How long Bucks lay in the darkness he did not know, but he woke to
consciousness with thunder crashing in his ears and a flood of rain
beating on his upturned face. When he opened his eyes he was blinded
by sheets of lightning trembling across the sky, and he turned his
face from the pelting rain until he could collect himself.
While he lay insensible from the shock of the bullet, which
providentially had only grazed his scalp, the storm had burst over the
mountains drowning everything before it. Water fell in torrents, and
the desert below him was one wide river. Water danced and swam down
the rocks and ran in broad, shallow waves over the sand, and the scene
was light as day. Thunder peals crashed one upon another like salvoes
of artillery, deafening and alarming the confused boy, and the rain
poured without ceasing. Continuing waves of lightning revealed the
railroad and station building before him and he realized that he had
fallen the rest of the way down from where he had been fired at on the
face of the Point.
He took quick stock of his condition and, rising to his feet, found
himself only sore and bruised. He pressed his way through the flood to
the track, gained the platform, and, judging rightly that his
assailants had abandoned their fight, entered the half-burned building
unafraid. Rain poured in one corner where the roof had burned away
before the storm had put out the fire.
Stumbling through the debris that covered the floor, Bucks made his
way to the operator's table and put his hand up to cut in the
lightning arrester. He was too late. The fire had taken everything
ahead of him, and his hope of getting into communication with the
despatchers was next dashed by the discovery that his instruments were
wrecked.
He sat down--his chair was intact--much disheartened. But without
delay he opened the drawer of the table and feeling for his box of
cartridges found that the thieves had overlooked it. This he slipped
into his pocket with a feeling of relief, and, as he sat, rain-soaked
and with the water dripping from his hair, he reloaded his revolver
and made such preparations as he could to barricade the inner door and
wait for the passing of the storm.
From time to time, awed by the fury of the elements, he looked into
the night. It seemed as if the valley as far as he could see was a
vast lake that rippled and danced over the rocks. Bucks had never
conceived of a thunderstorm like this. Until it abated there was
nothing he could do, and he sat in wretched discomfort, hour after
hour, waiting for the night to pass and listening to the mighty roar
of the waters as they swept broadside down the divide carrying
everything ahead of them. Before daylight the violence of the storm
wore itself away, but the creek in the little canyon south of the
right-of-way, dashing its swollen bulk against the granite walls,
pounded and roared with the fury of a cataract.
When day broke, ragged masses of gray cloud scudded low across the
sky. The rain had ceased, and in the operator's room Bucks, aided by
the first rays of daylight, was struggling to get the telegraph wires
disentangled to send a message. His hopes, as the light increased and
he saw the ruin caused by the fire, were very slender, but he kept
busily at the wreckage and getting, at length, two severed strands of
the wires to show a current, began sending his call, followed by a
message for help to Medicine Bend. He worked at this for thirty
minutes unceasingly, then, looking around on every side of the
building, he satisfied himself that he was alone and, dropping down at
his table, leaned upon it with his elbows, and, tired, wet, and
begrimed, fell fast asleep.
He was roused by the distant whistle of a locomotive. Opening his
eyes, he saw the sun streaming through the east side of the building
where the window casement had burned away. Shaking off the heaviness
of his slumber he hastened out to see an engine and box-car coming
from the east. From the open door of the car men were waving their
hats. Bucks answered by swinging his arm.
The engine stopped before the station and Bob Scott, followed by
Dancing, Dave Hawk, and the train crew sprang from the caboose steps
and surrounded him. They had brought two horses and Bucks saw that all
the men were armed. It took only a minute to tell the story, and the
party scattered to view the destruction and look for clues to the
perpetrators.
Scott and Dancing were especially keen in their search, but they found
nothing to suggest who the vandals were. They listened again to Bucks,
as he repeated his story with more detail, and held a hurried
conference in which Dave Hawk took charge. Meantime the men were
tearing up planks from the platform to make a chute for unloading the
horses.
Bucks's excitement increased as he saw the businesslike preparations
for the chase. "Have you any idea you can catch them, Bob?" he asked
feverishly.
Bob Scott's smile was not a complete answer. "How can you catch
anybody in _this_ country?" continued Bucks, regarding the scout
sceptically. But Scott looked across the interminable waste of
sage-brush and rock as if he felt at home with it.
"If they stick to the wagon," he explained leisurely, "we will have
them in an hour or two, Bucks. A man might as well travel around here
with a brass band as to try to get away with a wagon track behind him.
If they stick to the wagon, we are bound to have them in two or three
hours at most. You are sure they didn't have a led horse?"
"They had nothing but the team," said Bucks.
"In that case if they give up the wagon, three of them will have to
ride two horses. They can't go fast in that way. We will get some of
them, Bucks, sure--somehow, sometime, somewhere. We have got to get
them. How could I hold my job if I didn't get them?"
That which had seemed impossible to Bucks looked more hopeful after
Bob had smiled again. Dancing was busy installing the new telegraph
outfit. While this was going on, Scott saddled the horses and, when he
and Dave Hawk had mounted, the two rode rapidly down the emigrant
trail toward Bitter Creek. The train was held until Dancing could get
the instruments working again; then, at Hawk's request, it was sent
down the Bitter Creek grade after himself and Scott; the trail
followed the railroad for miles. Dancing remained with Bucks to guard
against further attack.
The two railroad men rode carefully along the heavy ruts of the
emigrant trail, from which all recent tracks had been obliterated by
the flood, knowing that they would strike no sign of the wagon until
it had been started after the storm. They had covered in this manner
less than two miles when, rounding a little bend, they saw a covered
emigrant wagon standing in the road not half a mile from the railroad
track.
Scott led quickly toward concealment and from behind a shoulder of
rock to which the two rode they could see that the wagon had been
halted and the horses, strangely entangled in the harness, were lying
in front of it. Scott and Hawk dismounted and, crawling up the
shoulder where they could see without being seen, waited impatiently
for some sign of life from the suspicious outfit. The description
Bucks had given fitted the wagon very well, and the two lay for a
time waiting for something to happen, and exchanging speculations as
to what the situation might mean. They were hoping that the thieves
might, if they had gone away, return, and with this thought restrained
their impatience.
"It may be a trick to get us up to shooting distance, Bob," suggested
Hawk when Scott proposed they should close in.
"But that wouldn't explain why the horses are lying there in that way,
Dave. Something else has happened. Those horses are dead; they haven't
moved. Suppose I circle the outfit," suggested Scott benevolently.
"Take care they don't get a shot at you."
"If they can get a shot at me before I can at them they are welcome,"
returned Scott as he picked up his bridle rein. "From what Bucks told
me I don't think a great deal of their shooting. He is a level-headed
boy, that long-legged operator." And Scott, with some quiet grimaces,
recounted Bucks's story of his descent of Point of Rocks the night
before, under the fire of the three desperadoes.
That he himself was now taking his own life in his hands as he started
on a perilous reconnoissance, cost him no thought. Such a situation he
was quite used to. But for a green boy from the East to put up so
unequal a fight seemed to the experienced scout a most humorous
proceeding.
He mounted his horse and directing Hawk what to do if he should be
hit, set out to ride completely around the suspected wagon. The canvas
cover was the uncertain element in the situation. It might conceal
nobody, and yet it might conceal three rifles waiting for an
indiscreet pursuer to come within range. Scott, taking advantage of
the uneven country, rode circumspectly to the south, keeping the
object of his caution well in view, and at times, under cover of
friendly rocks, getting up quite close to it.
Before he had completed half his ride he had satisfied himself as to
the actual state of affairs. Yet his habitual caution led him to
follow out his original purpose quite as carefully as if he had
reached no conclusion. When he crossed the trail west of the wagon, he
looked closely for fresh tracks, but there were none. He then circled
to the north and was soon able, by dismounting, to crawl under cover
within a hundred yards of the heads of the horses. When he got up to
where he could see without being seen he perceived clearly that his
surmise had been correct.
Both horses lay dead in the harness. From the front seat of the wagon
a boot protruded; nothing more could be seen. Scott now, by signals,
summoned Dave Hawk from where he lay, and when the swarthy conductor
reached the scout, Scott called out loudly at the wagon.
There was no answer, no movement, no sound. Things began to seem
queer; in the bright blaze of sunshine, and with the parched desert
glistening after the welcome rain, there in the midst of the vast
amphitheatre of mountains lay the dead horses before the mysterious
wagon. But nowhere about was any sign of life, and the wagon might
hold within its white walls death for whoever should unwarily approach
it.
Bob Scott had no idea, however, of sacrificing himself to any scheme
that might have occurred to the enemy to lure him within danger. He
called out again at the top of his voice and demanded a surrender. No
sound gave any response, and raising his rifle he sent a bullet
through the extreme top of the canvas cover midway back from the
driver's seat.
The echoes of the report crashed back to the rocks, but brought
nothing from the silence of the emigrant wagon. A second shot
followed, tearing through the side board of the wagon-box itself; yet
there was no answer. Scott, taking his horse, while Hawk remained in
hiding and covered the scene with his own rifle, led the horse so that
it served as a shelter and walked directly toward the wagon itself. As
he neared it he approached from the front, pausing at times to survey
what he saw. Hawk watched him lead his unwilling horse, trembling with
fear, up to the dead team as they lay in the bright sunlight, and saw
Scott take hold of the protruding boot, peer above it into the wagon
itself and, without turning his head, beckon Hawk to come up.
Under the canvas, the driver of the wagon lay dead with the lines
clutched in his stiffened fingers, just as he had fallen when death
struck his horses. The two frontiersmen needed no explanation of what
they saw in the scarred and blackened face of the outlaw. A bolt of
lightning had killed him and stricken both horses in the same instant.
Bob crawled into the wagon and with Hawk's help dragged the dead man
forward into the sunlight. Both recognized him. It was Bucks's
assailant and enemy, the Medicine Bend and Spider Water gambler,
Perry.