A CHANGE OF BASE
We did not reach Flagstaff till seven, and I told the stageload to
take possession of their car, while I went to my own. It took me some
time to get freshened up, and then I ate my breakfast; for after
riding seventy-two miles in one night even the most heroic purposes
have to take the side-track. I think, as it was, I proved my devotion
pretty well by not going to sleep, since I had been up three nights,
with only such naps as I could steal in the saddle, and had ridden
over a hundred and fifty miles to boot. But I couldn't bear to think
of Miss Cullen's anxiety, and the moment I had made myself decent, and
finished eating, I went into 218.
The party were all in the dining-room, but it was a very
different-looking crowd from the one with which that first breakfast
had been eaten, and they all looked at me as I entered as if I were
the executioner come for victims.
"Mr. Cullen," I began, "I've been forced to do a lot of things that
weren't pleasant, but I don't want to do more than I need. You're not
the ordinary kind of road agents, and, as I presume your address is
known, I don't see any need of arresting one of our own directors as
yet. All I ask is that you give me your word, for the party, that none
of you will try to leave the country."
"Certainly, Mr. Gordon," he responded. "And I thank you for your great
consideration."
"I shall have to report the case to our president, and, I suppose, to
the Postmaster-General, but I sha'n't hurry about either. What they
will do, I can't say. Probably you know how far you can keep them
quiet."
"I think the local authorities are all I have to fear, provided time
is given me."
"I have dismissed the sheriff and his posse, and I gave them a hundred
dollars for their work, and three bottles of pretty good whiskey I had
on my car. Unless they get orders from elsewhere, you will not hear
any further from them.
"You must let me reimburse what expense we have put you to, Mr.
Gordon. I only wish I could as easily repay your kindness."
Nodding my head in assent, as well as in recognition of his thanks, I
continued, "It was my duty, as an official of the K. & A., to recover
the stolen mail, and I had to do it."
"We understand that," said Mr. Cullen, "and do not for a moment blame
you."
"But," I went on, for the first time looking at Madge, "it is not my
duty to take part in a contest for control of the K. & A., and I shall
therefore act in this case as I should in any other loss of mail."
"And that is--?" asked Frederic.
"I am about to telegraph for instructions from Washington," I replied.
"As the G.S. by trickery has dishonestly tied up some of your proxies,
they ought not to object if we do the same by honest means; and I
think I can manage so that Uncle Sam will prevent those proxies from
being voted at Ash Fork on Friday."
If a galvanic battery had been applied to the group about the
breakfast table, it wouldn't have made a bigger change. Madge clapped
her hands in joy; Mr. Cullen said "God bless you!" with real feeling;
Frederic jumped up and slapped me on the shoulder, crying, "Gordon,
you're the biggest old trump breathing;" while Albert and the captain
shook hands with each other, in evident jubilation. Only Lord Ralles
remained passive.
"Have you breakfasted?" asked Mr. Cullen, when the first joy was over.
"Yes," I said. "I only stopped in on my way to the station to
telegraph the Postmaster-General."
"May I come with you and see what you say?" cried Fred, jumping up.
I nodded, and Miss Cullen said, questioningly, "Me too?" making me
very happy by the question, for it showed that she would speak to me.
I gave an assent quite as eagerly and in a moment we were all walking
toward the platform. Despite Lord Ralles, I felt happy, and especially
as I had not dreamed that she would ever forgive me.
I took a telegraph blank, and, putting it so that Miss Cullen could
see what I said, wrote--
"Postmaster-General, Washington, D.C. I hold, awaiting your
instructions, the three registered letters stolen from No. 3 Overland
Missouri Western Express on Monday, October fourteenth, loss of which
has already been notified you."
Then I paused and said, "So far, that's routine, Miss Cullen. Now
comes the help for you," and I continued--
"The letters may have been tampered with, and I recommend a special
agent. Reply Flagstaff, Arizona. RICHARD GORDON, Superintendent K. &
A.R.R."
"What will that do?" she asked.
"I'm not much at prophecy, and we'll wait for the reply," I said.
All that day we lay at Flagstaff, and after a good sleep, as there was
no use keeping the party cooped up in their car, I drummed up
some ponies and took the Cullens and Ackland over to the Indian
cliff-dwellings. I don't think Lord Ralles gained anything by staying
behind in a sulk, for it was a very jolly ride, or at least that was
what it was to me. I had of course to tell them all how I had settled
on them as the criminals, and a general history of my doings. To hear
Miss Cullen talk, one would have inferred I was the greatest of living
detectives.
"The mistake we made," she asserted, "was not securing Mr. Gordon's
help to begin with, for then we should never have needed to hold the
train up, or if we had we should never have been discovered."
What was more to me than this ill-deserved admiration were two things
she said on the way back, when we two had paired off and were a bit
behind the rest.
"The sandwiches and the whiskey were very good," she told me, "and I'm
so grateful for the trouble you took."
"It was a pleasure," I said.
"And, Mr. Gordon," she continued, and then hesitated for a
moment--"my--Frederic told me that you--you said you honored me
for--?"
"I do," I exclaimed energetically, as she paused and colored.
"Do you really?" she cried. "I thought Fred was only trying to make me
less unhappy by saying that you did."
"I said it, and I meant it," I told her.
"I have been so miserable over that lie," she went on; "but I thought
if I let you have the letters it would ruin papa. I really wouldn't
mind poverty myself, Mr. Gordon, but he takes such pride in success
that I couldn't be the one to do it. And then, after you told me that
train-robbers were hung, I had to lie to save them. I ought to have
known you would help us."
I thought this a pretty good time to make a real apology for my
conduct on the trail, as well as to tell her how sorry I was at not
having been able to repack her bag better. She accepted my apology
very sweetly, and assured me her belongings had been put away so
neatly that she had wondered who did it. I knew she only said this out
of kindness, and told her so, telling also of my struggles over that
pink-beribboned and belaced affair, in a way which made her laugh. I
had thought it was a ball gown, and wondered at her taking it to the
Cañon; but she explained that it was what she called a "throw"--which
I told her accounted for the throes I had gone through over it. It
made me open my eyes, thinking that anything so pretty could be used
for the same purposes for which I use my crash bath-gown, and while my
eyes were open I saw the folly of thinking that a girl who wore such
things would, or in fact could, ever get along on my salary. In that
way the incident was a good lesson for me, for it made me feel that,
even if there had been no Lord Ralles, I still should have had no
chance.
On our return to the cars there was a telegram from the
Postmaster-General awaiting me. After a glance at it, as the rest of
the party looked anxiously on, I passed it over to Miss Cullen, for I
wanted her to have the triumph of reading it aloud to them. It read--
"Hold letters pending arrival of special agent Jackson, due in
Flagstaff October twentieth."
"The election is the eighteenth," Frederic laughed, executing a war
dance on the platform. "The G.S.'s dough is cooked."
"I must waltz with some one," cried Madge, and before I could offer
she took hold of Albert and the two went whirling about, much to my
envy. The Cullens were about the most jubilant road agents I had ever
seen.
After consultation with Mr. Cullen, we had 218 and 97 attached to No.
1 when it arrived, and started for Ash Fork. He wanted to be on the
ground a day in advance, and I could easily be back in Flagstaff
before the arrival of the special agent.
I took dinner in 218, and they toasted me, as if I had done something
heroic instead of merely having sent a telegram. Later four sat down
to poker, while Miss Cullen, Fred and I went out and sat on the
platform of the car while Madge played on her guitar and sang to us.
She had a very sweet voice, and before she had been singing long
we had the crew of a "dust express"--as we jokingly call a gravel
train--standing about, and they were speedily reinforced by many
cowboys, who deserted the medley of cracked pianos or accordions of
the Western saloons to listen to her, and who, not being overcareful
in the terms with which they expressed their approval, finally by
their riotous admiration drove us inside. At Miss Cullen's suggestion
we three had a second game of poker, but with chips and not money. She
was an awfully reckless player, and the luck was dead in my favor, so
Madge kept borrowing my chips, till she was so deep in that we both
lost account. Finally, when we parted for the night she held out her
hand, and, in the prettiest of ways, said--
"I am so deeply in your debt, Mr. Gordon, that I don't see how I can
ever repay you."
I tried to think of something worth saying, but the words wouldn't
come, and I could only shake her hand. But, duffer as I was, the way
she had said those words, and the double meaning she had given them,
would have made me the happiest fellow alive if I could only have
forgotten the existence of Lord Ralles.