



Produced by David Widger from page images generously
provided by the Internet Archive









THE SPECULATIONS OF JOHN STEELE

By Robert Barr

Illustrated By F. R. Gruger

New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company

1905

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THE SPECULATIONS OF JOHN STEELE




CHAPTER I--A NARROW ESCAPE

IT was a nasty night, with a drizzling rain nearly as thick as a fog--a
rain which obscured the signals and left the rails so slippery that a
quick stop was almost impossible--yet just the sort of night to make a
quick stop imperative if disaster were to be averted.

Young John Steele, station-master, telegrapher, ticket-agent, and
man-of-all-work in the lone shanty known on the railway map as Hitchen’s
Siding, ignored by all other maps, stood beside the telegraph instrument
wondering whether the rain had affected the efficiency of the wires, or
whether the train despatcher had gone crazy. Here was Number Sixteen,
the freight from the west, coming