When Hawk saw Bob Scott, two hours later, riding into his camp on the
Brushwood with the two prisoners, he was taciturn but very much
surprised.
Scott was disposed to make light of the lucky chance, as he termed it,
that had thrown the two men into his way. Hawk, on the other hand,
declared in his arbitrary manner that it was not wholly a lucky
chance. He understood the Indian's dogged tenacity too well to think
for a moment that the fugitives could have escaped him, even had he
not ridden into Casement's camp as he so fortuitously had done.
The scout, Hawk knew, had the characteristic intuition of the
frontiersman; the mental attributes that combine with keen observation
and unusually good judgment as aids to success when circumstances are
seemingly hopeless. Such men may be at fault in details, and
frequently are, but they are not often wholly wrong in conclusions.
And in their pursuit of a criminal they are like trained hounds, which
may frequently lose their trail for a moment, but, before they have
gone very far astray, come unerringly back to it.
"If they ever give you a chance, Bob, you will make a great
thief-catcher," exclaimed Hawk with his naturally prodigal generosity
of appreciation.
"I certainly never expected to catch Rebstock and this fellow Seagrue
as easily as that," smiled Scott, as the troopers took charge of his
men.
"If you hadn't caught them there you would have trailed them there. It
would only have meant a longer chase."
"A whole lot longer."
"When you come to think of it, Bob, the railroad was their only hope,
anyway. They did right in striking for it. Without horses, the big
camp and the trains for Medicine Bend every day were their one chance
to get away."
Scott assented. "The trouble with us," he smiled, "was that we didn't
think until after it was all over. Sometime a man will come to these
mountains who thinks things out before they happen instead of after.
Then we will have a man fit to run the secret service on this
railroad. But we are losing time," he added, tightening up his saddle
girths.
"What are you going to do now? And why," demanded Hawk without waiting
for an answer, "did you drag these men away down here instead of
leaving them for Casement to lock up until we were ready to take them
to Medicine Bend?"
"I am going to drag them farther yet," announced Scott. "I am going to
ride after the French trader and fit these two fellows out in their
own clothes again to make it easier for Bucks to indentify them."
"Don't say 'indentify,' Bob, say 'identify,'" returned Hawk testily.
Bob Scott usually turned away a sharp word with silence, and although
he felt confident Hawk was wrong, he argued no further with him, but
stuck just the same to his own construction of the troublesome word.
"You've got the right idea, Bob, if you have got the wrong word,"
muttered Hawk. "Why didn't you think of that sooner?"
They broke camp and started promptly. About noon they overtook the
trading outfit and after some threatening forced the tricky teamster
to rig the two gamblers out in their own apparel. Having done this,
they started on a long ride for Casement's camp, reaching it again
with their prisoners, and all very dusty and fatigued, long after
dark.
The hard work voluntarily undertaken by the scout to aid the boy, as
he termed Bucks, in identifying his graceless assailants was
vindicated when, the next morning, the party with their prisoners
arrived on a special train at Point of Rocks, and Bucks immediately
pointed to Seagrue as the man who had first fired at him.
There were a few pretty hot moments on the platform when Bucks, among
a group of five camp malefactors on their way to Medicine Bend,
confronted the two men who had tried to kill him, and unhesitatingly
pointed them out. Seagrue, tall and surly, denied vehemently ever
having been at Point of Rocks and ever having seen Bucks. He declared
the whole affair was "framed up" to send him to the penitentiary. He
threatened if he were "sent up" to come back and kill Bucks if it was
twenty years later--and did, in that respect, try to keep his word.
But his threats availed him nothing, and John Rebstock who, though
still young, was a sly fox in crooked ways, contented himself with a
philosophical denial of everything alleged against him, adding only in
an injured tone that nobody would believe a fat man anyway.
It was he, however, rather than the less clever Seagrue, who had begun
to excite sympathy for what he called his luckless plight and that of
his companion, before they had left the railroad camp. Among the five
evil-doers who had been rounded-up and deported for the jail at
Medicine Bend, and now accompanied the two gamblers, Rebstock spread
every story he could think of to arouse his friends at Medicine Bend
to a demonstration in his behalf.
The very first efforts at putting civil law and order into effect
were just then being tried in the new and lawless frontier railroad
town and the contest between the two elements of decency and of
license had reached an acute pass when Rebstock and Seagrue were
thrown into jail at Medicine Bend. A case of sympathy for them was not
hard to work up among men of their own kind and threats were heard up
and down Front Street that if the railroading of two innocent men to
the penitentiary were attempted something would happen.
Railroad men themselves, hearing the mutterings, brought word of them
to head-quarters, but Stanley was in no wise disturbed. He had wanted
to make an example for the benefit of the criminals who swarmed to the
town, and now welcomed the chance to put the law's rigor on the men
that had tried to assassinate his favorite operator. Bucks, lest he
might be made the victim of a more successful attack, was brought down
from Point of Rocks the first moment he could be relieved. A plot to
put him out of the way, as the sole witness against the accused
gamblers, was uncovered by Scott almost as soon as Bucks had returned
to the big town and, warned by his careful friend, he rarely went up
street except with a companion--most frequently with Scott himself.
As the day set for Rebstock's trial drew near, rumors were heard of a
jail delivery. The jail itself was a flimsy wooden affair, and so
crude in its appointments that any civilized man would have been
justified in breaking out of it.
Nor was Brush, the sheriff, much more formidable than the jail itself.
This official sought to curry favor with the townspeople--and that
meant, pretty nearly, with the desperadoes--as well as to stand well
with the railroad men; and in his effort to do both he succeeded in
doing neither.
Bucks was given a night trick on his old wire in the local station,
and in spite of the round of excitement about him settled down to the
routine of regular work. The constant westbound movement of
construction material made his duties heavier than before, but he
seemed able to do whatever work he was assigned to and gained the
reputation of being dependable, wherever put.
He had risen one night from his key, after despatching a batch of
messages, to stir the fire--the night was frosty--when he heard
an altercation outside on the platform. In another moment the
waiting-room door was thrown open and Bucks turned from the
stove, poker in hand, to see a man in the extremity of fear rush
into his lonely office.
The man, hatless and coatless and evidently trying to escape from some
one, was so panic-stricken that his eyes bulged from their sockets,
and his beard was so awry that it was a moment before Bucks recognized
his old acquaintance Dan Baggs.
"They are after me, Bucks," cried Baggs, closing the door in
desperation. "They will kill me--hide me or they'll kill me."
Before the operator could ask a question in explanation, almost before
the words were out of the frightened engineman's mouth, and with Bucks
pointing with his poker to the door, trying to tell Baggs to lock it,
the door again flew open and Bucks saw the face of a Front Street
confidence man bursting through it.
Bucks sprang forward to secure the door behind the intruder, but he
was too late even for that. Half a dozen more men crowded into the
room. To ask questions was useless; every one began talking at once.
Baggs, paralyzed with fear, cowered behind the stove and the
confidence man, catching sight of him, tried to crowd through the
wicket gate. As he sprang toward it, Bucks confronted him with his
poker.
"Let that gate alone or I'll brain you," he cried, hardly realizing
what he was saying, but well resolved what to do.
The gambler, infuriated, pointed to Baggs. "Throw that cur out here,"
he yelled.
Baggs, now less exposed to his enemies, summoned the small remnant of
his own courage and began to abuse his pursuer.
[Illustration: "LET THAT GATE ALONE OR I'LL BRAIN YOU," HE CRIED.]
Bucks, between the two men with his poker, tried to stop the din long
enough to get information. He drew the enraged gambler into a
controversy of words and used the interval to step to his key. As he
did so, Baggs, catching up a monkey-wrench that Bucks ordinarily used
on his letter-press, again defied his enemy.
It was only a momentary burst of courage, but it saved the situation.
Taking advantage of the instant, Bucks slipped the fingers of his left
hand over the telegraph key and wired the despatchers upstairs for
help. It was none too soon. The men, leaning against the railing,
pushed it harder all along the line. It swayed with an ominous crack
and the fastening gave way. Baggs cowered. His pursuers yelled, and
with one more push the railing crashed forward and the confidence man
sprang for the engineer. Baggs ran back to where Bucks stood before
his table, and the latter, clutching his revolver, warned Baggs's
pursuers not to lay a hand on him.
Defying the single-handed defender, the gambler whipped out his own
pistol to put an end to the fight. It was the signal for his
followers, and in another minute half a dozen guns covered Bucks and
his companion.
Seconds meant minutes then. Bucks understood that only one shot was
needed as the signal for his own destruction. What he did not quite
realize was that the gambler confronting him and his victim read
something in Bucks's eye that caused him to hesitate. He felt that if
a shot were fired, whatever else happened, it would mean his own death
at Bucks's hand. It was this that restrained him, and the instant
saved the operator's life.
He heard the clattering of feet down the outside stairway, and the
next moment through the open door on the run dashed Bill Dancing,
swinging a piece of iron pipe as big as a crowbar. The yardmaster,
Callahan, was at his heels, and the two, tearing their way through the
room, struck without mercy.
The thugs crowded to the door. The narrow opening choked with men
trying to dodge the blows rained upon them by Dancing and Callahan.
Before Baggs could rub his eyes the room was cleared, and half a dozen
trainmen hastily summoned and led by a despatcher were engaged out
upon the platform in a free fight with the Front Street ruffians.
Within the office, the despatcher found Bucks talking to Callahan,
while Baggs was trying to explain to Bill Dancing how the confidence
men had tried to inveigle him into a "shell" game and, when they found
they could not rob him of his month's pay in any other way, had
knocked him down to pick his pockets.
Callahan, who knew the trouble-making element better than any of the
railroad men, went up town to estimate the feeling after the fight,
which was now being discussed by crowds everywhere along Front Street.
For every bruised and sore head marked by the punishment given by
Dancing in the defence of Baggs a new enemy and an active one had been
made.
Stanley came in late from the west and heard the story of the fight.
His comment was brief but significant. "It will soon be getting so
they won't wait for the railroad men to draw their pay. They will come
down here," said he ironically, "to draw it for them."