On Track for Treasure (2 page)

W
HAT CAME BEFORE

T
he train was picking up speed. The freight car bumped and swayed in a way the passenger cars never had on the trip from New York. Frances recalled that during that ride her stomach had felt all twisted up, too, though for much different reasons.

“If you will excuse me,” said the hobo, “much as I enjoy conversating about California, I got a reserved seat over thataways.”

Frances and Harold watched as he shuffled over to the far end of the car without ever losing his balance, even as everything jostled and bucked around him.
I'd like to see Miss DeHaven try that
, Frances thought, remembering the mean, elegantly dressed orphan train chaperone who'd clearly despised them, and how she could stand perfectly motionless in the train aisle like a dreadful apparition.

Frances shook off the memory. Now she watched as the hobo plunked down next to a pile of dusty clothing, which, on second glance, appeared to be another fellow, curled up, asleep. Then the first hobo leaned back against the side of the car and began to doze off, too.

She looked around the dim car. Besides the children, the only other passengers were the two vagabonds. No cargo at all, just some scattered straw and a few odds and ends that rattled over the scuffed floor—the lid of a tobacco tin, an old shoe. Miss DeHaven would hate this place even more than she did children, Frances realized with some satisfaction.

She turned to tell Jack. But he was in the corner with Alexander, and the two were having an intense discussion, their voices low. No, not a discussion—an argument.

“You were supposed to give the signal!” Jack hissed.

“And
you
were supposed to
wait
,” Alexander shot back. “But you didn't!”

“Wait until when? The train was leaving!”

“I knew what I was doing, Jack! I had to make sure the sheriff wasn't around.”

“Look, leaving town was
your
idea, not mine, but I wasn't going to wait around until we all got caught. . . .”

Frances had to bite her lip to keep from yelling at them both. Had they even noticed how a
hobo
had saved her from falling off the side of the train and breaking her neck? But there was no use in making a scene in front of everyone else. She crept over to the boys.

“Hey.” She nudged Jack, who fell quiet. So did Alexander. “Shouldn't we do a head count? Make sure everyone's here?”

“Good idea,” Alexander said.

“Better than ones
you've
had,” Jack muttered under his breath.

Frances pretended not to hear him as she began to count. “There's the three of us, and then Harold, which makes four. And then Lorenzo . . .” She nodded at the dark-haired tall boy. “And Sarah and Anka.” The two girls looked up at the sound of their names. Sarah was smoothing her braids, and shy blond Anka, who spoke only a little English, had taken off her hat. “That makes seven,” Frances continued. “Plus Nicky and George, right?”

“And Quentin,” Jack pointed out. “Quentin makes ten of us now. Don't forget him.”

Quentin had joined them shortly before they left Wanderville. Now he sat by himself near the center of the car, fidgeting idly with some straw he'd picked up.

Frances counted him, too. How could she have overlooked Quentin? He was the reason they were on this train.

Quentin hung his head as he fidgeted, and Jack could see that he felt bad about all that had happened.

Jack's mind went back to the past couple of weeks. Alexander, Frances, Harold, and Jack had been the first citizens of Wanderville, the town they'd created in a wooded ravine as a place where kids could be safe—especially kids who'd come west on the orphan trains like they had and who'd decided to run away rather than be sent off with strangers who would force them to work like dogs.

They'd set up hammocks for sleeping, and a place to cook, and there was a little creek that ran through the ravine where they could get water. Sometimes they'd sneak into Whitmore to find food—Alexander was especially good at “liberating” tinned goods from the mercantile and eggs from the henhouses—and before long they had enough supplies to live very well on their own.

Eventually, Jack and his friends helped five more escape from the Pratcherd ranch: Nicky, Lorenzo, George, Anka, and Sarah. But there were still more than a dozen orphan train children toiling as farmhands there. Quentin was one of them, and Jack was determined to go back to the ranch to free him.

In fact, Jack wanted to rescue every kid he could, and only his closest friends, Frances and Alexander, knew the deep-down reason why. It was because of Daniel. Daniel, his brother, who had died in a factory fire back in New York, and who Jack hadn't been able to save.

So they all began to carry out their plan to bring the rest of the children to Wanderville. At first, everything went smoothly:

Sarah and Lorenzo crept through a field to the edge of the ranch and discovered a hole in the far fence.

Then Anka, who had an excellent sense of direction, drew a map that showed how to escape through the fence hole and get to Wanderville.

Jack added a set of instructions for Quentin and the other farmhands to follow.
Wait until Friday, then go out after midnight. Cross the last field on the map, and we will meet you by the lone tree.

From their spying they'd figured out that Mr. Pratcherd left town on supply runs on Friday and came back Saturday afternoon, leaving only Mrs. Pratcherd and her son, Rutherford. They were bad enough, but at least there'd be one less Pratcherd to worry about.

Finally, Jack and Alexander sneaked over to Whitmore, where they found Rutherford Pratcherd's shiny buggy parked outside the gun shop. Jack kept watch while Alexander slipped out and tied the note and map to a spoke on one of the rear wheels. They were going off advice from Nicky, who had remembered how Rutherford would make the farmhands wash the buggy wheels every day to keep them “clean as china plates.” Quentin had to do chores for Rutherford all the time, so Jack hoped that he would be the one to find the note.

“Fingers crossed,” Alexander said as they watched the buggy drive off. “Now we wait until Friday.”

But they didn't make it to Friday. The very next morning, just after dawn, Jack and the others were awakened by the sound of dogs barking.

“They sound like they're chasing someone!” Frances said.

Then came the patter of footsteps. One person, running, then crashing through the bushes near the top of the ravine and stumbling down into the woods.

Alexander was already on his feet, holding out his hatchet for defense. “Who's there?” he called.

“It's me!” gasped the intruder. “Quentin!”

Quentin was still struggling to catch his breath. Though Quentin's crooked front lip always made him look like he was sneering, Jack could tell he'd had quite a scare. The others gathered around, full of questions.

“Where are the rest of the kids?” Alexander demanded. “Did they escape with you?”

“N-no,” Quentin panted. “Just me . . .”

“What?”
Alexander was furious. “You just left on your own?”

“You did the same thing when
you
escaped from the ranch,” Jack reminded him.

“No! Listen to me!” Quentin insisted. “I was just trying—”

“Trying to put us all in danger?” Frances interrupted. “What about those dogs out there?”

“I didn't
know
there'd be guard dogs!” Quentin cried. “But, I mean, I think I outran 'em.”

Jack shook his head. “Those dogs probably woke up half the town of Whitmore, Quentin! What if it's not only the dogs that are chasing you? What if it's the Pratcherds, or . . .”

“Or the sheriff
,”
Alexander said, his voice suddenly a whisper. His face had gone pale at the sight of something at the top of the ravine. Jack and the others turned to follow his gaze.

There, at the edge of the woods, was a man on horseback: Sheriff Routh. Jack could see the glint of his badge.

“So this is where you brats have been keeping yourselves,” the sheriff said, smirking as he looked all around.

Nobody moved or spoke, but then Frances stepped in front of her little brother, Harold, as if to protect him. “It's better than the bunker at that wretched ranch!” she called out. “Better than being forced to dig all day in those fields. Why don't you let us be?”

The sheriff's eyes narrowed at Frances. “I don't care anymore how rough you had it out there. You little worms tried to make a monkey of me the day you stole that wagon from the Pratcherds,” he said. “And they will be very interested to know where you are now.” He pointed at Alexander. “Especially
you
.”

Alexander was still pale, but he squared his shoulders. He had been the first one to escape from the Pratcherds, and it had been his idea to start Wanderville.

“Is that so?” Alexander said. Jack could hear a slight tremble in his words. But then Alexander took a breath and raised his voice. “I'd like to see you try to arrest all
ten
of us right now!”

“Yeah!” Frances called. “Just try it!”

The boys joined in as well. “Go ahead!” Quentin jeered.

But Jack held his tongue. The sheriff had a look about him that was different today: He glared at them all fiercely. The man seemed to be boiling inside, and suddenly Jack understood that this wasn't about breaking the law anymore. This was about revenge. They'd made the sheriff look foolish in the town of Whitmore.

“You think you're safe because there's a whole crowd of you kids now? I'll just come back with a few of my deputies,” Sheriff Routh declared. “And the Pratcherds, too. Don't bother trying to hide.” The sheriff turned his horse around, kicking up dirt and scattering the pile of kindling that the little kids had been collecting. Suddenly, Jack wanted to yell something—anything—at the man, but the words wouldn't come. He stood there, furious and silent, as the horse and rider dashed up the ravine and rode off.

No one spoke for a moment after the sheriff left.

“Good riddance,” Nicky said. “He can't threaten us.”

Alexander took a deep breath. “No, he's serious. Did you see his face?” He turned to Jack and Frances. “He'll be back.”

Jack could only nod. He wasn't going to forget that face anytime soon.

Frances's eyes were wild. “We can't just sit here and wait for him to return!”

“So we'll fight back?” Lorenzo asked, picking up a rock.

“No,” said Alexander as he yanked down one of the hammocks. “We have to get out of here, and fast!” He tied the hammock into a bundle and began to fill it with the bread that they'd taken from town. After a moment, the others began to gather their things as well.

Frances crouched down to check the buttons on her little brother's shoes. Jack heard Harold ask, “Mrs. Routh isn't going to help us, is she? She was nice to us on the train.”

Frances shook her head. “She has to obey the sheriff. He's her husband. We have to figure this out ourselves. . . .”

“No time to talk. Come
on
!” Alexander shouted.

Everyone began to move faster, except for Jack, whose feet had somehow turned heavy as he realized what was happening—what Alexander had just
decided
.

Just leave?
he thought.
That was the solution?

“Jack!” Quentin was standing in front of him now, looking anxious. “Hey, Jack, I . . .”

“In a minute,” Jack said.

“But I have to tell you something . . .”

“It's all right, Quentin. No need to apologize.” Jack knew it wasn't Quentin's fault that the sheriff had followed him to Wanderville, even if the other kids didn't believe him. There were more urgent things to deal with right now, like this crazy plan of Alexander's.

He stepped around Quentin and followed Alexander over to the old suitcase where they kept their provisions. “What do you mean, ‘get out of here,' Alex?” Jack demanded. “Just ditch everything? What about the kids who are still at the Pratcherds'? Are we just going to run off and give up on them?”

Frances, who was nearby helping Harold with his coat, looked up, too. “Jack's right!” she said. “We can't just leave them.”

Alexander turned and faced Jack. “It's too late for that. The sheriff found us. There's only one place we can go now.”

“Where's that?” Frances asked.

“California,”
Alexander answered. Harold's eyes widened.

“There's a twelve o'clock train going west,” Alexander continued, slinging a bundle over his shoulder. “We'll take the creek path and go into Whitmore. That will buy us some time because the sheriff will look for us here first.”

Jack was shaking his head. “No! I still think we should stay and try to rescue the others at the ranch—”