Altogether the day had been a hugely satisfactory one to the young chief
engineer.
The first test had been made, and, all had passed off well, for, in Tom
Reade's easy-going, fearless mind the peculiar doings of George Ashby
did not figure at all as a part of the day's work.
“Harry, we've every reason to feel proud of ourselves” mused Tom aloud,
as he undressed in the shack that night.
“You feel pretty certain that we've conquered the Man-killer, do you?”
Hazelton asked, as he laid down the book he had been reading.
Of late, since the burning of the Cactus House, the chums had slept in
the shack, though still getting many of their meals in town.
“Oh, of course you know that we haven't won, the whole fight yet,” Reade
went on. “We've plenty of work to do here still before we pronounce
the job finished. But to-day's shows that our plan for filling in this
particular, kind of quicksand was a sound one. You know the president of
the road said that words failed to express his complete approbation of
our work.”
“We certainly have been remarkably fortunate--so far,” Harry admitted.
“Yet I must confess, Tom, that I'm still nervous.”
“Then it must be over Ashby,” Tom laughed.
“Ashby be hanged!” Hazelton retorted. “I haven't given him a thought
this evening. No, I'm still nervous about our job here. The first test
was all right--that is, it was all right to-day. But these quicksands
are treacherous. Our roadbed may be all right for a fortnight, and may
seem as safe as we could wish it to be. Then, all of a sudden, within
sixty seconds, it may sink before our very eyes. Suppose it were to sink
while a trainload of human beings was passing over it!”
“You might as well dismiss all such thoughts,” Reade counseled. “I tell
you, Harry, we've proved that our principle is sound. Now, we will go
ahead and finish the job. When we go away from here I, for one, shall
feel certain that the Man-killer must behave for all time to come.
Harry, there's a limit to the shifting tendency of a quicksand, and
to-day's test proves to me that we've found it. We've won. I wish I were
as sure of a dozen other things as I am that we've won out here to-day.”
“All right, then,” smiled Hazelton. “You're a smarter engineer than I
am, Tom, old fellow. If you're satisfied, then I'm bound to be, for I'll
back your judgment in engineering against my own.”
“That's rather more praise, Harry, than I expect or wish,” Reade
rejoined soberly. “But I don't see how the Man-killer can ever again
assert himself against the A. G. & N. M.'s roadbed.”
“Oh, I'm only an old croaker, I know,” Harry confessed. “I've got a blue
streak on to-night. Or else it's a fit of apprehension about something
or other. I feel as if--”
Crack! crack!
Outside two shots rang suddenly out, to be followed by a dozen swift,
scattering reports.
“Mr. Reade! They--” began a voice outside, then stopped abruptly.
Tom hustled on his clothing again with a speed that seemed to partake
of magic. Then, with Harry close upon his heels, he rushed to the door,
jerking it open.
“Just the pair we want!” snarled a voice that proceeded from behind a
mask.
A dozen masked men pressed into the room. Tom and Harry put their fists
into instant action, but it availed them nothing.
In a twinkling they were borne to the floor. At lightning speed both
were rolled over and bound.
From the tents of the laborers, beyond hoarse voices sounded as the men
were awakened by the shots.
“Get back there, you idiots!” commanded a voice outside. “If you don't,
you'll think that a Gatling gun factory has blown up about your ears.”
Reports rang out sharply as a dozen revolver shots were fired into the
air.
Now, dazed with the suddenness of the attack, Reade and Hazelton were
dragged into the open.
Their two night watchmen, who had gone down bravely, now lay wounded on
the ground, their weapons snatched from them.
“Hoist 'em along, boys,” ordered a gruff voice.
Tom and Harry were carried on the shoulders of men, and moved along at
a swift pace. Only half a dozen of the raiders needed to remain somewhat
in the rear, firing an occasional shot to prevent the unarmed laborers
from swarming to the attack.
“Hoist 'em up! Tie 'em on! Get under way quick! There'll be a big noise
raised after us soon,” declared the same directing voice.
Tom and Harry were fairly thrown upon the backs of horses, and there
lashed fast.
“Mount and get away,” ordered the commander of this strangest of night
raids.
Two men, each leading a pony to which a captive was lashed, rode off in
one direction. Groups of two or three rode away in other directions, the
blackness of the night swallowing them up.
It was going to be a difficult task for pursuers to know which direction
to take in order to come up with Reade and Hazelton in time to save them
from the fate that lay just ahead of them!
For audacity and dash the raid could not have been better planned.
From camp not a shot was fired, for the watchmen had had the only
weapons and these had been seized by the invaders.
“Our foremen might telegraph to camp,” thought Tom swiftly, as he felt
himself being carried away. “But I'll wager that these smart scoundrels
didn't forget to cut the wire before springing the raid.”
For the first two or three minutes Harry's, slower moving mind hardly
grasped more than the fact that their enemies appeared to have won a
complete triumph.
“There isn't much doubt as to what they'll do with us,” thought
Hazelton, with a slight shudder. “These rascals will move too fast for
pursuit to overtake them early. What they in intend to do with us can be
done in a very few minutes.”
Neither young engineer really expected to live to see daylight. From the
first, after having incurred the anger of a certain lawless element
in Paloma, the young engineers had understood fully that threats of
lynching them had not been idly made.
“There'll be a stir, though,” Tom Reade muttered to himself. “The A. G.
& N. M. officials won't let this crime go by without a determined effort
to bring the offenders to justice. Detectives will search this community
in squads, and everyone of these masked gentlemen is likely to get his
deserts.”
Within the next half hour the galloping horses had covered fully five
miles. Now the leader of the crowd led the way down into a deep gully in
the sand.
“Hold up, men,” ordered the leader, and the cavalcade came to a stop,
horses panting.
“Tumble the cattle off into the dirt,” was the next order, and it was
obeyed, Tom and Harry rolling in the bitter alkali dust.
“Now, gentlemen, I believe I will take command,” spoke one of the
party of horsemen, in his most suave voice, as he removed his mask. The
speaker, as Reade knew at once, was Jim Duff, the gambler.
“That's all right, Jim,” nodded the former leader.
“Jake, ride back a few hundred yards and keep a sharp lookout,”
suggested Duff blandly. “The pursuers may come in automobiles. We'll cut
the ceremonies here short and leave nothing but lifeless bodies for the
rescue parties to find.”
Stakes were driven and the horses picketed.
“Bring along our guests,” suggested Jim Duff, with a touch of humor that
the occasion rendered grisly.
Thereupon Tom and Harry were once more jerked to their feet.
“Ye can walk, I reckon, and don't have be toted,” observed one of the
scoundrels.
“We're wholly at your service, sir,” rejoined Tom mockingly.
“And equally at your pleasure,” Harry suggested dryly.
Two hundred yards further on the halted close to a pair of stunted trees
of about the same size.
“Gentlemen, you may as well remove your masks on this hot evening,”
suggested Jim Duff. The face coverings came off. Reade and Hazelton
surveyed their captors as the chance offered, being careful not to
betray too great curiosity.
“I see one gentleman here whom I had expected to find,” remarked Tom
quietly.
“Me?” hinted Duff.
“Well, yes; you, for one, but I refer to that excellent host, Mr. Ashby,
of the Mansion House.”
With a start George Ashby turned on Reade, coming closer and grinning
ferociously into the face of the young chief engineer. Tom, however,
managed to muster a smile as he went on:
“How do you do, Mr. Ashby? Your performance of this afternoon mystified
me a good deal. I had never expected to find myself on a shooting
acquaintance with you.”
Three or four of the rascals chuckled at this way of putting it, but
Proprietor Ashby snarled like a wild animal.
“As for you, Mr. Duff,” Reade resumed, “I confess that I have never been
able to understand you.”
“You will to-night,” smiled Duff, with bland ferocity. “I can promise
you, as a gambler, that I am going to give you a square deal.”
“Fine!” glowed Tom. “I am delighted to hear that you have reformed,
then.”
This' time there was a general laugh. Jim Duff flushed angrily.
“Reade, what you never understood about me is that I belong to the ranks
of the square gamblers.”
“I didn't believe there were any such gamblers,” Tom replied in a voice
of surprise. “It is still hard for me to believe. How can any man be
square and honorable when he won't work, but fattens on the earnings of
others? Has that idea any connection with honor?”
“Stop that line of talk, you young hound!” ordered Duff, striding up to
this bold young enemy. All the slight veneer of polish that Duff usually
affected had vanished now. His eyes blazed with rage as he doubled his
fist and struck Reade full in the face, knocking him down. One of the
bystanders jerked Tom to his feet.
“Speaking of the square deal,” Tom observed, “I now insist upon it.
Duff, you knocked me down when my hands were tied. If you're not a
coward I request that you order my hands freed--and then repeat your
blow if you dare.”
“You'll stay tied,” retorted Duff grimly.
“I knew it,” sighed Reade. “What's the use of talking about honor and
square dealing where a gambler is concerned? Loaded dice, marked cards
or tying a man before you dare to hit him--it's all the same to your
kind.”
“Shut up that talk, you hound, or I'll pound you stiff before we go
on with what's been arranged for you!” raged the gambler, shaking his
clenched fist in the face of the young engineer.
“Go slowly, Jim,” advised one of the men present. “Of course we know
what we're to do to this young pup, and we all know what he thinks
of you. But some of the rest of us have different ideas as to how a
helpless enemy ought to be treated.”
“You, Rafe Bodson!” snarled Duff, turning on the last speaker. “Are you
one of us? Do you belong to our side, or are you a spy for the other
crowd?”
“Got your gun with you, Duff?” inquired Bodson calmly.
“Yes,” snapped the gambler.
“Get it out in your hand, then, before, you talk to me any more in that
fashion.”
“He won't,” mocked Tom. “He doesn't dare, Bodson. Your hands are not
tied.”
“Cut it out, Rafe! Quit it!” ordered one of the other men in the crowd.
“We won't let this tenderfoot split our ranks. You're one of us, and
you'll stand by us.”
“Not if there's going to be any more hitting of tied men,” retorted
Bodson sulkily. “There's a limit to what a man can stand.”
“Thank you, my friend,” broke in Tom Reade mildly. “But don't go to any
trouble on our account. There are few if any others in this crowd who
can understand the meaning of fair play--the gambler least of all.”
“I'll take that out of you, Reade!” blazed Jim Duff. “I'll--”
“You'll do nothing while the kid's hands are tied,” objected Bodson,
stepping between the pair. “Act fair and square, Jim, as a man should
act.”
“That's the argument, Rafe,” remarked another man, also stepping
forward.
“Bully for you, Jeff Moore,” replied Rafe. “Now, remember, friends,
we're not calling for anything except that Jim Duff live up to the
program he just published for himself--the square deal.”
Several murmurs of protest came from the other raiders.
“I reckon, Rafe, you and Jeff had better step back and let the rest of
us handle this thing,” advised one of the party. “The pair of you are
too chicken-livered for us.”
“It's a lie, as anyone in Paloma knows,” Rafe retorted coolly. “No--put
up your shooters,” as the hands of five or six men slid to their belts.
“There's no need of bad blood between us. All I ask is for Jim Duff to
step back out of this.”
“Am I the leader here or am I not?” demanded Duff boldly. “Wasn't it my
interests that were first assailed by these fresh tenderfeet! Didn't you
gentlemen come out to-night, to help me attend to my affair? Didn't
you turn also to avenge the blow that has been dealt these cubs to poor
George Ashby's prosperity?”
At hearing himself so sympathetically referred to, Ashby threw himself
forward, a short, double-barreled shotgun in his hands.
“Yes, you, get back, you white-livered cowards!” commanded Ashby
hoarsely. “You let Duff and myself and the rest of us here handle these
young hounds as they deserve to be treated. You, Rafe and Jeff, get out
of this. You've no business here. You belong to the enemies of business
interests in Paloma. The rest of us will settle with these business
destroyers.”
Ashby's eyes glowed with the unbridled fury of the lunatic. Yet Rafe
Bodson did not waver.
“Gentlemen,” he demanded coldly, “for what purpose did you bring these
young fellows out here?”
“To lynch 'em!” came the hoarse murmur.
“Then go ahead and do it, like men,” ordered Bodson. “There are the
trees. You have your ropes, and your men are ready. Remember, no
cowardly treatment of young fellows whose hands are tied. Go on with the
lynching and get it over with!”