THE BATTLE
The red-haired man was fighting.
Just now he was fighting at long range. And all the complex system of
the C. G. & X. railroad vibrated under his blows. A dozen rapid-fire
orders had sent as many station officials scuttling to posts of duty.
Already telegraph wires were sizzling; and employees miles away
were hustling in consequence, to fulfil their master’s behests. The
fastest engine on the C. G. & X. was getting up steam. A dozen frantic
machinists with oil cans, wrenches and hammers were swarming over
and under the huge locomotive making her ready for a record trip. In
the few minutes that remained, before his Special could start, Caleb
Conover, coolest, least hurried man in the whole buzzing station, was
talking over the long-distance telephone to Caine.
“Yes,” he was saying, as, cigar in mouth, he lounged above the
transmitter on his desk, “I’ll be off in three minutes. So listen hard,
for you are liable to have a wakeful day before you. I’ve gave orders
to side-track everything on the C. G. & X. between here an’ McIntyre
Junction. That’ll give us room for a sixty-five-mile-an-hour trip as
far as the Junction. After that I’ll be off the C. G. & X. tracks and
I’ll have to take my chances of gettin’ the right of way. But I guess a
couple of tel’grams I’ve sent will loosen things up on the other road.
Remember, I’m a’ comin’ as fast as steam will carry me. Since you say
the Starke bill ain’t come up yet, there’s a show of my gettin’ there
on time, after all. I’ve just ’phoned Bourke, the Assemblyman from my
Districk, to hold the crowd together as well as he can till I land.
What? No, don’t you bother over that. He knows how to keep the bill
back for a while, anyhow. Motion to adjourn’s always in order. He’ll
hop up an’ move to adjourn ev’ry five minutes and then demand a poll
on the vote. Good ol’-fashioned fil’busterin’. That, an’ a few other
cunnin’ little stunts that I’ve taught him, is liable to delay business
pretty much in the Assembly to-day. My crowd’s got all their orders.
But Blacarda was a roarin’ fool not to push the bill through early this
mornin’. I s’pose he figgered out he had all day ahead of him. Him an’
me will settle our score later. So long! My engine’s ready.”
Clambering aboard the locomotive cab the moment the last oiler scuttled
to safety from underneath the driving-wheels, Conover lighted a fresh
cigar, and with a grim smile leaned back to enjoy the whirlwind flight
through the rain. He was happier than he had been in weeks. Not only
through the quick lifting of the horror that had so engulfed him, but
from the joy of a hard fight against heavy odds. In spite of his cheery
tone toward Caine, he knew it was problematical whether or not his
henchman, Bourke, could retard the vote on the Starke Bill until his
arrival. But it was a chance well worth the taking. His anxiety for
Desirée banished, the Fighter turned with more than wonted zeal to the
battle before him.
The engine thundered over the miles of sodden land, the cab windows
awash with rain; the great bulk swaying perilously from its own
reckless speed; the twisting of sharp curves more than once hurling
Caleb headlong from his seat. Past long lines of side-tracked freight
and passenger trains they whizzed. Every switch along the line bore
its burden of cars hustled off the main line by Caleb’s commands. The
entire C. G. & X. system was for the time tied up, that its ruler might
travel over its rails as no man had before traversed them.
“At this rate,” mused Caleb, “I’ll make it, with any sort of luck. If I
can be sure of speed on the other line--!”
Toward the latest of many brown wooden stations they flashed. The
engineer threw over a lever. The wheels shrieked ear-splitting protest
as they gripped and shaved the rails in the shock of the brake’s clutch.
“What’s up?” bellowed Conover, wrathfully. “Is--?”
“Station agent’s flagging us, sir, with the danger signal,” replied the
engineer, leaning out into the rain to accost a scared, shirtsleeved
man who ran toward them, flag in hand, along the track.
Conover pulled the engineer to one side and thrust his own head from
the cab window, just as the panting station agent came up.
“What d’ye mean by stoppin’ us?” demanded the Fighter.
“Trackwalker reports--bridge--mile above--unsafe,--from washout!”
puffed the agent.
“He does, hey?” sneered Conover, “An’ why in blazes didn’t you
telegraph the next station below?”
“I was just going to, sir,” faltered the agent, “but as there wasn’t
any train due for an half an hour--”
“Is the bridge still standin’?” demanded Conover.
“Yes, sir. But the trackwalker thinks--”
“I don’t pay him to think. _I’m_ doin’ the thinkin’ this trip. Davis,”
wheeling on the engineer, “I’m goin’ over this bridge. There’s $500 on
the other side of it for _you_. Want to come? Speak up quick!”
“If--if it’s not safe--” hesitated the man. “This is the heaviest
engine on the road and--”
“Get out of here, then!” yelled Conover, ejecting him bodily from the
cab. The engineer missed the step and tumbled prone in a blasphemous
heap, to the wet track side. Conover did not waste a second look at
him, but slipped into the driver’s place and threw off the brake. He
had served his term as engineer during his upward flight through the
various grades of railroad achievement; and was as comfortably at home
at the throttle as in his private car.
The wheels caught the track and the great mass of metal sprang into
motion.
“Is there anything else _I_ can do, sir?” piped the obsequious agent.
“No!” snarled Caleb glowering back at him through the open window.
“If there was, you wouldn’t be a measly thirty-dollar-a-month station
roustabout.”
Settling into his place, Conover knit his red brows and peered forward
through the downpour and mist, along the shining track. He could not
afford the time he had lost. To make it up, every notch of speed must
be crowded on. There was a fierce exhilaration in Caleb’s alert light
eyes, as he set himself to his new task. The fireman, who had been
crouching on the tender, now worked his way forward into the cab.
“Hello!” grunted Conover, crossly. “I’d forgot _you_. I s’pose I got to
slow up while you jump.”
“If I was a jumper, sir,” replied the fireman, quietly, “I’d have
gotten off at the station.”
With stolid unconcern the fellow set about stoking. Conover grinned.
“If we live past that bridge,” he remarked, “You’ll make your next trip
as pass’nger engineer. Steady, now.”
The locomotive was at top speed once more. Around a curve it tore,
listing far to one side. Straight ahead, through the gray murk, rose
the trestled bridge--a blur of brownish-red, spanning a hundred foot
drop; at whose bottom boiled a froth of white fretted water cut here
and there by black lump-head boulders. “Slow to 10 miles an Hour!”
read the patch of signboard at the bridge’s head. At either side of
the railroad embankment stood knots of country folk, idly watching the
condemned framework.
At sixty miles an hour the locomotive swept into the straightaway. A
scattering chorus of cries rose from a dozen lips as the shadowy giant
bulk leaped out of the mist.
Then, in the same instant, the dull rumble of wheels on a ground track
was changed to the hollow roaring roll of wheels on a trestle. A jar
of impact--a sickening sway of the whole wood-and-steel structure--a
snapping, rending sound from somewhere far below--a wind-borne scream
from the group of panic-stricken idlers now a furlong behind;--and once
more the changed key of the driving-wheels’ song told that the flimsy
bridgeway was succeeded by solid roadbed beneath the rails.
“Scared?” asked Conover, over his shoulder, to the fireman.
“I’ve just been too near to death to feel like lying,” returned the
man in a sickly attempt at humor, “So I might as well own up that for
a second or so I could hear a few harps twanging. My heart’s still
somewhere around the place where I swallow.”
“You’ve got grit,” vouchsafed the Fighter, straining his eyes to pierce
through the mist in front of them, “Man’s made of dust, the parsons
say; but I guess there was plenty of sand sprinkled in yours an’ mine.
An’ I like you better for not bein’ ashamed to tell you was afraid. The
brave man ain’t the one who don’t get scared; he’s the feller who’s
scared stiff and goes ahead just the same. I guess I’ll have to change
that new job of yours from pass’nger engineer to somethin’ in my own
office. Now, chase back to your work. I’ve got other things to think of
besides jawin’ with you.”
The Junction was reached and passed. No longer on his own road, Conover
was less certain that the way would be left clear for him. Yet his
telegrams had had effect. The line was open, and he sent his locomotive
along with no let-up in its terrific speed.
“I’ll make it,” he said once, under his breath. “If Bourke can only
hold ’em--if he can only hold ’em!”
Over went the lever, and with another shrill shriek the engine
slackened speed. They had rounded a bend. Directly in front was a
station. Beside it stood a long train, blocking the single track. In a
bound, Conover was out of the cab. Shouting to the fireman to follow,
he set off at a run through the mud puddles that lined the right of way.
“Whatcher stoppin’ for?” he demanded of the conductor who stood by one
of the rear cars.
“Waiting for the Directors of the road,” answered the conductor.
“They’re lunching up at the President’s house. They were due here three
minutes ago. This train’s a local, so we’re holding it till--”
Conover heard no more but broke again into a run; heading for the
engine.
“Do you mind gettin’ into trouble?” he panted to the fireman at his
side, “I’ll stand by you.”
“You’re the boss,” replied the man, laconically, putting on a fresh
burst of speed to keep up with his employer.
“Good! I’m goin’ to steal that engine. You uncouple her an’ scramble
aboard. I’ll ’tend to the crew.”
They had reached the locomotive as he spoke. The engineer had left his
cab and was stretching his cramped legs on the platform. His fireman
lolled from the window, smoking a pipe. Conover, never breaking his
stride, swung aboard the cab and threw open the throttle; the same
moment his follower yanked loose the old-fashioned coupling pin,
disengaged the air brake and gained the tender with a flying leap.
The whole transaction was completed before either the engine’s crew
knew what was going on. The rightful fireman found himself toppled from
the cab straight into the arms of the engineer, who with a yell had
sprung aboard. The two, clasped lovingly in each other’s arms, rolled
swearing into a roadside mud-puddle;--and the locomotive was off.
Conover, at the throttle, laughed aloud in keen delight as he glanced
back at the engineless train, the two bedraggled figures and the crowd
that came running excitedly along the platform.
“This old rattler ain’t a patch on the one we left behind,” he
chuckled, “but she seems able to make some speed for all that. Gee,
but I’ll have my hands full squarin’ myself with the Pres’dent of this
road! I’m li’ble to hear some fine language an’ maybe have a nice
little suit to compromise, too. But we’ll get there. It’d a’ held us up
half an hour or more, to wait for that measly local to hit a switch.
Ever steal an engine before, son?”
“No,” said the fireman, “and I’m just wondering how I’ll look in
striped clothes.”
“_You’ll_ be all right. Take that from me. It means promotion. That’s
all. If our trip lasts long enough, you’re li’ble to be Pres’dent of
the C. G. & X. at this rate. Say, I wonder when this engine took on
water last. Look an’ see.”
“All right for the rest of the run,” reported the fireman, on his
return. “But suppose they telegraph ahead and have us run into an open
switch?”
“I thought of that. But they won’t. In the first place, they won’t risk
smashin’ a good engine. In the second,--Hell! Ain’t I Caleb Conover?”
* * * * *
A hatless man,--dripping wet, mud-smeared, grimy as a coal
heaver,--took the State House steps three at a stride. In less
than two minutes it was known throughout the Assembly that Caleb
Conover had come. A word here, a hint there, a pulling of mysterious
wires:--and the wavering backbones of his more doubtful satellites
in the Legislature were miraculously stiffened. The Starke Bill had
not yet come to a vote; thanks to Bourke and his colleagues who had
wearied the Assembly to desperation and maddened Blacarda to frenzy by
a continuous series of the most glaring filibuster tactics. But even
the Conover faction’s tactics had, at the last, wellnigh exhausted
themselves.
“In another five minutes,” Caine was explaining, “you’d have been too
late. Nothing could have stopped the bill from--”
“Another five minutes!” mocked Conover, turning from his work. “Son,
this ain’t the first, nor yet the millionth time that a diff’rence of
five minutes has knocked hist’ry into a cocked hat. Now, send McGuckin
to me. He needs a little more beguilin’. An’ I’m here to give it to
him. Chase, now! He’s the last I’ll have time to see, before the vote.”
Conover did not so much as trouble to go to the Assembly gallery with
Caine when the Starke bill came up for balloting; but sat smoking and
glancing over papers in the Committee room that he had commandeered
as his personal office. Hither, soon afterward, Caine repaired; his
handsome, tired face alight.
“We win!” he announced triumphantly. “The bill’s defeated,--by two
votes. Congratulations!”
“Son,” observed Conover, glancing up from his desk, “what’s all the
excitement? I told you last Friday that we’d win by two votes. Now,
maybe, you’ll believe, another time, that I know what I’m talkin’
about. Where’s Blacarda?”
“I passed him in the corridor on his way back to the hotel. Why do you
ask? You’re done with him now.”
“_Done_ with him?” echoed Conover. “Why, man, I ain’t _begun_ with him
yet. I was just waitin’ to find where he’d gone. So long. See you at
the _ho_tel before train time.”
Conover walked out of the office, leaving Caine staring after him in
perplexity. Straight to the hotel the Fighter drove. Arriving there he
went, unannounced, to Blacarda’s room; entered without knocking, and
closed the door behind him.
Blacarda looked up from the task of packing his suit case. Bareheaded,
still grimy and disheveled, Conover stood facing him. Blacarda rose
from his knees beside the open suit case and started forward.
“I guess you know why I’m here?” hazarded Caleb, looking across at the
well-groomed figure, without the faintest trace of emotion.
“To crow over your dirty, underhand victory of to-day?” blazed the
other. “If so you can save yourself the trouble. Leave my room at once.
I don’t wish it polluted or--”
“It’ll have to stand a little more polootion before I’m ready to go,”
answered Conover, unmoved. “No, I haven’t come to crow. Crowin’ ain’t
in my line. A little while ago I set a man to tracin’ a tel’gram I got
this mornin’. It seems _you_ wrote it an’ paid the _ho_tel tel’graph
clerk $10 to slip it to me at the right time. Don’t lie. I’ve got
proof.”
“I’m not given to lying,” retorted Blacarda. “And if I were, I
shouldn’t take the trouble to lie to a blackleg like you. Yes, I wrote
the telegram. What of it?”
“You’re a sweet-scented sort of a cuss to preach about ‘dirty,
underhand vict’ries,’ ain’t you?” said Caleb, thoughtfully. “After
tryin’ to get me out of the way like that.”
“Any weapon is justifiable against a scoundrel,” sneered Blacarda. “One
must fight fire with fire.”
“Quite so,” assented Caleb. “Though not as original as I’d ’a expected
from a clever chap like you. Fightin’ fire with fire is good finance.
So when you tipped an engineer $600 to get me delayed in comin’ here,
I made no kick. That was fair game. I’d a’ done the same thing myself.
Only I wouldn’t a’ bungled it like _you_ did. When you’re goin’ to do a
crooked thing do it well. Don’t foozle it an’ lose your fight....”
“I haven’t your experience in hold-up tactics,” answered Blacarda, “so
perhaps I--”
Caleb waved aside the interpolation and went on in the same heavy,
emotionless voice.
“That was all fair, like I said. But it failed. Then, what’d you do?
Dragged a woman’s name into the row. Faked a dispatch tellin’ me _she_
was dyin’ an’ callin’ for me. That’s a trick _I_ wouldn’t play if my
life was hangin’ on a deal. You used that little girl’s name to get
me away. You put up that filthy job,--an’ took another man into your
conf’dence. Told a measly, tattlin’ tel’graph clerk about _her_. I
ain’t any good at expressin’ myself. But say! I wish I could get it
through that shiny head of yours what a rotten, low down, crawly cur
you are! No, don’t put on no heroics! _I’m_ doin’ the talkin’ now.
In the fake tel’gram, you used the nickname you’ve heard her called.
You used the knowledge that I’d hustle from here to hell if I could
be of use to her. You used all that as means to get me away from your
p’litical dogfight to-day. An’ how did you get your knowledge of her
nickname an’ ’bout my carin’ for her as if she was my own kid? Hey?
You got it while you was callin’ on her. While you was takin’ her
hosp’tality. You used that kind of trick in _politics_! God! I didn’t
think there was a breathin’ man could do such a thing. No ward-heeler
could do it--it had to be done by a ‘gentleman.’ One of the Arareek
Governors.”
He paused for breath. Blacarda, reddening under the tirade’s lash,
nevertheless sought to laugh.
“Well,” he queried with really excellent coolness, “what are you going
to do about it? Of course you can bring suit,--and probably recover.
But Miss Shevlin’s name will certainly figure rather unpleasantly in
the newspaper reports of the case. I’m sorry I was forced to use such
means,--I still believe them justifiable in dealing with a man like
you,--but I fail to see what redress you have.”
“You’ll see presently,” replied Caleb, with no trace of threat in his
dull voice. “That’s why I’m here. I’m not totin’ this into court.
What good would your measly damage money do me? An’ I’m not goin’ to
tell your friends of it with the hope they’d turn you out of s’ciety.
I’m goin’ to punish you the only way a rotten trick like that _can_ be
punished. The only way a skunk like you could be made to smart.”
“What do you mean?” asked Blacarda, a shadow of uneasiness showing
through his rage.
“I mean I’ve come here to give you the biggest thrashin’ you ever got.
An’ now’s the time I begin.”
Blacarda, at the slow forward motion of Caleb’s body, sprang furiously
at the Fighter. He was a strong man; large and well built. But he might
as well have tried to stop the rush of a charging bull-elephant as to
block Caleb’s attack. Not even taking the pains to guard the heavy
left-hander that Blacarda drove full into his face, Conover was upon
his foe.
Backward across the room Caleb drove the other with a lightning
succession of short arm blows that battered down Blacarda’s guard
and smashed with fearful force upon his head and body. To escape the
merciless hail of fists, Blacarda ducked and clinched.
Conover shook him off as though his antagonist had been a cripple,
and ran in again to the assault. One right-hand blow crashed into
Blacarda’s face and hurled him backward against the wall. As he
rebounded forward from sheer shock of the double impact, Conover’s
left fist caught him flush on the jaw and he collapsed senseless to the
floor.
Conover was at the unconscious body before it had fairly touched
ground. He beat with insane rage upon the upturned, defenseless face,
hammering it to a pulp; growling and whining all the time between his
hard-set teeth; like some rabid jungle beast worrying its meat.
Caine flung open the door and ran into the room;--thereby in all
probability saving Blacarda’s life. Taking in the scene at a glance, he
launched himself upon the growling, mauling victor. With all his wiry
strength, he sought to drag Conover away from the senseless man. But
his utmost muscular power was as nothing to that of the giant who was
still wreaking brute vengeance on the inert mass beneath him.
At length, employing a wrestling device, Caine managed to drag the
unprepared Fighter backward, from behind; and by a sudden wrench to
throw him to one side. Still keeping behind Conover, out of reach of
the hammer-fists, the slighter man succeeded in pinioning Caleb’s arms
by slipping his own hands and wrists between the other’s elbows and his
body. Trussed up, helpless as he was, Caleb writhed and snarled like a
leashed bulldog. In another moment he would have wrenched himself free
by dint of main force, had not Caine’s voice at last penetrated the red
wrath-mists of his brain.
“Conover!” his friend was shouting, for the tenth time, “if you kill
him, Miss Shevlin’s name will be brought into the affair! Can’t you see
that? If--”
Conover’s iron-tense muscles relaxed. The orgasm of Berserk rage had
passed, leaving him spent and apathetic. Caine knew that sanity had
returned to the Fighter, and he released his grip on the mighty arms.
“Well!” he observed, facing the dazed, panting man, and setting to
rights his own tumbled clothing, “You are a nice specimen of humanity
to have at large in a civilized country! You might have killed him.
You _would_ have killed him, I believe, if I hadn’t come when I did. I
got to thinking over what you said at the State House and I was afraid
something like this would happen. So I came on. Just in time, I think.”
Caine, as he spoke, had knelt beside the battered, bleeding Thing on
the floor. Now he crossed to the washstand and came back with a soaked
towel. Talking as he worked over the unconscious figure, he added:
“You were right to thrash him. He richly deserved it. But, why the
deuce did you keep on pummeling him while he was down? Does that strike
you as sportsmanlike?”
“Sportsmanlike?” panted Conover, his big voice still shaking with
ground-swells of the storm that had mastered him, “Sportsmanlike, hey?
D’ye s’pose I came here for a measly athletic contest? I came here to
lick that curly, perfumed whelp. An’ I did it.”
“You hit him when he was down,” answered Caine, crossing again from the
washstand and dashing cold water in Blacarda’s shapeless face. “And--”
“Of course I hit him when he was down!” snorted Caleb. “What d’ye
s’pose I was goin’ to do? Help him up an’ brush off his clo’es? Gee,
it makes me sick to hear that old fossil rot about ‘not hittin’ a man
when he’s down!’ What in thunder’s the use of gettin’ him down if you
ain’t goin’ to hit him? I didn’t come here for a friendly boxin’ bout.
I came to pay Blacarda off. An’ he wasn’t to be paid off by one little
tap that’d knock him over. That was just the start. I guess he’ll know
enough by now to let Dey Shevlin’s name alone.”
Caine made no answer. He was deftly applying the simple prize-ring
expedients for restoring beaten pugilists to their senses. Conover
looked down at him in profound contempt.
“Yes,” went on the Fighter, “I s’pose in _your_ gold-shirt world,
folks would say I was all kinds of a cad to keep on punishin’ that
swine after I’d bowled him off his legs. But them same folks will
jump with both feet on a business man when there’s a rumor that he’s
broke. They’ll join in a run on a bank that’s in trouble. Their saintly
women’ll take pious joy in chasin’ to hell some poor girl who’s made
a fool of herself. But they’d roll up their eyes at the sight of me
lickin’ Blacarda after he’s keeled over. What’n blazes is the use of
gettin’ a man down if you ain’t goin’ to hit him? It’s the A. B. C. of
business. Why, Caine, you make me tired!”
His eyes fell on his own torn, bleeding knuckles. He gazed at them in
slow surprise; then sauntered over to bathe them. The glass above the
washstand revealed to him a face pasty white, smeared with coal-dust
smears and blood, and swollen from a blow on the mouth.
“I’m an engagin’ lookin’ spectacle, all right,” he soliloquized as he
bent to wash. “Lucky I left my suit case at the _ho_tel this morning.
I’ll need a lot of dressin’ and massagin’ before I can go to see Dey.”
Blacarda groaned feebly, and moved his head.
“He’s coming around,” reported Caine. “Now I’m goin’ to telephone down
for the hotel doctor. While he’s on his way here you can think of some
story to tell him that will account for Blacarda’s condition.”
“I’ll tell him the truth,” said Caleb, simply. “All except the part
about Dey. An’ I guess Blacarda ain’t likely to tell _that_, either.
But what’s the use of a doctor? The cur’s gettin’ his senses back.”
“I think you fractured at least one of his ribs, when your knee was
jammed down on his chest,” answered Caine. “It feels so to me. Besides,
unless his face is to be distorted and hideous for life it must have
medical care at once.”
Blacarda lifted his unrecognizable visage and opened the one eye which
was not wholly hidden from view by his swollen flesh. Caine raised
the injured man to a sitting posture and held a whiskey flask to the
torn, discolored lips. Through the hedge of smashed teeth and down the
swelled throat the stinging liquor glided. Blacarda gulped it down, sat
motionless for a moment, then groaned again and looked about him.
“Well,” growled Caleb, “do you want any more?”
One long second Blacarda squinted vacantly at his conqueror. Then, with
a shuddering scream of terror, he buried his mangled face in Caine’s
shoulder and lay there, quivering and sobbing.
“What a beast you are, Conover!” exclaimed Caine, in revolt.
“That’s right,” assented Caleb, cheerfully. “But I’ve just broke a
worse one. Broke him body an’ spirit. Not such a bad day’s work!”