A SHOT FROM BEHIND
Mr. Schofield filed his affidavit before the probate judge without
delay, but, when the officer of the court went to look for Reddy, he
was nowhere to be found. From his wife it was learned that he had
not been home for two days, nor was he to be discovered in any of
his accustomed haunts around the yards or in the shops, and the
quest for him was finally given up in despair. Allan concluded that
Reddy had recognized him that morning, as he came out from under the
engine which he had tampered with, and knew that he was found out at
last; but, whether this was the case, or whether he had got wind of
the proceedings against him in some other way, certain it is that
Reddy disappeared from Wadsworth, and nothing more was seen of him
there for many days.
Word was quietly passed around among the trainmen to be on the watch
for him, as he was probably the one who had recently caused the road
so much annoyance; and this came to be pretty well proved in time,
for, with Reddy’s disappearance, the annoyances ceased, in so far,
at least, as they originated in the yards at Wadsworth. Out on the
line, indeed, they still continued,—switches were spiked,
fish-plates were loosened,—and then, of a sudden, even these ceased,
and everything ran as smoothly as in the old days. But this very
quiet alarmed the chief of detectives more than anything else had
done, for he believed it was the calm preceding a storm, and he
redoubled his precautions. Some of the officers were rather inclined
to laugh at his fears, but not the superintendent.
“You are right, Preston,” he said to the chief. “There’s something
in the wind. We’ll look sharp till after the pay-car gets here,
anyway. After that, if nothing happens, we can let up a bit.”
“When will the pay-car get here?” questioned Preston.
“I don’t know yet; probably the night of the twenty-fourth.”
“You’d better order a double guard with it, sir,” suggested the
detective.
“I will,” assented the superintendent. “More than that, Mr.
Schofield and I will accompany it. If there’s any excitement, we
want to be there to see it.”
The detective nodded and went away, while the superintendent turned
back to his desk. It had occurred to him some days before that an
attempt to hold up the pay-car might be the culminating point of the
series of outrages under which the road was suffering, and the more
he had thought of it the more likely it appeared. The pay-car would
be a rich prize, and any gang of men who could get away with its
contents would be placed beyond the need of working, begging, or
stealing for a long time to come. The pay-car, which always started
from general headquarters at Cincinnati, went over the road, from
one end to the other, every month, carrying with it the money with
which the employés of the road were paid. To Wadsworth alone it
brought monthly nearly two hundred thousand dollars, for Wadsworth
was division headquarters. Nearly all the trainmen employed on the
division lived there, and besides, there were the hundreds of men
who laboured in the division shops. Yes, the pay-car would be a rich
prize, and, as the money it carried was all in small denominations,
it would be impossible to trace it, once the robbers got safely away
with it.
Let it be said in passing that on most roads the pay-car is now a
thing of the past. Payment is now usually made by checks, which are
sent out in registered packages from general headquarters, and
distributed by the division officials. This method is safe and
eminently satisfactory to the road, but some of the employés object
occasionally because of the difficulty they sometimes experience in
getting their checks cashed immediately.
The road had never suffered any attack upon its pay-car, primarily,
no doubt, because it was well-known that there were always half a
dozen well-armed men with it, who would not hesitate to use their
weapons. In fact, every man, as he stood at the little grated
cashier’s window, waiting for his money, could see the row of rifles
in the rack against the wall and the brace of pistols lying upon the
desk, ready to the cashier’s hand. Besides, even if the car were
broken into and the money secured, the difficulty of getting away
safely with the booty was enormous. The road, for the most part, ran
through a thickly settled country, and the moment the alarm was
given, posses could be set in motion and the wires set humming in
every direction, in the effort to run the robbers down. So, with
whatever hungry greed would-be highwaymen had eyed the piles of
bills and gold visible through the little grated window, none of
them had ever dared to make a forcible attempt to gain possession of
them.
Perhaps no one would dare attempt it now, thought the
superintendent; perhaps he had been merely alarming himself without
cause. At least, the most effective defensive measure would be to
keep secret the hour of the pay-car’s arrival. If no one knew
exactly when to look for it, no attempt could be made to hold it up.
Such an attempt, at the best, would be foolhardy, and the
superintendent turned back to his work with a little sigh of relief
at the thought. In a few moments, immersed in the pile of
correspondence before him, he had quite forgotten his uneasiness.
Certainly, as day after day went smoothly by, there seemed less and
less cause for apprehension. The tramps were evidently making
southward, like the birds, before the approach of winter. And
nothing more was seen of Dan Nolan. A watch had been kept upon the
hut on the hillside, but he had not returned there, so the hut was
finally demolished and the tunnel in the cliff closed up. Every
effort had been made to discover his whereabouts, but in vain. The
detectives of the road declared that he was nowhere in the
neighbourhood; but Jack Welsh was, as always, skeptical.
Just east of Wadsworth, beyond the river, the country rose into a
series of hills, sparsely settled and for the most part covered by
virgin forest. These hills extended for many miles to the eastward,
and among them, Jack told himself, Nolan could easily find a secure
hiding-place for himself and half a dozen men.
“An’ that’s jest where he is,” said Jack to Allan one evening, when
they were talking the matter over. “That’s jest what Nolan’d love t’
do—put hisself at th’ head of a gang o’ bandits. He was allers
talkin’ about highwaymen an’ train-robbers an’ desperadoes when he
was on th’ gang; but we only laughed at him then. Now, I see it
would have been a good thing if I’d ’a’ taken a stout stick an’ beat
that foolishness out o’ him.”
“But Reddy,” said Allan; “where’s Reddy?”
“Reddy’s with him,” answered Jack, decidedly. “An’ there’s no
tellin’ what scrape that reptile’ll git him into. I dare say, Reddy
thinks Nolan’s his best friend. That’d be natural enough, since he’s
got to thinkin’ that all his old friends are his worst enemies.”
“If we could only find him!” said Allan, wistfully “and bring him
home again. The poor fellow will never get well if he’s left to
wander about like that.”
But there seemed no way of finding him. Allan was the last person
who had seen him. That was at the moment, in the early morning, when
he had slunk away from under the engine. Some warning of the search
for him must certainly have reached him, for he had never again
appeared at home. His wife, nearly heart-broken by the suspense,
imagining him suffering all sorts of hardships, yet went about her
work with a calm persistence which concealed in some degree the
tumult which raged within her. The children must be fed and cared
for, and she permitted nothing to stand between her and that duty.
The division offices had never been so clean as they were since Mrs.
Magraw had taken charge of them.
A day or two later, Allan fancied he saw something which proved the
truth of Jack’s theory. It was one morning as he was returning from
his regular trip that he reached the embankment along the river and
glanced over at the willows on the farther side, as he always did
when he passed the place, for it was there that he and Jack had
first seen Reddy in Nolan’s company. His heart gave a leap as he saw
two men there. He stopped and looked at them, but the early morning
mist rising from the river hid them so that he could discern nothing
beyond the mere outline of their forms. He stared long and
earnestly, until they passed behind the clump of willows and
disappeared from sight. Something told him that it was Reddy and
Nolan again, but he could not be sure, and at last he went slowly on
his way. Perhaps they had a place of concealment somewhere in the
woods that stretched eastward from the river-bank.
He mentioned his suspicion to Jack, as soon as he reached home, and
the latter was all on fire in a minute.
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” he said. “Next Sunday we’ll take a
walk through th’ woods over there, an’ it’s jest possible we’ll run
on to ’em. Mebbe we kin save Reddy from that rascal yet!”
So, bright and early the next Sunday morning, they started out,
taking with them a lunch, for they did not expect to return until
evening. They crossed the river by the bridge which they had used on
the night when they had tried to capture Nolan, and struck at once
into the woods.
“It’s like huntin’ a needle in a haystack,” said Jack, “but my idea
is that they’ve got a hut somewheres back in th’ hollers behind this
first range o’ hills. They’s mighty few houses back there,—nothin’
but woods. So mebbe we’ll run on to ’em, if we have good luck.”
They scrambled up the first low range of hills which looked down
upon the broad river, and paused for a moment on the summit for a
look about them. Beyond the river lay the level valley which, twelve
decades before, had been one of the favourite dwelling-places of the
red man. The woods abounded with game of every sort, and the river
with fish, while in the fertile bottom his corn would grow to ripe
luxuriance with little cultivation. More than one fierce battle for
the possession of this smiling valley had been fought with the hardy
bands of pioneers, who had pushed their way up from the Ohio, but at
last the advancing tide of civilization swept the Indian aside, and
the modern town of Wadsworth began to rise where formerly there had
been no building more substantial than the hide wigwam.
Jack and Allan could see the town nestling among its trees in the
wide valley, but, when they turned about, a different view met them.
To the eastward were no plains, no bottoms, no city, but, far as the
eye could see, one hill rose behind another, all of them heavily
wooded to the very summit, so steep and with a soil so gravelly that
no one had ever attempted to cultivate them. Nor did any one dwell
among them, save a few poverty-stricken families, who lived in
summer by picking blackberries and in winter by digging
sassafras-root,—a class of people so shiftless and mean and dirty
that no respectable farmer would permit them on his place.
It was the rude cabin of one of these families which Jack and Allan
saw in the valley before them, and they determined to descend to it
and make inquiries. There was a rough path leading downwards through
the woods, and this they followed until they came to the edge of the
little clearing which surrounded the house. They went forward to the
door and knocked, but there was no response, and, after a moment,
Jack pushed the door open cautiously and looked inside. As he did
so, a shot rang out behind him, and Allan felt a sudden sting of
pain across his cheek as a bullet sang past and embedded itself in
the jamb of the door.
“What’s that?” cried Jack, springing around, and then he saw Allan
wiping the blood from his cheek. “What is it, lad?” he asked, his
face paling. “You’re not hurted?”
“Only a scratch,” said Allan, smiling. “Just took a little of the
skin off.”
“Come in here an’ we’ll look at it,” and Jack half-dragged him
through the open door, which he closed and barred. “That’ll keep th’
varmint from takin’ another shot at us,” he said. “Now let’s see the
cheek.”
But not even Jack’s anxiety could make of the wound more than a
scratch. The bullet had cut the skin from the left cheek for nearly
an inch, and a little cold water, which Jack found in a bucket in
the house, soon stopped the bleeding.
“Who could it have been?” asked Allan, at last.
“Y’ don’t need t’ ask that, I hope,” cried Jack. “It was Dan Nolan!”
“Well, he didn’t hurt me much,” said Allan, with a laugh. “He
doesn’t seem to have very good luck.”
“No,” said Jack; “but if that bullet had been an inch further to th’
right, you wouldn’t be a-settin’ laughin’ there,” and a little
shudder ran through him as he thought of it, and he clinched his
hands as he imagined what his vengeance would have been.
“Do you suppose Nolan lives here?” asked Allan, looking curiously
around the room.
“No,” said Jack; “they’s one o’ th’ Waymores lives here, but I
wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he was in cahoots with Nolan. These
people’re just as much vagabonds as them that go trampin’ about th’
country.”
Allan looked again about the squalid room, and turned a little sick
at the thought of living in the midst of such filth and
wretchedness.
“Come, let’s get out of here,” he said. “I want some fresh air. This
is enough to turn one’s stomach.”
“I tell you,” suggested Jack, “suppose we go out th’ back door there
an’ sneak around th’ edge of th’ clearin’. Mebbe we kin come on
Nolan when he ain’t lookin’—and what I’ll do to him’ll be a plenty!”
Allan laughed at his ferocity.
“I don’t believe Nolan would stay around here,” he said. “He didn’t
know but what there were others with us. He probably decamped as
soon as he took that crack at me.”
“Well, it won’t do any harm t’ try,” said Jack, and try they did,
but no trace of Nolan was anywhere to be seen.
They went on through the woods, eating their lunch beside a limpid
spring which bubbled from beneath a rock in the hillside, and during
the afternoon pushed on along the valley, but met no human beings.
If it was indeed Nolan who fired the shot, he had taken to cover
effectually. Allan began to doubt more and more that it had really
been Nolan.
“It might have been a hunter,” he pointed out to Jack, “who was
shooting at something else, and did not see us at all. Such things
happen, you know.”
“Yes,” Jack admitted, “but that wasn’t what happened this time,”
and, when they reached home again, he went straight over to the
offices and related to Mr. Schofield the details of the morning’s
adventures. That official promised to put two detectives on Nolan’s
trail at once. They worked on it for two or three days, but, though
they even employed a bloodhound in the effort to run him down, all
their work was quite in vain. The man to whom the cabin belonged
said he had walked over to a neighbour’s that Sunday and had been
away from home all day. He denied all knowledge of Nolan or Reddy
Magraw, And the search ended, as all the others had done, without
finding a trace of either of them.
So the days passed, and the work on section went on in its unvaried
round. And even from day to day Allan felt himself changing, as his
horizon broadened. He had become a different boy from the diffident
youngster who had asked Jack Welsh for a job that morning a few
short months before. Work had strengthened him and made him a man;
he felt immeasurably older; he had gained self-confidence; he felt
that he could look out for himself in any emergency. He was playing
a man’s part in the world; he was earning an honest living. He had
gained friends, and he began to feel that he had a future before
him. He was going to make the most of every opportunity, for he was
ambitious, as every boy ought to be. He longed to get into the
superintendent’s office, where there would be a chance to learn
something about the infinitely difficult work of operating the road,
and where there would be a chance for promotion. He never spoke of
this to Jack, for such a thought seemed almost like desertion, but
he never passed the offices without looking longingly up at the
network of wires and signals. Sometimes, when some duty took him
up-stairs, he could hear the wild chatter of the instruments in the
despatchers’ office, and he determined to try to understand their
language.
Jack came into the section-shanty one morning with a sheet of paper
in his hand and a broad smile upon his face.
“I’ve got a Christmas gift fer y’, boys,” he said, and stuck the
notice up on the hook. They all crowded around to read it.
“NOTICE TO SECTION FOREMEN
“All patrolling of the tracks will cease on and after
December 25th next. This company deeply appreciates the
faithful service its section-men have given it, and will
endeavour to show that appreciation by increasing the
wages of all section-men ten per cent., to go into
effect January 1st.
“[Signed] A. G. Round,
“Supt. and Gen. Manager.
_“Cincinnati, Ohio, Dec. 18th.”_
“How’s that, boys?” asked Jack. “That’s a Christmas gift worth
havin’, ain’t it?” and he looked about from face to face, for he
knew what that increase of twelve and a half cents a day meant to
these men. It meant more food for the children, a new dress for the
wife,—a little more luxury and ease in lives which were hard enough
at best.
* * * * *
The weather had been cool and pleasant, but it changed as Christmas
drew near, and the twenty-fourth was marked by a heavy storm. All
the afternoon the rain fell in torrents, the wind blew a hurricane,
and—something rare for December—the lightning flashed and the
thunder rumbled savagely overhead.
Work was out of the question, and, after playing awhile with Mamie,
and telling her wonderful stories of Santa Claus and what he was
going to bring her that night, Jack Welsh mounted to his room to get
a few hours of much-needed rest. For his hours of patrol duty were
from nine o’clock to midnight, and this trying extra work was
beginning to tell upon him. With that characteristic unselfishness
which endeared him to his men, he had chosen the worst trick for
himself.
“I’ll be mighty glad when this extry work’s over,” his wife
remarked, as she busied herself with the dishes in the kitchen, “fer
all it pays double. There’s no use fer a man t’ kill hisself jest t’
make a little extry money. Jack’s purty nigh wore out;—just listen
how he snores!”
Allan looked up at her and laughed from the place on the floor where
he was helping Mamie construct a castle out of painted blocks.
“We’ll let him sleep as long as we can,” he said; and so it was not
till nearly eight o’clock that Mamie was sent up-stairs to call him.
They heard him get heavily out of bed, and, while he was putting on
his clothes, Mary trimmed the lamp and stirred up the fire, in order
that everything might be bright and warm to welcome him. And Allan,
watching her, felt his eyes grow a little misty as he saw her loving
thoughtfulness.
“Better hurry up, Jack, dear,” she called. “You haven’t much time t’
spare.”
“Comin’, Mary, comin’,” he answered, “as soon as I git this plaguy
boot on.”
“It’s an awful night,” said his wife, as he came sleepily down the
stair. “Do you have t’ go, Jack? Can’t y’ stay home on Christmas
Eve?”
“No, I have to go, Mary;” and he doused hands and face in a great
basin of rain-water. “It’s th’ last time, y’ know, an’ I ain’t
a-goin’ t’ shirk now. Maybe th’ pay-car’ll come through t’-night.
They promised us our pay this month fer Christmas, y’ know, an’ we
want to be sure that she gits here all right. To-morrow we’ll have a
great time, an’ they’ll be no more patrol duty after that.”
Mamie danced around the floor, for she had received mysterious hints
from Allan of what was to happen on the morrow, and her father
picked her up and kissed her before he sat down to the supper that
was on the table awaiting him. He drank his coffee and ate his bacon
and eggs with an appetite born of good digestion. Then he donned his
great boots and rubber coat.
“Now, don’t y’ worry, Mary,” he said, drawing his wife to him.
“There won’t a drop of rain git to me in this rig. Good-bye, Mamie,”
and he picked up the child and kissed her again. “Take good care of
’em, Allan.”
He rammed his wide leather hat down farther upon his head, made sure
that his lantern was burning properly, took up the heavy club he
always carried, and opened the door.
“Good-bye,” he called back, and in a moment had disappeared in the
darkness.