[Illustration: MR. CONLISK, WHO WAS THE CONDUCTOR OF THE TRAIN AT THE TIME
THIS ADVENTURE HAPPENED.
_From a Photograph._]
Much of the history of railroading in Western America reads like a chapter
from some “penny dreadful,” but none of the thrilling pioneer episodes
surpasses in dramatic interest an incident which occurred a few years ago
on one of the regular passenger trains of the Denver and Rio Grande.
The principal surviving actor in this singular tragedy is John Conlisk,
who has now retired from active railroad service, and is at present living
quietly at 2,717, Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, California.
At the time of our story--March, 1892--Mr. Conlisk was a passenger
conductor on the Denver and Rio Grande, running between Ogden, Utah, and
Grand Junction, Colorado, making his home in the Utah city. This brief
introduction is sufficient, however, and the rest may be narrated just as
he told it to the writer recently.
* * * * *
The morning was crisp and clear and promised a bright March day. Shortly
after two o’clock I was on the platform at Grand Junction waiting for No.
7, which I was to take back to Ogden. She came in on time, the few
preliminaries attending the exchange of crews were finished as usual, and
at three I was ready to go, when the conductor for the other division ran
across the platform to me.
“Jack,” he said, “there’s a Chinaman in the ladies’ wash-room in the
chair-car. He’s been in there two or three hours, and we can’t get him
out. He’s in an ugly temper, and you may have trouble with him. If I were
you I’d call the station officer.”
So I started on a hunt for that person, but he was not to be found
anywhere, and after delaying the train two or three minutes I concluded to
settle the matter with my own crew and passed the signal to the engineer.
As we swung on board I spoke to my head brakeman, a young fellow named
James Genong.
“There’s a Chinaman in the ladies’ wash-room in the chair-car,” I told
him. “He’s locked himself in, for some heathen reason or other, and I wish
you’d see if you can get him out without making any disturbance.”
I had a heavy load of passengers, probably two hundred in all, and after
making my rounds, of course not disturbing the people in the sleepers, I
went into the coach just ahead of the chair-car, and, with my train-box
before me, sat down to count my tickets.
I had hardly finished my work when the door flew open, as though hurled by
a violent gust of wind. Jim was behind it, with a pale, excited face. “Got
a gun about you?” he asked, in a hoarse, frightened whisper.
“Why?” I asked, in astonishment.
“That Chinaman’s stabbed me!” he replied, looking furtively over his
shoulder.
“Jim,” I said, getting up at once, “this thing may be serious, but it
can’t be settled by indiscriminate shooting in a train-load of passengers.
We’ve got to find another way.”
I must here interrupt my story for a moment to tell you what had actually
happened. Jim, thinking the Celestial an easy conquest, started after him
before the train was fairly under way. In those days chair-cars carried
the time-honoured stove and wood-box, and the brakeman, putting one foot
on the edge of the latter and the other on an opposite ledge, peered down
over the transom and ordered the Chinaman to come out in language that
admitted of no misinterpretation. And the Chinaman _did_ come out, ducking
fairly under Jim in his elevated position. As he ducked he slashed upward
with a great curved hunting-knife. The slash caught the white man on the
inside of the thigh, producing a wound that bled profusely and probably
gave a deal of inconvenience, but which was not really dangerous.
Seeing Jim streaming with blood, and believing that the yellow man was
actually running amok, I started for the door, first telling the
passengers in that car to lie down on the floor if they heard any shooting
going on beyond.
The train was making good speed, but as I stood on the platform I could
hear the culprit jabbering about, “Fiftleen hundled dolla! Me got plenty
monee!” He commanded his end of the car, from which practically all the
passengers had retired panic-stricken. The only exceptions to the general
decampment were a fine-looking young chap from Bunker Hill, Illinois, who
sat in a forward chair reading a book, and an army officer’s wife with a
little baby, bound for Salt Lake City--in the seat opposite. These were
directly under the Chinaman’s eye, and whenever they attempted to move he
waved them back with a ferocious gesture of his great glittering knife.
Going to the door, which was locked, I rapped sharply on it with my
ticket-punch. I had no revolver with me, but I hoped to distract his
attention. And I did! Turning, he saw me, and with his face distorted with
an expression of the most hideous savagery he drew back his arm, and sent
it and the knife through the glass, clear to the shoulder, the blade just
missing me!
Without more ado I pulled the bell-cord and ran into the forward car,
where I borrowed a big Colt’s revolver from a cowboy I knew. Then,
returning to the platform, I waited until the train had almost stopped,
and dropped to the ground, catching the rear platform of the chair-car as
the wheels ground down to their final revolution.
The frightened people were packed so densely against the door that I had
to fight my way in, and then through them. The Chinaman, with his two
quiet prisoners, had the whole front end of the car to himself. I called
to him, exhibiting the pistol.
At the sight of that gun the most awful frenzy blazed in his eyes. He was
a big fellow, and now, with the greatest deliberation, he rolled up his
wide sleeves, disclosing a tremendous pair of arms, covered with heavy
black hair. He looked like a typical Boxer on the war-path.
Then he started in my direction, but in a moment changed his mind about
leaving a foe in his rear, and with the most calculating, revolting
cruelty that I have ever seen swirled his great blade down over the seated
boy’s head, and plunged it to the hilt in his body. Women shrieked and
fainted, and I felt myself all but falling.
Raising my revolver I fired, and the ball broke his legs under him. He
fell, and the army officer’s wife, with a terrible shriek, raised her baby
to her shoulder and started down the car.
But in an instant the Chinaman was on his feet, wounded as he was, and
struck the woman an appalling blow over the shoulder. She dropped like a
stone--apparently stabbed to the heart.
I waited no more on the possibility of a high bullet glancing into the car
ahead, but fired straight at his heart. Even with the crash of my pistol
another sounded just behind me, and the yellow fiend fell headlong between
two chairs.
Someone went over and kicked him, but the body gave no sign of life, and
we devoted our attention to the unfortunate young man, who now lay huddled
in a pathetic and bloody heap in his seat.
Others crowded around us, and at length I saw my cowboy friend
approaching. Just as he reached me I was stooping over the Celestial’s
first victim, in an attempt to raise him, when I heard the puncher yell,
in an agonized voice, “For Heaven’s sake, Jack, look out!”
I glanced backward, and there was that colourless, diabolical countenance
again blazing into mine. He was standing erect, and the knife was poised
for a blow which would have given me my quietus. As I looked, certain that
death was coming, I felt a wrench at my hip-pocket. It was the cowboy
tearing his revolver out of my clothes. Even as the knife descended, my
saviour jammed his weapon squarely into the Chinaman’s ear--and fired.
The big bullet, at that distance, almost tore his head to pieces. Blood
was spattered over all of us, in the most sickening way that could be
imagined. Hating to touch the body, we pushed it under a seat and turned
our whole attention to the wounded.
[Illustration: “EVEN AS THE KNIFE DESCENDED, MY SAVIOUR JAMMED HIS WEAPON
SQUARELY INTO THE CHINAMAN’S EAR.”]
The officer’s wife, strangely enough, had not a scratch on her. She was in
a dead faint, but both she and the child were practically uninjured. The
explanation of her escape seems to have been that the Chinaman’s wrist
fell with full force on the baby, thus preventing the knife from doing any
damage to either.
The poor boy, though conscious, was plainly mortally wounded. He made no
complaint, and smiled faintly as we carried him back to a vacant berth in
one of the Pullmans.
About daylight, at one of the longer stops, several of the passengers
dragged the murderer’s horribly-battered body forward to the baggage-car.
They did not carry him, but dragged him, and, as it was in the spring, the
road-bed was very muddy. When the body reached the baggage-car the
features were absolutely hidden in a combined coating of dried blood and
slime.
Then, as we got under way again, a physician on the train, with myself and
others, searched the remains. The dead man had on two pairs of trousers,
and, sewn inside his shirt, fifteen hundred dollars in greenbacks. In his
purse he had a first-class ticket from Pittsburg to San Francisco and,
what was still more singular, a paid-up life insurance policy for five
thousand dollars in favour of one Ah Say, of Evanston, Wyoming.
We rolled the body into a corner and looked over his few effects.
Presently one of the men, who was sitting on a trunk facing us, gave a
peculiar gasp and turned as white as blotting-paper. His eyes were fixed
staringly on something behind our backs. We turned with one accord.
The supposedly dead Chinaman--a Chinaman with a body as full of holes as a
sieve--was sitting up! I cannot convey in words the indescribably hideous
effect of that face, caked as it was with gore and filth. Only a ghastly
red crack of mouth was visible, grinning in demoniac vacancy, and two
burning black slants which indicated his eyes.
The doctor was the only man who had his nerve in that excruciating moment.
“Well, John, how d’you feel now?” he said, speaking in a tone that was
even jocular.
The Chinaman did not deign to answer, but first felt carefully all over
himself. Then he put his hand to what should have been his trousers
pocket, and at length ran his fingers violently around the place in his
shirt from which we had taken his greenbacks. That frightful malevolence
came back into his eyes, and, never taking those snaky optics from our
faces, he began to hitch painfully across the floor towards a stand in
which were kept guns for emergency use, in case of train robbery. To me,
his actions seemed like those of some dreadful automaton. Every man of us
watched him--held motionless, as a rattlesnake holds its victim, by the
spell of terror.
Slowly, painfully, he progressed. He gained inch by inch, and at last was
almost within reaching distance. He stretched out his arms to the guns,
and partially rose; then he fell over stone-dead--dead this time for good
and all.
The doctor examined him, and reported his survival to be due to opiates,
which he had taken in enormous quantities.
At Salt Lake City I received an order from Mr. W. H. Bancroft, then
receiver of the road, to stop there with the crew, which included James
Donohue, engineer, and Charles Francis, fireman.
We arrived there about three o’clock, and the young man was still alive,
though fast weakening. In an ordinary conversational manner he told us
that his home was in Bunker Hill, Illinois, that his father was a banker,
and that, after leaving school, he had been sent on a Western trip before
assuming the business himself. Informed of his grave condition, he
expressed his best wishes for all of us, and went under the anæsthetic
with a happy smile. He died without ever returning to consciousness.
At the coroner’s inquest it was decided that the Chinaman had suddenly
gone insane from an overdose of opium, for, as the evidence showed, he had
been pleasant enough during the day, and had talked to several ladies in
the car, telling them that he had been recently converted to Christianity
and that he proposed to preach in San Francisco. After his burial expenses
had been paid, the balance of his money was forwarded to the Chinese
Consul in the city toward which he was bound.
There was an amusing sequel to the tragedy, though an exasperating one in
some ways. Some months afterwards the keeper of one of the
eating-stations, calling me to one side, inquired rather pointedly, “Have
you noticed that the Chinese seem to be afraid of you?”