Hoofbeats on the Turnpike Part 31

"The wire's dead!" Quigley exclaimed. Anxiously he glanced toward the storage batteries, fearing that water had damped them out. However, the boxes were high above the floor and still dry.

"What can be wrong?" Penny asked the operator.

"Anything can happen in a mess like this."

Reaching across the table with his good hand, Quigley tested the wire by opening and closing the lifeless telegraph key.

"It's completely out," he declared with finality.

"Isn't there anything we can do?"

Quigley got to his feet. "There's just one chance. The wire may have grounded when the bridge was swept away. Then if it tore loose again we'd be out of service."

"In that case we're up against it."

"Maybe not," Quigley replied. He splashed across the room to the switchboard. "If that should happen to be the trouble, we can ground it here."

He inserted a plug in the groundplate of the switchboard. Immediately the sounder came to life, closing with a sharp click.

"I call that luck!" grinned Quigley. "Now let's try that dispatcher. Want to get him on the wire for me?"

Penny nodded and sat down at the desk again. Insistently she sent out the call, "D-S, D-S, D-S." All the while as she kept the key moving, her thoughts raced ahead. She was afraid that persons had lost their lives in the flood. Property damage was beyond estimate. But catastrophe spelled Big News and she was certain her father would want every detail of the story for the _Riverview Star_. If only she could send word to him!

"What's the matter?" Quigley asked, his voice impatient. "Can't you get an answer?"

Just then it came--a crisp "I--DS" which told the two listeners that the train dispatcher again was on the wire.

Quigley took over, explaining the break in service and giving the dispatcher such facts as he desired. Hovering at the agent's elbow, Penny asked him if the dispatcher would take an important personal message.

"For the _Riverview Star_," she added quickly. "My father's newspaper."

"I doubt he'll do it," Quigley discouraged her. "This one wire is needed for vital railroad messages. But we'll see."

He tapped out a message and the reply came. It was sent so fast that Penny could not understand the code. Quigley translated it as "Okay, but make it brief."

With no time to compose a carefully worded message, Penny reported the bare facts of the disaster. She addressed the message to her father and signed her own name.

"There, that's off," Quigley said, sagging back in his chair.

Penny saw that the station agent was in no condition to carry on his work.

"You're in bad shape," she said anxiously. "Let me bandage that smashed hand."

"It's nothing. I'll be okay."

"I'll find something to tie it up with," Penny insisted.

In search of bandage material, she crossed the room to a wall closet. As she reached for the door handle, Quigley turned swiftly in his chair.

"No, not there!" he exclaimed.

Penny already had opened the door. Her gaze fastened upon a white roll of cloth on the top shelf. She reached for it and it came fluttering down into her hands--a loose garment fas.h.i.+oned somewhat like a cape with tiny slits cut for eyes. In an instant she knew what it was. Slowly she turned to face Joe Quigley.

"So it was you!" she whispered accusingly. "The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow!"

CHAPTER 21 _A MYSTERY EXPLAINED_

Joe Quigley did not deny the accusation. He slumped at the telegraph desk, staring straight before him.

"Why did you do it?" Penny asked. "How could you?"

"I don't know--now," Quigley answered heavily. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Penny shook out the garment. The whole, when worn over one's head, would give an appearance of a sheeted goblin with body cut off at the shoulders. She tore off a long strip of the material and began to wrap Quigley's injured hand.

"You've known for a long time, haven't you?" he asked diffidently.

"I suspected it, but I wasn't sure," Penny replied. "Your style of riding is rather spectacular. Last night when I saw Trinidad leap the barrier at Sleepy Hollow I thought I knew."

"Nothing matters now," Quigley said, self accusingly. "Sleepy Hollow's gone."

"Don't you think Mrs. Lear and the Burmasters had any chance to reach the hills?"

"I doubt it. When the dam broke, the water raced down the valley with the speed of an express train. Probably they were caught like rats in a trap."

"It seems too horrible."

"I knew this would happen," Quigley went on. "It was what I fought against. We tried through the Delta Citizens' Committee to get Burmaster to help repair the dam before it was too late. You know what luck we had."

"So failing in ordinary methods, you tried to bring him around with your Headless Horseman stunt?"

"It was a foolish idea," Quigley acknowledged. "Mrs. Lear really put me up to it--not that I'm trying to throw any blame on her. She never liked Mrs. Burmaster, and for good reasons. The Headless Horseman affair started out as a prank, and then I thought I saw a chance to influence Burmaster that way."

"At that he might have come around if it hadn't been for his wife."

"Yes, she was against the town from the first. She hated everyone. Why, she believed that our only thought was to get her away from the valley just to trick her."

"I guess it doesn't matter now," Penny said. "The estate's gone and everyone with it. Somehow I can't realize it--things happened so fast."

"This is a horrible disaster, and it will be worse if help doesn't get here fast," Quigley replied. "Fortunately, the water doesn't seem to be coming higher."

Penny had completed a rough bandaging job on the station agent's hand.

Thanking her, he got up to test the two office telephones. Both were out of service.

Presently a message came in over the telegraph wire. It was addressed to Penny and was from her father. Quigley copied it on a pad and handed it to her.