With Bob Scott to lead an occasional hunting trip, Bucks found the
time go fast at Goose Creek and no excitement came again until later
in the summer.
Where Goose Creek breaks through the sand-hills the country is flat,
and, when swollen with spring rains, the stream itself has the force
and fury of a mountain river. Then summer comes; the rain clouds hang
no longer over the Black Hills, continuing sunshine parches the face
of the great plains, and the rushing and turbulent Goose Creek
ignominiously evaporates--either ascending to the skies in vapor or
burrowing obscurely under the sprawling sands that lie within its
course. Only stagnant pools and feeble rivulets running in widely
separated channels--hiding under osiers or lurking within shady
stretches of a friendly bank--remain to show where in April the noisy
Goose engulfs everything within reach of its foaming wings. The creek
bed becomes in midsummer a mere sandy ford that may be crossed by a
child--a dry map that prints the running feet of snipe and plover, the
creeping tread of the mink and the muskrat, and the slouching trail of
the coyote and the wolf.
Yet there is treachery in the Goose even in its apparent repose, and
the unwary emigrant sometimes comes to grief upon its treacherous bed.
The sands of the Goose have swallowed up more than one heedless
buffalo, and the Indian knows them too well to trust them at all.
When the railroad bridge was put across the creek, the difficulties of
securing it were very considerable and Brodie, the chief engineer, was
in the end forced to rely upon temporary foundations. Trainmen and
engineers for months carried "slow" orders for Goose Creek bridge, and
Bucks grew weary with warnings from the despatchers to careless
enginemen about crossing it.
Among the worst offenders in running his engine too fast over Goose
Creek bridge was Dan Baggs, who, breathing fire through his bristling
red whiskers and flashing it from his watery blue eyes, feared nobody
but Indians, and obeyed reluctantly everybody connected with the
railroad. Moreover, he never hesitated to announce that when "they
didn't like the way he ran his engine they could get somebody else to
run it."
Baggs's great failing was that, while he often ran his train too fast,
he wasted so much time at stations that he was always late. And it was
said of him that the only instance in which he ever reached the end of
his division on time was the day he ran away from Iron Hand's band of
Sioux at Goose Creek--on that occasion he had made, without a doubt, a
record run.
But when, one hot afternoon in August, Baggs left Medicine Bend with a
light engine for Fort Park, where he was to pick up a train-load of
ties, he had no thought of making further pioneer railroad history.
His engine had been behaving so well that his usual charges of
inefficiency against it had not for a long time been registered with
the roundhouse foreman, and Dan Baggs, dreaming in the heat and
sunshine of nothing worse than losing his scalp to the Indians or
winning a fortune at cards--gambling was another of his failings--was
pounding lightly along over the rails when he reached, without heeding
it, Goose Creek bridge.
There were those who averred that after his experience with Iron Hand
he always ran faster across the forbidden bridge than anywhere else.
On this occasion Baggs bowled merrily along the trestle and was
getting toward the middle of the river when the pony trucks jumped the
rail and the drivers dropped on the ties. Dan Baggs yelled to his
fireman.
It was unnecessary. Delaroo, the fireman, a quiet but prudent fellow,
was already standing in the gangway prepared for an emergency. He
sprang, not a minute too soon, from the engine and lighted in the
sand. But Dan Baggs's fixed habit of being behind time chained him to
his seat an instant too long. The bulky engine, with its tremendous
impetus, shot from the trestle and plunged like a leviathan clear of
the bridge and down into the wet sand of the creek-bed.
The fireman scrambled to his feet and ran forward, expecting to find
his engineman hurt or killed. What was his surprise to behold Baggs,
uninjured, on his feet and releasing the safety-valve of his fallen
locomotive to prevent an explosion. The engine lay on its side. The
crash of the breaking timbers, followed by a deafening blast of
escaping steam, startled Bucks and, with Bob Scott, he ran out of the
station. As he saw the spectacle in the river, he caught his breath.
He lived to see other wrecks--some appalling ones--but this was his
first, and the shock of seeing Dan Baggs's engine lying prone in the
river, trumpeting forth a cloud of steam, instead of thundering across
the bridge as he normally saw it every day, was an extraordinary one.
Filled with alarm, he ran toward the bridge expecting that the worst
had happened to the engineman and fireman. But his amazement grew
rather than lessened when he saw Delaroo and Baggs running for their
lives toward him. He awaited them uneasily.
"What's the matter?" demanded Bucks, as Baggs, well in the lead, came
within hailing distance.
"Matter!" panted Baggs, not slackening his pace. "Matter! Look at my
engine! Indians!"
"Indians, your grandmother!" retorted Bob Scott mildly. "There's not
an Indian within forty miles--what's the matter with you?"
"They wrecked us, Bob," declared Baggs, pointing to his roaring
engine; "see for yourself, man. Them cotton-woods are full of Indians
right now."
"Full of rabbits!" snorted Bob Scott. "You wrecked yourself by running
too fast."
"Delaroo," demanded Dan Baggs, pointing dramatically at his taciturn
fireman, who had now overtaken him, "how fast was I running?"
Peter Delaroo, an Indian half-blood himself, returned a disconcerting
answer. "As fast as you could, I reckon." He understood at once that
Baggs had raised a false alarm to protect himself from blame for the
accident, and resented being called upon to support an absurd story.
Baggs stood his ground. "If you don't find an Indian has done this,"
he asserted, addressing Bob Scott with indignation, "you can have my
pay check."
"Yes," returned Bob, meditatively. "I reckon an Indian did it, but you
are the Indian."
"Come, stop your gabble, you boys!" blustered the doughty engineman,
speaking to everybody and with a show of authority. "Bucks, notify the
despatcher I'm in the river."
"Get back to your engine, then," said Scott. "Don't ask Bucks to send
in a false report. And afterward," suggested Scott, "you and I, Dan,
can go over and clean the Indians out of the cotton-woods."
Baggs took umbrage at the suggestion, and no amount of chaffing from
Scott disconcerted him, but after Bucks reported the catastrophe to
Medicine Bend the wires grew warm. Baxter was very angry. A crew was
got together at Medicine Bend, and a wrecking-train made up with a
gang of bridge and track men and despatched to the scene of the
disaster. The operating department was so ill equipped to cope with
any kind of a wreck that it was after midnight before the train got
under way.
The sun had hardly risen next morning, when Bob Scott, without any
words of explanation, ran into Bucks's room, woke him hurriedly, and,
bidding him dress quickly, ran out. It took only a minute for Bucks to
spring from his cot and get into his clothes and he hastened out of
doors to learn what the excitement was about. Scott was walking fast
down toward the bridge. Bucks joined him.
"What is it, Bob?" he asked hastily. "Indians?"
"Indians?" echoed Bob scornfully. "I guess not this time. I've heard
of Indians stealing pretty nearly everything on earth--but not this.
No Indian in this country, not even Turkey Leg, ever stole a
locomotive."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean Dan Baggs's engine is gone."
Bucks's face turned blank with amazement. "Gone?" he echoed
incredulously. He looked at Scott with reproach. "You are joking
me."
"See if you can find it," returned Scott tersely.
As they hastened on, Bucks looked to the spot where the engine had
lain the night before. It was no longer there.
He was too stunned to ask further questions. The two strode along the
ties in silence. Eagerly Bucks ran to the creek bank and scanned more
closely the sandy bed. It was there that the wrecked engine and tender
had lain the night before. The sand showed no disturbance whatever. It
was as smooth as a table. But nothing was to be seen of the engine or
tender. These had disappeared as completely as if an Aladdin's slave,
at his master's bidding, had picked them from their resting place and
set them on top of some distant sand-hill.
"Bob," demanded Bucks, breathless, "what does it mean?"
"It means the company is out one brand-new locomotive."
"But what has happened?" asked Bucks, rubbing his eyes to make sure he
was not dreaming. "Where is the engine?"
Scott pointed to the spot where the engine had lain. "It is in that
quicksand," said he.
The engine, during the night, had, in fact, sunk completely into the
sand. No trace was left of it or of its tender. Not a wheel or cab
corner remained to explain; all had mysteriously and completely
disappeared.
"Great Heavens, Bob!" exclaimed Bucks. "How will they _ever_ get it
out?"
"The only way they'll ever get it out, I reckon, is by keeping Dan
Baggs digging there till he digs it out."
"Dan Baggs never could dig that out--how long would it take him?"
"About a hundred and seventy-five years."
As Scott spoke, the two heard footsteps behind them. Baggs and
Delaroo, who had slept at the section-house, were coming down the
track. "Baggs," said Scott ironically, as the sleepy-looking
engineman approached, "you were right about the Indians being in the
cotton-woods last night."
"I knew I was right," exclaimed Baggs, nodding rapidly and brusquely.
"Next time you'll take a railroad man's word, I guess. Where are
they?" he added, looking apprehensively around. "What have they
done?"
"They have stolen your engine," answered Scott calmly. He pointed to
the river bed. Baggs stared; then running along the bank he looked
up-stream and down and came back sputtering.
"Why--what--how--what in time! Where's the engine?"
"Indians," remarked Scott sententiously, looking wisely down upon the
sphinx-like quicksand. "Indians, Dan. They must have loaded the engine
on their ponies during the night--did you hear anything?" he demanded,
turning to Bucks. Bucks shook his head. "I thought I did," continued
Scott. "Thought I heard something--what's that?"
Baggs jumped. All were ready to be startled at anything--for even
Scott, in spite of his irony, had been as much astounded as any one at
the first sight of the empty bed of sand. It was enough to make any
one feel queerish. The noise they heard was the distant rumble of the
wrecking-train.
In the east the sun was bursting over the sand-hills into a clear sky.
Bucks ran to the station to report the train and the disappearance of
the engine. When he had done this he ran back to the bridge. The
wrecking-train had pulled up near at hand and the greater part of the
men, congregated in curious groups on the bridge, were talking
excitedly and watching several men down on the sand, who with spades
were digging vigorously about the spot which Baggs and Delaroo
indicated as the place where the engine had fallen. Others from time
to time joined them, as they scraped out wells and trenches in the
moist sand. These filled with water almost as rapidly as they were
opened.
Urged by their foreman, a dozen additional men joined the toilers.
They dug in lines and in circles, singly and in squads, broadening
their field of prospecting as the laughter and jeers of their
companions watching from the bridge spurred them to further toil. But
not the most diligent of their efforts brought to light a single
trace of the missing engine.
The wrecking crew was mystified. Many refused to believe the engine
had ever fallen off the bridge. But there was the broken track! They
could not escape the evidence of their eyes, even if they did scoff at
the united testimony of the two men that had been on the engine when
it leaped from the bridge and the two that had afterward seen it lying
in the sand.
The track and bridge men without more ado set to work to repair the
damage done the track and bridge. A volley of messages came from
head-quarters. At noon a special car, with Colonel Stanley and the
division heads arrived to investigate.
The digging was planned and directed on a larger scale and resumed
with renewed vigor. Sheet piling was attempted. Every expedient was
resorted to that Stanley's scientific training could suggest to bring
to light the buried treasure--for an engine in those days, and so far
from locomotive works, was very literally a treasure to the railroad
company. Stanley himself was greatly upset. He paced the ties above
where the men were digging, directing and encouraging them doggedly,
but very red in the face and contemplating the situation with
increasing vexation. He stuck persistently to the work till darkness
set in. Meantime, the track had been opened and the wrecking-train
crossed the bridge and took the passing track. The moon rose full over
the broad valley and the silent plains. Men still moved with lanterns
under the bridge. Bucks, after a hard day's work at the key, was
invited for supper to Stanley's car, where the foremen had assembled
to lay new plans for the morrow. But Bob Scott, when Bucks told him,
shook his head.
"They are wasting their work," he murmured. "The company is 'out.'
That engine is half-way to China by this time."
It might, at least, as well have been, as far as the railroad company
was concerned. The digging and sounding and scraping proved equally
useless. The men dug down almost as deep as the piling that supported
the bridge itself--it was in vain. In the morning the sun smiled at
their efforts and again at night the moon rose mysteriously upon them,
and in the distant sand-hills a thousand coyotes yelped a requiem for
the lost locomotive. But no human eye ever saw so much as a bolt of
the great machine again.