They plunged together into the river. The water, icy cold, was a
shock, but Dancing had made no mistake. They were below the rocks and
needed only to steady themselves as the resistless current swept them
down toward the railroad yards.
Bucks demonstrated that he could swim and the two seemed hardly in the
water before they could fully see the burning roundhouse. A moment
later, chilled to the bone but with his mind cleared by the sharp
plunge, Bucks felt his companion's arm drawing him toward the farther
shore where, in the slack water of an elbow of the stream, Dancing led
the way across a shoal of gravel and Bucks waded after him up the
riverbank.
They hastened together across the dark railroad yard. The sound of
firing came again from the square in front of the railroad station
and thither they directed their fleeing feet. To the right they heard
the shouts of the men who were fighting the fire at the roundhouse and
the hot crackling of the flames. They reached the station together and
entered the waiting-room by a rear door.
Men were running everywhere in and out of the building and the
waiting-room was barricaded for war. Bill Dancing caught a passing
trainman by the arm.
"What's going on here?"
The man looked at the lineman and his companion in surprise: "The
gamblers are driving the vigilantes, Bill. They've got all Front
Street. What's the matter with you?"
Dancing caught sight of Bob Scott coming down the rear stairway with
an armful of rifles, and, without answering the question, called to
him.
"Hello!" exclaimed Scott halting. He started as he saw Bucks. "Were
_you_ with him? And I've been scouring the town for you! Stanley will
have a word to say to you, youngster. They thought the gamblers had
you, Bill," he added, turning to the lineman.
Dancing, a sight from the pounding he had taken, his clothing in
tatters, and with the blood-stains now streaked by the water dripping
from his hair, drew himself up. "I hope you didn't think so, Bob? Did
they reckon a handful of blacklegs would get me?"
Scott grinned inscrutably. "They've got the best part of your shirt,
Bill. How did you get off?"
"Swam for it," muttered Dancing, shaking himself. "Where's Stanley?"
"Out behind the flat cars. He is arming the vigilantes. We've fenced
off the yards with loaded freight-cars. They've fired the roundhouse
on us, but the rifles and ammunition that came to-night are upstairs
here. Take some of these guns, Bill, and hand them around in front.
Bucks can follow you with a box of ammunition."
Scott spoke hurriedly and ran out of the door facing Front Street
Square. A string of flat cars had been run along the house-track in
front of the station, and behind these the hard-pressed vigilantes,
reinforced now by the railroad men, were taking up a new line of
defence. Driven through the town in a running battle, they were in
straits when they reached Stanley's barricade.
Following a resolve already well defined, the railroad chief conferred
with the vigilante leaders for a brief moment. He called them to his
office and denounced the folly of half-way measures.
"You see," said Stanley, pointing to two dead men whom the discomfited
business men had brought off with them, "what temporizing has done.
There is only one way to treat with these people." He was interrupted
by firing from across the square. "In an hour they will have every
store in Front Street looted."
The deliberation for a few moments was a stormy one, but Stanley held
his ground. "Desperate diseases, gentlemen," he said, addressing
Atkinson and his companions, "require desperate remedies, and you must
sometime come to what I propose."
"What you propose," returned Atkinson gloomily, "will ruin us."
Stanley answered with composure: "You are ruined now. What you should
consider is whether, if you don't cut this cancer of gambling,
outlawry, and murder out while you have a chance, it won't remain to
plague you as long as you do business in Medicine Bend, and remain to
ruin you periodically. This is always going to be a town and a big
one. As long as this railroad is operated, this ground where we stand
is and must be the chief operating point for the whole mountain
division. You and I may be wiped out of existence and the railroad
will go on as before. But it is for you to accept or reject what I
propose as the riddance of this curse to your community.
"The railroad has been drawn into this fight by assault upon its men.
It can meet violence with violence and protect itself, or it can
temporarily abandon a town where protection is not afforded its lives
and property. In an emergency, trains could be run through Medicine
Bend without stopping. The right of way could be manned with
soldiers. But the railroad can't supply men enough to preserve in your
town the law and order which you yourselves ought to preserve. And if
we were compelled to build division facilities, temporarily,
elsewhere, while they would ultimately come back here, it might be
years before they did so. What else but your ruin would this mean?"
He had hardly ceased speaking when the conference was broken in upon.
Bob Scott ushered in two men sent under a flag of truce from the
rioters. The offer they brought was that Rebstock and Seagrue should
be surrendered, provided Stanley would give his personal pledge that
the two should not be shot but sent out of town until peace was
restored, and that they should be accorded a fair trial when brought
back.
Stanley listened carefully to all that was said:
"Who sent you?" he demanded.
"The committee up street," returned the envoys evasively.
"You mean Levake sent you," retorted Stanley. He sat at his desk and
eyed the two ruffians, as they faced him somewhat nervously. They at
length admitted that they had come from Levake, and gave Stanley his
chance for an answer.
"Tell Levake for me there will be no peace for him or his until he
comes down here with his hands behind his back. When I want Rebstock
and Seagrue I will let him know. I want him first," said Stanley,
dismissing the messengers without more ado.