilot.
Danger! That is what that red light meant. The brakes clamped down upon the
wheels again so suddenly that the easily-riding coach jarred through all its
parts. The red eye was winked out instantly; but the long and heavy train came
to an abrupt stop.
CHAPTER II
RENO
BUT the Limited had stopped so that Ruth could see along the length of the
train. Lanterns winked and blinked in the dark as the trainmen carried them
forward. Something had happened up front of more importance than an ordinary
halt for permission to run in on the next block. Besides, the afternoon Limited
was a train of the first-class and was supposed to have the right of way over
all other trains. No signal should have stopped it here.
"How far are we from Cheslow, please?" she asked of the rear brakeman (whom
she knew was called the flagman) as he came down the car with his lantern.
"Not above a mile, Miss," he replied.
His smile, and his way of speaking, encouraged her to ask:
"Can you tell me why we have stopped?"
"Something on the track, Miss. I have set out my signal lamp and am going
forward to inquire."
Three or four of the male passengers followed him out of the car. Ruth saw
that quite a number had disembarked from the cars ahead, that a goodly company