Jim Legg sprawled on a seat in the day-coach and tried to puzzle out
from a time-table just when they would arrive at Blue Wells, mixed
train, both passenger and freight, stopping at every station along the
branch line; sixty miles of starts and stops, and the highest speed
would not exceed twenty miles per hour.
It had been sweltering hot, and Jim Legg’s once-white collar had
melted to the consistency of a dish-rag. But the shades of night had
brought a cool breeze, and the gruff brakeman had assured him that the
train would probably arrive on time.
Not that it made much difference to Jim Legg. He had never seen Blue
Wells. To him it was merely a name. He had been forced to leave
Geronimo to the tender mercies of a hard-faced express messenger, and
had seen him tied to a trunk-handle in the express car.
It suddenly occurred to Jim Legg that he had made no provisions for
feed and water for the dog. It did not occur to him that the messenger
might be human enough to do this for the dog. The engine was whistling
a station call, and Jim Legg resolved to investigate for himself.
The train clanked to a stop at the little station, and Jim Legg
dropped off the steps, making his way up to the baggage car, where the
messenger and a brakeman were unloading several packages. Jim noticed
that the weather-beaten sign on the front of the depot showed it to be
Encinas, the town where the deputy sheriff’s sweetheart lived.
The brakeman went on toward the engine and Jim Legg got into the
express car. Geronimo’s tie-rope had been shifted to a trunk farther
up the aisle, and the messenger stood just beyond him, looking over a
sheaf of way-bills by the dim light of a lantern.
The train jerked ahead, but Jim Legg did not notice that they were
traveling again, until the train had gained considerable speed. The
messenger turned and came back toward the door, not noticing in the
dim light that he had a new passenger. The dog reared up and put his
paws on the messenger’s overall-clad leg.
But only for a moment. The messenger whirled around and kicked the dog
back against the trunk.
“Keep off me, —— yuh!” he rasped.
The dog rolled over, but came to his feet, fangs bared.
“Try to bite me, will yuh?” snarled the messenger.
He glanced around for some sort of a weapon, evidently not caring to
get within kicking distance of the dog again, when Jim Legg spoke
mildly—
“You really shouldn’t do that.”
The messenger whirled around and stared at Jim Legg. He did not
recognize him as the man who had put the dog in the car at the main
line.
“What in —— are you doin’ in my car?” he demanded.
Jim Legg shifted uneasily.
“Well, I—I’m watching you mistreat a dumb brute, it seems. That’s my
dog, and I didn’t put him on here to be kicked.”
“Your dog, eh?”
The messenger came closer. He recognized Jim now.
“Got on at Encinas, eh?”
“I think that was the name. The train started, and I had no chance to
get back to the coach, you see.”
“Yeah, I see. But that don’t make any difference to me. Nobody is
allowed to ride in here. You’ll have to get off at Blue Wells.”
“Is that the next station?”
“Yeah. We’ll be there in a few minutes.” He looked back at the dog.
“You hadn’t ought to ship a dog like that. He’s no —— earthly good,
and he tried to bite me just now.”
“You’re a liar!”
It was the first time Jim Legg had ever said that to any one, and this
time he had said it without a thought of the consequences. It seemed
the natural thing to say.
“I’m a liar, eh?”
The messenger would weigh close to two hundred pounds and was as hard
as nails.
“Yes, sir,” declared Jim Legg. “If you say that Geronimo tried to bite
you just now, you’re a liar. I could report you for kicking that dog.”
“Oh, you could, could yuh? Like ——! The company ain’t responsible for
dogs. You never checked him. He’s just ridin’ here, because I was good
enough to take him in; just a —— dead-head.”
“Good enough, eh?”
Jim Legg took off his glasses, put them in a case and tucked them in
his pocket. The messenger came closer. The train was whistling, and
they felt the slight jerk as the brakes were applied.
“I saw you kick that dog,” said Jim calmly, although his heart was
hammering against his ribs. “No man would do a thing like that. It was
a dirty trick—and then you try to lie out of it.”
“Why, you little four-eyed pup!” snorted the messenger. “I’ll make you
take that back. Anyway, you’ve got no right in this car, and I’m
justified in throwin’ yuh off.”
Jim Legg threw out his hands in protest to any such an action. He had
never fought anybody, knew nothing of self-defense. But the messenger
evidently mistook Jim’s attitude, and swung a right-hand smash at his
head. And Jim’s clumsy attempt to duck the blow caused the messenger
to crash his knuckles against the top of Jim’s head. The impact of the
fist sent Jim reeling back against a pile of trunks, dazed,
bewildered, while the messenger, his right hand all but useless, swore
vitriolically and headed for Jim again.
But the force of the blow had stirred something in the small man’s
brain; the fighting instinct, perhaps. And in another moment they were
locked together in the center of the car. The train was lurching to a
stop, but they did not know it.
The messenger’s arms were locked around Jim’s body, while Jim’s legs
were wrapped around those of the messenger, which caused them to fall
heavily, struggling, making queer sounds, while Geronimo, reared the
full length of his rope, made an unearthly din of barks, whines and
growls, as he fought to get into the mélée.
The train yanked ahead, going faster this time. Jim managed to get his
right hand free and to get his fingers around the messenger’s ear,
trying ineffectually to bounce the messenger’s head on the hard floor.
His efforts, while hardly successful, caused the messenger to roll
over on top of Jim, who clung to the ear and managed to roll on top
again. They were getting perilously near the wide door. Suddenly the
messenger loosened one hand and began a series of short body punches
against Jim’s ribs, causing him to relax his hold on the ear. It also
forced Jim to slacken his scissor hold on the messenger’s legs.
Quickly the messenger doubled up his legs, forcing his knees into
Jim’s middle, hurling him over and sidewise. But the shift had given
Jim a chance to get both arms around the messenger’s neck, and when
Jim swung over and felt himself dropping into space, he took the
messenger right along with him.
They landed with a crash on the edge of a cut, rolled slowly through a
patch of brush, and came to rest at the bottom of the cut. Fortunately
Jim was uppermost at the finish. The breath had all been knocked from
his body, and he was bruised from heels to hair.
He separated himself from his former antagonist, and pumped some air
into his aching lungs. The train was gone. Jim looked up at the
star-specked Arizona sky and wondered what it was all about. It
suddenly struck him funny and he laughed, a queer little, creaky
laugh. It sounded like a few notes from a wheezy old accordion he had
heard a blind man playing in San Francisco. San Francisco and the
Mellon Company seemed a long way off just now.
He crawled to the track level. There was no sign of the train.
Everything was very still, except the dull hum of the telegraph wires
along the right-of-way fence. Then the messenger began swearing,
wondering aloud what was the matter. Jim Legg got to his feet and
filled his lungs with the good desert air. He looked back toward the
cut where he had left his opponent.
“Shut up!” he yelled. “You got whipped and that’s all there is to it.”
And then Jim Legg guessed which way was Blue Wells, and started
limping along the track. The stopping and starting of the train
between stations meant nothing to Jim Legg. He did not suspect that
the first stop had been because a red lantern had been placed in the
middle of the track near the Broken Cañon trestle, thereby stopping
the train, and that just now three masked men were smashing through
the safe, which contained the Santa Rita pay-roll. There, three men
had cut the express car, forced the engineer to drive his engine to
within about two miles of Blue Wells, where they stopped him, and
escorted both engineer and fireman back to the express car.
The absence of the messenger bothered them, because they were afraid
he had suspected a hold-up and had run away, looking for help. At any
rate, they went about their business in a workmanlike manner, and a
few minutes after the stop they had exploded enough dynamite to force
the safe to give up its golden treasure.
Quickly they removed the two canvas sacks. One of the men stepped to
the doorway. Somewhere a voice was singing. The road from Blue Wells
to the AK ranch paralleled the railroad at this point.
“Come on,” said the man at the door.
Swiftly they dropped out of the car, leaving the engineer and fireman
alone. A lantern on a trunk illuminated the car. Suddenly the engineer
ran across the car and picked up the messenger’s sawed-off Winchester
shotgun, which had fallen behind a trunk during the fight between the
messenger and Jim Legg.
He pumped in a cartridge and sprang to the door. Just out beyond the
right-of-way fence he could see three shadowy figures, which were
moving. Then he threw up the shotgun and the express car fairly jarred
from the report of the heavy buckshot load.
The distance was great enough to give the charge of buckshot a chance
to spread to a maximum degree, and none of the leaden pellets struck
the mark. But just the same the three shadowy figures became prone
objects.
Again came the long spurt of orange flame from the door of the express
car, and more buckshot whined through the weeds.
“What kinda —— whisky was that yuh bought?” queried the voice of
Johnny Grant from among the weeds.
“Well, if you think I’m goin’ t’ let any train crew heave buckshot at
me, yo’re crazy,” declared Eskimo Swensen, and proceeded to shoot at
the glow from the express car door.
“H’rah f’r us!” whooped Oyster, and unlimbered two shots from his
six-shooter. His aim was a bit uncertain and it is doubtful if either
bullet even hit the car.
Wham! Skee-e-e-e-e! Another handful of buckshot mowed the grass. Three
six-shooters blazed back at the flash of the shotgun, and their owners
shifted locations as fast as possible, because those last buckshot
came too close for comfort.
Then came a lull. In fact the shooting ceased entirely. The three men
in the grass saw the light go out in the car. There was no noise,
except the panting of the engine, its headlight cutting a pathway of
silver across the Arizona hills. Minute after minute passed. It was
too dark to see an object against the car or engine, and the three men
in the grass did not see the engineer and fireman crawl along to the
engine and sneak into the cab.
“Where’s that —— murderer with the riot-gun?” queried Eskimo Swensen.
He was anxious to continue the battle.
“Sh-h-h-h-h!” cautioned Johnny. “Somebody comin’.”
They could see the vague bulk of a man coming along the track. Then it
passed the end of the express car, blending in with it. The three
cowboys could hear the crunch of gravel, as the newcomer walked along
the car, and they heard him climb inside. Came the tiny glow of a
match, the snappy bark of a dog. A few moments later came the thud of
two bodies hitting the gravel.
“I whipped him, Geronimo,” they heard a voice say.
“My ——!” snorted Eskimo. “I thought Geronimo was dead or in jail.”
Then the engine awoke and the part of a train started backing down the
track, but there was no more shooting. Once away from that immediate
spot the engineer put on more power, and went roaring back toward
where they had cut loose from the rest of the train.
The three cowboys sat up in the grass and watched the dim figures of a
man and a dog, heading toward Blue Wells, while from far down the
railroad came the shrill whistle of the locomotive.
Johnny Grant got to his feet, and was joined by Eskimo and Oyster. The
shooting had sobered them considerably, and when Eskimo produced the
bottle Johnny shoved it aside.
“Aw, to —— with the stuff!” he said. “I’ve been seein’ too many things
already. Let’s go home before we get killed for bein’ on earth.”
“I dunno,” said Eskimo, after a deep pull at the bottle. “It seems
like anythin’ is liable to happen around here, but I never expected to
be ambushed by a danged train.”
They crawled back through the barbed-wire right-of-way fence, and
headed for home, too muddled to do much wondering what it was all
about.
The train passed Jim Legg before he reached Blue Wells, and he got
there just after the announcement of the hold-up. A crowd had gathered
at the depot, and Jim Legg heard some one saying that about thirty
thousand had been stolen.
He heard some one question Chet Le Moyne, who admitted that the Santa
Rita pay-roll had been on the train. Men had gone to notify the
sheriff. Jim Legg did not realize that they were speaking about the
train he had fell out of, even when the disheveled express messenger
made his appearance. He had been picked up along the track.
The engine crew were offering all the information they had to
interested listeners.
“There were three men,” said the engineer.
“Three that you saw,” amended the messenger, who was nursing a black
eye, several facial bruises and a bad limp. “The fourth one tangled
with me in the car. That’s how the door happened to be open. He got on
at Encinas. I ordered him off the car and he tangled with me. In the
fight we both fell off. But I sure gave him enough to make him
remember me.”
“Was he masked?” some one asked.
“Masked? No.”
“What kind of a lookin’ geezer?”
“Great big son-of-a-gun. It was kinda dark in the car, and I didn’t
see his face very plain. I never suspected that he might be a stick-up
man, or I’d have took a shot at him, but it all happened so quick that
I didn’t have time. He tried to pull his gun, but I blocked it, and we
sure pulled some scrap.”
Jim Legg kept in the background, wondering at the coincidence. Two
scraps in express cars in the same evening.
“And we pretty near got ’em, even at that,” said the fireman. “They
jumped out of the car, leavin’ me and Frank in there. Frank got the
messenger’s shotgun and sure sprayed ’em good and plenty.
“But they were tough eggs, and stopped to do battle. You can see where
their bullets hit the car. I think we hit some of ’em. But one of
their bullets split the slide jigger on the pump-gun; so we decided to
quit the battle.”
Two men came panting into the crowd. “We can’t find the sheriff,” they
announced. “His horses are gone from his stable; so he must be out of
town.”
“Aw, he couldn’t find the hole in a doughnut, anyway,” said one of the
men.
“And his deputy is at Encinas,” added one of the men who had gone
after the sheriff. “We found that out at the Oasis.”
“Anyway, there’s no use chasin’ hold-up men at night,” said Le Moyne.
“Nobody knows which way they went. They probably had their horses
planted near where the safe was busted, and by now they’re miles away.
What I’d like to know is this: Who in —— knew that the pay-roll was
comin’ in tonight?”
No one seemed to know the answer. Jim Legg moved in beside a man and
asked him where the hold-up had taken place.
“The train that jist came in from Encinas,” said the man.
“This last one?”
“——, there’s only one a day, stranger.”
Jim Legg turned away, leading Geronimo on a short piece of rope, and
headed up the street, looking for a hotel.
“That messenger is the first liar I ever appreciated,” he told the
dog. “I’m a great big son-of-a-gun, I am, and I tried to pull a gun.
I’ll bet Ananias turned over in his grave tonight.”
They were just passing the front of Louie Sing’s restaurant when a dog
shot out of the alley, followed by an empty can and a volley of
Chinese expletives. It was evident that a stray dog had been trying to
steal something from the restaurant kitchen.
As quick as a flash Geronimo tore the rope from Jim’s hand, and was
hot on the trail of the departing dog. They disappeared in the dark,
leaving Jim Legg staring after them. He waited for several minutes,
but the dog did not appear. Then he went on to the one-story adobe
hotel, where he secured a room. Afterward he went back to the street,
and for the first time he realized that his valise was still on that
train.
He decided to try and recover it the next day. But there was no sign
of Geronimo; so Jim Legg finally went back to the hotel, hoping that
the dog would return and be in evidence the next day. Jim was still a
little sore from his battle in the express car, although his face and
hands did not show any signs of the conflict. But he found that his
body contained plenty of black-and-blue spots, and in places he had
lost considerable skin.
But he ignored them, yawned widely and fairly fell into his blankets.
Mellon & Company seemed a million miles away, and years and years ago.