"Oh, shore!" Jake laughed, patting her cheek. "I'll jine you in a few
hours--or at El Paso, if I miss you here."
Because of his cynical outer crust, she had given him, perhaps, the
least affection of the Three. But in the last few weeks she had sensed
beneath it his loyal human feeling. Now, trembling, she put out her
hand, then, reaching suddenly, she pulled down his head and kissed his
cheek. The next second she leaped from the cab into Gordon's arms.
Bull had already jumped. Left alone, Jake stood still while the engineer
threw the reversing lever and opened the throttle. As the mogul began to
glide slowly backward he raised his hand and touched the spot her lips
had pressed. Perhaps it revived some memory of his boyhood, some
reverent memory of the days when other women than wantons had held him
in love and respect. His face was very soft; so soft and tender it would
never have been recognized by his dance-hall flames.
The engine had moved back a hundred yards with increasing speed before
he even moved. Then just as ice spreads its frozen mask over pleasant
waters so the outer crust that hid the real Jake from the undiscerning
spread again over his lantern features. In sudden shame at being caught
by himself in such softness, he turned furiously upon the engineer.
"What are you grinning at?"
The man was not. He was far too much afraid. But though he asserted his
seriousness with profuse apologies, it made no difference to Jake.
"The trouble with you, Alberto, ain't that you Mexicans are a dirty,
lying, thieving, murdering lot so much as you're too plumb ignorant to
know your betters when they chanst around. In that brown pudding you
call a face there ain't a gleam to show you're sensible of the honor
you've jest been paid. You don't know it, Alberto, an' you probably
never will, but take it from me that if you was president of this rotten
country 'twouldn't come near it. If I don't blow the top of your head
off during the next hour--which I likely will--you'll be able to tell it
to your descendants that a white girl once rode in your cab. If they're
smart they won't believe you. But it's the closest to fame you'll ever
get, so play it for all it's worth. Now listen, Alberto"--he shook his
finger in the engineer's frightened face--"if you ever expect to hand it
down to them descendants aforesaid, cut out them grins and get down to
business."
Delivered in English, the harangue flew high over the Mexican's head.
But it did Jake lots of good. Having, as it were, palliated his shameful
emotions, he followed his own advice and turned to the business in hand.
"How far is that enjine, Alberto?" He poked the question in with his
gun.
"Five miles, señor."
"Jest an enjine?"
"No, señor, it rides too steadily. It draws two cars; no more or it
could not take the grade at this speed."
"How long afore they catch us?"
"Ten more miles, señor. They travel two to our one."
"All right, slow up a bit."
With hollow clank of drivers the mogul moved on at slackened speed until
less than half a mile intervened. It was running, of course, reversed,
and across the intervening space the headlights stared. When, obedient
to Jake's order, the throttle was thrown wide again the two engines ran
like giant insects through the night, one in chase of the other,
thundering across bridges, whizzing around curves, shooting through
cuts, chimneys spitting smoke and flame, headlights flashing defiance
like fiery eyes.
All the while Jake timed the distance. "Cut her off a notch," he ordered
when the mogul began to gain. "I wanter draw 'em on as far as I kin."
But out of the dim smoke that trailed behind the pursuing engine broke,
just then, a series of red flashes in furious staccato. The drumming
reports were drowned in the roar and clank of the racing engines; but
the hail of bullets that rattled and glanced from the mogul's side was
unmistakable.
"Machine-guns!" Jake exclaimed. "Chuck her into high, Alberto!" As,
under a full head of steam, the engine picked up and ran through the
night like a frightened girl, he added: "Sheer accident, they hit us,
anyway. They kain't do it again."
Proving his words, the next burst of firing went wide. Only one bullet
struck the cowcatcher, and, leaping like a horse from the spur, the
mogul launched in dizzy flight down grade; had drawn two miles ahead by
the time she took the next sharp curve.
"Hold her at that," Jake ordered.
But again he had failed to reckon with the wires, which, after blocking
their advance, now cut off retreat. Shortly thereafter came a flash of
light as the engine shot from a cut through the first of the series of
stations they had passed on their way up.
In accordance with the inscrutable law which governs the location of
Mexican stations, it stood a half-mile from the little adobe town that
dragged its unclean, brown skirts across the tracks. If the inhabitants
thereof had been content to obey telegraphed orders to build an obstacle
and let it go at that, the mogul would probably have gone into the ditch
without a second's warning. But, desiring to see the smash, they had
lighted a huge fire alongside the tracks, and under its glare the pile
of ties, earth, and stones stood out plain as by day. Wheels grinding,
blue sparks shooting from the sanded rails, the mogul stopped within a
hundred yards.
After he had closed the throttle and thrown on the brakes the engineer's
eye had gone to the cab door. Then it switched to the ugly, black muzzle
of Jake's gun. Releasing the brakes, he reversed and opened the
throttle.
A sputter of musketry had followed the first yell of disappointment that
went up from the rabble of _peon_ watchers. Fired from ancient pieces,
however, the bullets fell short or rebounded like peas from the mogul's
sides. Picking up her stride, she outran their feeble pursuit in a
hundred yards.
It was then that the engineer's voice rose in protest: "But, señor, we
shall run into the other train! Mira! Mira! it is now only a mile away!"
Jake's eye measured the distance. Then, in dry soliloquy that, even if
it had not been couched in English, would still have gone over the
other's head, he spoke. "Do you know what a maquina loca is, Alberto?
You don't? You s'prise me." Scared out of his small wits, the poor devil
had not even answered. "It's the one great invention your pais has
produced. 'Twas first used by Mr. Orozco shortly after he graduated from
a mule's tail to be commander-in-chief of Madero's army. He designed it
for the extirpation of Huertistas that got to tagging after him like
these gents is trailing us. 'Twas very simple. He'd load up half a ton
of dynamite on an enjine cowcatcher an' turn her loose with the throttle
wide open jest where she'd catch a troop-train in a blind cut. Mighty
effective, it was, too. Some o' them Huertistas was so elevated above
their normal they hain't finished raining down yet. Of course we're shy
on the dynamite. But a forty-ton mogul careering along at sixty miles an
hour ain't to be despised. Anyway, we'll try it. At this gait we orter
catch 'em in the cut beyond the station. Hit her up."
While talking he had not been idle. First he laid his rifle by the cab
door, ready to jump; then slipped over his head and shoulder the
bandoliers of cartridge-clips Gordon had left for him. Meanwhile the
Mexican's frightened glance swung between him and the tracks which were
slipping faster and faster under the mogul. Beyond the station a faint
glow, reflection from its headlight, marked the entrance of the
_revueltosos'_ train into the cut. In his mind the engineer's horror,
burning, mangling, scalding, fought for supremacy with his fear of
Jake--and won. Selecting the moment that the latter's two hands were
engaged with the bandoliers, the engineer crossed the cab in one leap
and plunged down and out.
"You son of a gun!" Grabbing his rifle, Jake jumped after.
But in the few seconds that elapsed between their leaps the mogul
carried Jake a hundred yards. A second to a bump and each roll as he
struck rebounded and turned over and over lost more time. A few more
were required before he picked himself up. Then his glance went after
the mogul, now shooting like a comet toward the cut from which the
_revueltosos'_ train had just emerged. In the glare of the headlights
each vividly illuminating the other, like two dragons breathing fire and
smoke, they flew at each other's throats.
Came a yell! a crash! Then darkness, hazy with steam, wiped out all but
screams and agonized curses.
"_God!_" It burst from Jake. "If Bull could on'y have been here!"
Both while in the air and rolling over and over he had an impression
that he must have jumped almost on top of the engineer. But now, looking
around, he became aware--first, that he was standing directly opposite
the station; second, of a dark figure in the lighted doorway; third, of
a flash, pistol-crack, of a bullet singing by his ear; lastly of a
baker's dozen of other dark figures rushing at him from all around.
In a pinch--how well Sliver and Bull had known it!--Jake could always be
counted upon to do the unexpected. Behind him stretched an open, moonlit
plain where he would be easily shot down or overtaken. Grabbing the bull
by the horns, he rushed straight at the figure in the doorway. Into its
dark midst went the butt of his rifle. Bang! he slammed the door, a
heavy, three-inch affair of oak that fitted against stone jambs and
lintels; was secured by iron swing-bars. As he dropped these in place
the panels quivered under the impact of many shoulders. Leaving the man
he had overthrown writhing and holding his middle, Jake crossed quickly
to the window.
In readiness for just such contingencies, its iron grill had been set
out six inches to permit a raking fire along the wall, and shooting at
ten feet into the convulsive movement at the door Jake's first shot
dropped a man. As the others dodged around the corner a yell told of
another wounded.
A smaller window commanded that side, and, crossing over, Jake raked the
fugitives in their flight with a galling fire till the last dim figure
disappeared in the brush. Then, after he had noted with satisfaction
that the window rose high above the ground, he turned to his captive,
who still lay groaning on the floor.
"Git up!"
Steel eyes and ugly pistol muzzle enforced the order.
The man, a fat Mexican with a yellow, bilious face and small, beady
eyes, arose. "If you will only let me live, señor--"
"Shut up!" Jake cut him off. "You're the station agent?"
"Si, señor!"
"What's in those boxes?"
"Powder, señor, giant powder that was brought in by revueltosos from a
gringo mine. It is to be shipped on the train to-morrow to Valles, who
will have it made into bombs for use in his trenches."
"Thought so." Jake grinned at the pile of boxes. "'Tain't no trick to
tell gringo dynamite. The markings fairly scream, 'Made in America!' So
Valles is going to make bombs of it? Well, well!"
"Señor, you will--"
"Now, Alberto, cut that out." Having thus transferred the cognomen from
the engineer to his present captive, Jake went on. "That precious
existence o' yourn depends altogether upon your paisanos outside. The
longer I hold 'em off the longer you live. Get it? Bueno! Now trot over
to the window. The second you see any one--yelp! If you don't--" He
tapped his gun significantly.
The agent thus placed, he looked around the room, The blackened stone of
the walls told that it had already been burned in one or other of the
revolutions. He grinned again, noting that the original roof had been
replaced with laminated iron. "Kain't roast us out, anyway, Alberto."
On the rough table a one-wick lamp shed light over the usual litter of a
small freight-office. These days there was little real business. Only a
few barrels and bundles stood with the dynamite against the back wall.
Crossing the room, Jake pried off the lids, then, while the agent
watched him with fearful eyes, he carried and piled the boxes in a solid
block close to the table. That done, he returned to the larger window.
Beyond the tracks the plains ran off and away under the moonlight.
Northward a cloud of steam hung over the cut, cloaking the salvage of
dead and wounded from the wreck. From it issued an occasional cry,
command, mutter of voices. Raising his rifle, he sighted into the midst,
then dropped it again.
"'Tain't square, shooting wounded." But there was no pity in his eyes.
His mouth drew into a hard grin as he muttered: "I'd like to know jest
how many I got! Must have been a tidy mess. Well, well! look who's
here!"
It was a bullet that had flattened against the stone lintel. His quick
eye had picked the flash out of a bunch of chaparral a couple of hundred
yards away, and he searched the patch with sweeping muzzle emptying the
chamber along its front. Then he waited. But came no answer.
"Afraid I've spoiled another of your colleagues." He turned to the
agent. "They ain't very keen, anyway. You Mexes like a sure thing. It's
a cinch they're not a-going to try anything till the moon goes down, an'
I simply kain't waste any more of my valuable time on them. You kin keep
watch, Alberto."
Seating himself at the table, he produced the pack he always carried and
laid out the first cards in a game of solitaire. As he played game after
game Jake's brow puckered, the corners of his mouth loosened and
tightened again in accordance with the fluctuations of his luck. He
could not have been more interested, absorbed if, instead of playing
with fate on the edge of the grave, he were cleaning out cowboys in a
frontier bunk-house.
In the eyes of the Mexican, watching fearfully, the cold, grim face
loomed in the yellow lamplight, a mask of terror. Yet his fright held
him the more closely to his work. Not a leaf stirred in the brush, puff
of dust raised under the night wind, without his notice; and while he
watched the darkening plains one second, the grim, hard face under the
gold of the lamp the next, Jake played steadily on, played till, having
compassed her circle, the moon rolled down to the horizon and hung
poised, a huge silver ball, on the tip of a far-off peak.
Rising, then, he walked to the large window, threw the shutters and
looked out over the plains, dim and mysterious in the fading light. A
stir of movement, buzz of voices, told of the attack that was preparing
in the chaparral behind the station. The hard line of his mouth curled
in derision, but as his gaze traveled northward to where the black peak
now pierced the bright face of the moon its contempt faded.
Lee's face, whitely anxious for him, was in his mind, the thrill of her
arms around his neck, when he murmured, "On'y thirty miles to the
border, a clean getaway."
Ranging southward again, his glance brought up on the dim, dark range
that marked Sliver's last stand. Once more Jake saw him lying, face
turned up, among the rocks. But the vision brought no grief. His small
nod expressed merely approbation. Till the moon went out and darkness
settled over the plains he stood there, thinking; stood till, with a
sharp ping! a bullet whistled past his ear. Then, after closing the
shutters, he returned to the table--not any too soon; for as he sat down
and picked up the cards came the crash of a volley fired at short range,
the splitting and splintering of bullet-pierced shutters.
Through all, as a rat in a corner might watch a cat, the agent had
watched him with deadly fascination. From the north window where he
stood it was but a step to the door. Apparently Jake did not notice him
take it, for he did not look up--even when the agent's hand touched the
upper bar.
"If I was you, Alberto, I'd come away from there."
The agent froze. But Jake had spoken in English. The hand went again to
the bar, was slowly lifting it when, following a second splintering
crash, he fell forward on his face with a hollow cough.
"Through the lungs, I reckon." Jake looked down at the gross body,
writhing in its death agony. "I told you to keep away, Alberto."
The man's last convulsive clutch had swung the upper bar clear of its
sockets, but Jake did not move. The lower bar still held and, standing
up, he watched the oaken panels quiver and split under heavy blows. With
rhythmic regularity came the crash of volleys fired point-blank into the
shutters. Bullets, too, were spitting through the side window--to strike
and flatten on the opposite wall. Over all, above the crash of
rifle-fire, thud of the beam they were using on the door, rose the roar
and howl of a blood-mad _peon_ rabble.
"The hull town has come to the funeral," Jake muttered. "Well, they'll
see some wake."
As the door crashed in he stooped and blew out the light. Darkness fell
through the room--darkness that pulsed with convulsive movement. Over
the body of the agent the leaders tripped and fell. Upon them others
piled in a heap, yet under the pressure of the howling crowd outside
still others streamed in. Above the oaths, curses, mad howls, rose yells
for some one to bring a light.
Presently it came, a piece of engine waste soaked in alcohol at the end
of a stick; and when it did, the rolling eyeballs, furious faces,
vicious mouths, stood out for a second, writhing in murderous lust, then
set in sudden horror.
For the bluish flare fell full on a grim figure, tall, lean, topped with
a hard face, steel-point eyes. The muzzle of Jake's gun touched the top
layer of powder. Cold, weird, satanic, he must have loomed in their
vision as the Evil One in whose existence they all believed. Paralyzed
by the impending doom, some stood staring. Others, screaming hoarsely,
fought in vain to beat back through the crowd. Till the last moment,
yes, till one hardier scoundrel raised a gun, Jake held them in torture,
then--
Both shots were wiped out by the tremendous explosion whose thunder and
red sky-flash were heard and seen by Bull fifteen miles away.