After a week in Casement's camp, Stanley and his cavalrymen,
accompanied by Dancing, Scott, and Bucks, struck north and east toward
the Spider Water River to find out why the ties were not coming down
faster. Rails had already been laid across the permanent Spider Water
Bridge--known afterward as the first bridge, for the big river
finished more than one structure before it was completely subdued--and
the rail-laying was hampered only by the lack of ties.
The straggling bands of Cheyennes had in the interval been driven out
of the foot-hills by troops sent against them, and Stanley and his
little escort met with no trouble on his rapid journey.
Toward evening of the second day a broad valley opened on the plain
before them, and in the sunset Bucks saw, winding like a silver thread
far up toward the mountains, the great stream about which he had
already heard so much. Camp was pitched on a high bluff that
commanded the valley in both directions for many miles, and after
supper Scott and Bucks rode down to the river.
In its low-water stage nothing could have looked more sluggish or more
sleepily deceptive than the mighty and treacherous stream. Scott and
his companions always gave the river the name the Sioux had long ago
given it because of its sudden, ravening floods and its deadly traps
laid for such unwary men or animals as trusted its peaceful promise
and slept within reach of its cruel power.
Standing in the glow of the evening sky in this land where the clear,
bright light seemed to lift him high above the earth, Bucks looked at
the yellow flood long and thoughtfully--as well he might--for the best
of his life was to be spent within ken of its flow and to go in doing
battle with it himself, or in sending faithful men to its battling,
sometimes to perish within its merciless currents.
Next morning as the party, following a trail along the bluffs, rode up
in the direction of the contractors' camps they discerned out on the
river bottom a motley cluster of tents and shanties pitched under a
hill. A number of flatboats lay in the backwater behind the bend and a
quantity of ties corded along the bank indicated a loading-place, but
no one seemed to be doing any loading. The few men that could be seen
in the distance appeared to be loafing in the sunshine along the
straggling street-way that led to the river. Stanley checked his
horse.
"What place is that?" he demanded of Scott.
"That," returned the guide, "is Sellersville."
"Sellersville," echoed Stanley. "What is Sellersville?"
"Sellersville is where they bring most of the ties for the boats."
"Have they started a town down there on the bottoms?"
"They have started enough saloons and gambling dens to get the money
from the men that are chopping ties."
Stanley contemplated for a moment the ill-looking settlement. A mile
farther on they encountered a number of men following the trail up
the river.
A small dog barked furiously at the Stanley party as they came up, and
acted as if he were ready to fight every trooper in the detail. He
dashed back and forth, barking and threatening so fiercely that every
one's attention was drawn to him.
Stanley stopped the leader and found he was a tie-camp foreman from
up-river taking men to camp. "Is that your dog?" demanded Stanley,
indicating the belligerent animal who seemed set upon eating somebody
alive.
"Why, yes," admitted the foreman philosophically. "He sort o' claims
me, I guess."
"What do you keep a cur like that around for?"
"Can't get rid of him," returned the foreman. "He is no good, but the
boys like his impudence. Down, Scuffy!" he cried, looking for a stick
to throw at his pet.
Bucks surveyed the company of men. They were a sorry-looking lot. The
foreman explained that he had dragged them out of the dens at
Sellersville to go back to work. When remonstrated with for the poor
showing the contractors were making, the foreman pointed to the
plague-spot on the bottoms.
"There's the reason you are not getting any ties," said he lazily.
"We've got five hundred men at work up here; that is, they are
supposed to be at work. These whiskey dives and faro joints get them
the minute they are paid, and for ten days after pay-day we can't get
a hundred men back to camp."
The foreman as he spoke looked philosophically toward the canvas
shanties below. "I spend half my time chasing back and forth, but I
can't do much. They hold my men until they have robbed them, and then
if they show fight they chuck them into the river. It's the same with
the flatboat men." He turned, as he continued, to indicate two
particularly wretched specimens. "These fellows were drugged and
robbed of every dollar they brought here before they got to work at
all."
Stanley likewise gazed thoughtfully upon the cluster of tents and
shacks along the river landing. He turned after a moment to Scott.
"Bob," said he, looking back again toward the river, "what gang do you
suppose this is?"
Scott shook his head. "That I couldn't say, Colonel Stanley."
"Suppose," continued Stanley, still regarding the offending
settlement, "you and Dancing reconnoitre them a little and tell me who
they are. We will wait for you."
Scott and the lineman swung into their saddles and started down the
trail that led to the landing. Stanley spoke again to the foreman.
"Can those men use an axe?" he demanded, indicating the two men that
the foreman asserted had been robbed.
"They are both old choppers--but this gang at Sellersville stole even
their axes."
"Leave these two men here with me," directed Stanley as he watched
Scott and Dancing ride down toward Sellersville. "I may have something
for them to chop after a while."
The foreman assented. "I don't like the bunch," he murmured; "but
nobody at our camp wants to tackle them. What can we do?"
While the foreman continued to talk, Stanley again looked over the
human wrecks that he had rounded up and brought out of Sellersville.
"What can we do?" echoed Stanley, repeating the last question tartly.
"Well, I'll tell you one thing we can do. We can throw Sellersville
into the river."
Dancing and Scott were gone half an hour. The report, when they
returned, was not encouraging. "It is a bunch of cutthroats from
Medicine Bend, colonel," said Bob Scott.
"All friends of yours, I presume, Bob," returned Stanley.
The scout only smiled. "John Rebstock is there with his following. But
the boss, I think, is big George Seagrue. He is mean, you know. George
has got two or three men to his credit."
"Are we enough to clean them out, Bob?" inquired Stanley impatiently.
Scott looked around and his eye rested for a moment on Dancing. He
hitched his trousers. "There's about thirty men down there. I expect,"
he continued reflectively, "we can take care of them if we have to."
Stanley turned to the sergeant of his troopers. "Pitch a permanent
camp, sergeant. There will be nothing to take us any farther up the
river."
As Stanley gave the order Bucks noticed that Dancing winked at Scott.
And without the meaning glances exchanged by the lineman and the
scout, Bucks would have understood from Stanley's manner that he meant
strong measures. Stanley sent a further message to the contractor, and
the foreman, followed by his convoy of humanity, started on. The
soldiers, foreseeing a lively scene, stripped their pack-horses and
set at work pitching their tents.
Leaving four men in camp, the engineer, accompanied by his escort,
rode down the bluffs and, striking a lumber road, galloped rapidly
through the poplar bottom-lands toward the gamblers' camp. It was an
early tour for human wolves to be stirring, and the invaders clattered
into Sellersville before they attracted any attention.
A bugler, however, riding into the middle of the settlement, sounded a
trumpet call, and at the unwonted notes frowsy, ill-shaped heads
appeared at various shanty doors and tent-flaps to see what was
doing. Stanley sent one man from door to door to notify the inmates of
each shelter to pack up their effects and make ready to move without
delay.
Five troopers were detailed to guard three gambling tents that stood
together in the middle of the camp, each of these being flanked by
smaller dens. Word was then passed to the gamblers and saloon-keepers
to line up on the river front.
Stanley regarded the gathering crowd with a cold eye. Scott, who stood
near Bucks, pointed out a square-shouldered man with a deep scar
splitting one cheek. "Do you know that fellow, Bucks?" he asked in an
undertone.
"No; who is he?"
"That is a Medicine Bend confidence man, Perry. Do you remember the
woman you helped out with a ticket to Iowa? Perry is her husband--the
man that Dave Hawk made pay up."
Perry was a type of the Sellersville crowd now being evicted. There
was much talk as the soldiers urged and drove the gang out of one
haunt after another and a good deal of threatening as the leaders
marched out in front of Stanley.
"Who is running this camp?" demanded the officer curtly. The men
looked at one another. A fat, slow-moving man with small blue eyes and
a wheezy voice answered: "Why, no one in particular, colonel. We're
just a-camping in a bunch. What's a-matter? Seagrue here," he nodded
to a sharp-jawed companion, "and Perry," he added, jerking his thumb
toward the scarred-faced man, "and me own these two big tents in
partners."
"What's your name?"
"My name's Rebstock."
"Produce the axes stolen here from these two men," said Stanley,
indicating the choppers behind him. There was a jangle of talk between
Rebstock and his associates, and Perry, much against his inclination,
was despatched to hunt up the axes. It was only a moment before he
returned with them.
Rebstock, with a show of virtue, reprimanded Perry severely for
harboring the men that had stolen the axes. "Sorry it happened,
colonel," he grumbled, after he had abused the thieves roundly in a
general way, "and I'll see it doesn't happen again. We can't watch
everybody in a place like this. Tell your men," he continued,
expanding his chest, "to leave their axes with me when they come to
Sellersville--what?"
The assurances were lost on Stanley. "Rebstock," said he, in a tone
that Bucks had not heard before from him, "take your personal effects,
all of you--and nothing else--and load them on a flatboat. I will give
you one hour to get-out of here."
Rebstock almost fell over backward. He wheezed in amazement. There was
an outburst of indignant protests. A dozen men clamored at once. Perry
rushed forward to threaten Stanley; others cursed and defied him.
"Who are you, and what do you mean giving orders like that?" demanded
Seagrue, confronting him angrily.
"No matter who I am, you will obey the orders. And you can't take any
tents or gambling apparatus or liquors. Pack up your clothes and camp
stuff--nothing else--and get out."
If a bombshell had dropped into Sellersville, consternation could not
have been more complete. But it became quickly apparent that not all
of the gang would surrender without a fight. The leaders retreated for
a hurried consultation.
Rebstock walked back presently and confronted Stanley. "What's your
law for this?" he demanded, breathless with anger.
Stanley pointed to the ground under their feet.
"What's your title to this land, Rebstock? It belongs to the railroad
that those ties belong to. Where is your license from the United
States Government to sell whiskey here? You are trespassers and
outlaws, with no rights that any decent man ought to respect. You and
your gang are human parasites, and you are going to be stripped and
sent down the river as fast as these flatboats will carry you."
Without waiting for any rejoinder, Stanley turned on his heel and
walked away, leaving Rebstock speechless. The threats against the
intruders continued, but Stanley paid no attention to any of them.
Scott and the five troopers faced the gamblers. Stanley called to the
two wood-choppers, who stood near with their axes, and pointed to the
gambling tents.
"Chop up every wheel and table in there you can find," said he.
A cry went up from Perry when he heard the order, but the axemen,
nothing loath, sprang inside to their work, and the crashing of the
gambling furniture resounded through the alarmed camp. Stanley made no
delay of his peremptory purpose. The tent attacked belonged to
Seagrue, who, common report averred, feared nothing and nobody, while
the gambling implements were Perry's.
Seagrue rushed to his property, revolver in hand. Bill Dancing, who
stood at Stanley's side, stepped into his way.
"Hold on, Seagrue," he said. The gambler, fully as large a man as
Dancing, faced his opponent with his features fixed in rage. "Get
away," he shouted, "or I will knock your head off."
All eyes centred on the two men. Every one realized that open war was
on and that it needed only a spark to start the shooting. The
gamblers, rallying to Seagrue, backed him with oaths and threats.
"Seagrue, put down that pistol or I'll wring your neck," returned the
lineman, baring his right arm as he sauntered toward the outlaw.
Bucks, beside Stanley, stood transfixed as he watched Dancing. The
lineman's revolver was slung in the holster at his side.
Seagrue hesitated. He saw Bob Scott standing in the doorway of the
gambling tent with his rifle lying carelessly over his arm. He was
actually covering Seagrue where he stood--and Seagrue knew that Bob
Scott was deadly with a rifle. But Dancing was walking directly up to
him and Seagrue dared not be shamed before his own associates. He
jumped back to fire, but it was too late.
Dancing caught his wrist. Both were men of great strength, and their
muscles knotted as they grappled. It was only after a moment that the
lineman could be seen to gain. Then, as he bent the gambler's arm
back, he suddenly released it and struck the revolver out of his hand.
Seagrue, with a curse, sprang back, and drawing a knife rushed for the
second time at the lineman. Dancing jumped to one side. As he did so
he seized an axe from the hand of one of the choppers and turned again
on Seagrue. The gambler made a lunge at his throat, but as he threw
himself forward, Dancing, springing away, brought the axe around like
a flash and laid it flat across his assailant's forearm. The knife
flew twenty feet, and before the gambler could recover himself the
railroad man with one hand like a vice on his throat bore him to the
ground.
"Give me a piece of rope," muttered Dancing as Stanley ran up.
[Illustration: IT WAS ONLY AFTER A MOMENT THAT THE LINEMAN COULD BE SEEN
TO GAIN.]
Bob Scott slashed a tent guy and handed it to him. In another minute
Dancing, in spite of Seagrue's struggles, had lashed his prisoner hand
and foot. Picking him up bodily, he walked unopposed to the landing,
and to the astonishment of the spectators heaved Seagrue with scant
ceremony into a flatboat. There a trooper kept him quiet. Walking
back, the lineman brushed the dust of the encounter from his arms as
if to invite any further Sellersville champion to come forward. But
John Rebstock, the really responsible head of the place, showed no
desire to meet Dancing, and Perry, the sneak of the trio, only ranted
while Rebstock stood at a respectable distance wheezing his surprise
at the tremendous exhibition of strength. And the work of destruction
went forward.
Adjoining the Seagrue tent stood a saloon in which the men were now
ordered to demolish the stock. This renewed the excitement among
Rebstock's followers.
"Don't waste any time," was Stanley's order. "They may rush us. Knock
in the head of a keg of whiskey, pour it over the bar, and burn the
shanty."
The gamblers were, in fact, mustering for a charge on the invaders.
Before they could act the saloon was ablaze and the flames, rising
amid the yells and execrations of its owners, leaped to the big tent
adjoining. In front of this the soldiers in a skirmish line held back
the scurrying outlaws. Within a few moments Sellersville was ablaze
from end to end and its population, including Perry and Rebstock,
driven to the flatboats, were floating with threats and curses down
the muddy current of the Spider Water.