"Thrillers," as he called them, had always disgusted John. A book
wherein the hero overcame the villain by desperate means and won the
girl by a single stroke of manly dauntlessness was to him like so much
trash. Melodramatic plays he despised. Griffith's pictures were the only
ones in which he could tolerate a "staged" thrill.
It never came into his mind as he heard the whistle of the "Lark" flying
a mile a minute over the rails to what might be a horrible disaster that
here was a real "thriller" exceeding the imagination of any cheap
novelist, aspiring playwright or industrious scenario writer. Later when
he rehearsed in his mind what happened that night, he realized that in
fact truth was often stranger than fiction. Every newspaper man
eventually comes to the same realization.
In striking contrast to his feeling that minutes were hours a few
moments before, it seemed only five or six seconds before the headlight
of the oncoming train pierced through the darkness of the night. He felt
that it was coming toward them faster than any train had ever traveled.
A fear that there had been a mistake and that the engineer could not
possibly bring the heavy train to a stop before the locomotive wheels
struck the derailer seized him.
The detective was on his feet, rifle ready to be thrown to his shoulder.
Brennan leaped up and John saw that he held the automatic in his hand.
Then the sound for which they had so anxiously waited came up to them
from the track below. They could hear the brakes grinding and shrieking
against the wheels of the locomotive and the coaches.
The detective dashed through the brush, stumbling and falling almost
headlong as he pitched himself down into the gully. Brennan, John and
Benton were at his heels. John's right hand gripped the automatic Gibson
had loaned him.
There was a shot, a curse, another shot. Then it seemed to John a
thousand shots were fired. He saw the detective throw the rifle to his
shoulder and there was a spurt of flame after a quick aim. In a
descending circle he saw the flash of guns fired by the other detectives
coming down from the hilltop. He saw Brennan--and it surprised
him--shooting down into the gully "throwing" his shots in the cowboy
fashion he had read of.
He tripped and fell, the automatic flew from his hand. When he got to
his feet, slightly stunned by his fall, the shooting had stopped. He
ran into the pit of the gully at reckless speed.
He saw Gibson on his back on the ground, two men kneeling at his side,
tearing his shirt from his shoulder. He saw a crimson stain spreading on
Gibson's shirt. A few yards away he saw "Red Mike" spilled in a heap,
hemmed in by a ring of Gibson's detectives each with a sawed-off shotgun
pointed down at him.
"Where's that damned photographer?" Brennan demanded.
"Coming," they heard a voice shout and Benton was beside them, screwing
his camera into his tripod as he hurried forward.
"Gibson?" asked John, panting.
"He's all right--bullet scratch on the shoulder--that's all--he got 'Red
Mike,' I guess," Brennan answered in jerks.
John looked toward the train. The cowcatcher of the locomotive, which
stood panting like some frightened, trembling animal, was less than five
feet from the derailer! He saw the engineer of the train lift his cap
from his head and scratch his forehead with a finger as he contemplated
how close his engine had been to destruction.
Turning he found Gibson on his feet, pale and haggard, his hair tousled,
his arm bandaged to his side, posing in the center of a group of
detectives for Benton and his camera. The flashlight boomed and a
ghastly white light lit up the scene for the briefest fraction of a
second.
He followed Gibson and the detectives to where "Red Mike" lay sprawling
on the ground. Electric torches held by other detectives put the
desperado's prone figure in an arc of light.
Gibson looked down at "Red Mike" in silence.
The wounded man--John could tell that "Red Mike" was fatally
wounded--turned over on his back, groaning. His face, covered with a
stubble of red beard, was drawn in pain and his eyes seemed dulled.
Groaning again he lifted his head and his eyes fixed on Gibson.
"You ---- ---- ---- ----!" he snarled. "You crossed me, you ---- ----
---- ----!"
Then he dropped back into unconsciousness.
Six of the detectives lifted his limp body and, staggering under the
load, started toward the road and the automobile Gibson had driven. They
paused only long enough for Benton to snap another flashlight.
By that time the passengers--who, when the train pulled to a sudden stop
that was followed by a fusillade of shots, believed it had been halted
by bandits--had recovered from their confusion and were pouring out of
the coaches, swarming toward the locomotive. A stout woman, whose short
hair straggling to her bare shoulders indicated that she had been
preparing to retire, screamed and fainted into the arms of a little man
who struggled desperately to save her from falling to the ground. Benton
set up his camera on the track and his flashlight boomed again as he
made a photograph of Gibson standing beside the derailer, the locomotive
in the background.
With much pointing of fingers and nodding of heads it was whispered
through the crowd that Gibson was the man who had prevented the wreck
and shot "Red Mike," who had been rushed away to a hospital in the
machine in which he and Gibson had driven to the scene. Men and women in
various stages of dishabille, unconscious of their appearance, pressed
around him, shaking his hand. A girl threw her arms around his neck and
kissed him. To John it was strikingly similar to the scene of an averted
train wreck he had once inadvertently seen in a motion picture--if the
girl had been Consuello, dressed, say, in a neat and dashing riding
habit or some other altogether inappropriate costume.
A fat, white-haired man--typical bank president, John thought--wrote out
a check, using the cowcatcher for a desk, and handed it to Gibson with a
bow.
John, standing near them, saw the check was for $5,000.
"I cannot accept this for myself, sir," Gibson said. "I am a police
commissioner of the city of Los Angeles and if you will permit me to
make such disposition of it I will turn it over to some well deserving
charity."
"It's yours--do what you want with it," the fat man said. As he walked
away John thought that he was fully pleased with himself for having
given Gibson the check, that he had paid the man who had saved his life
in dollars and cents and what more could he do?
"Somebody give me a cigarette," he heard a voice plead and, turning, he
found himself face to face with Brennan.
"Quick, someone, that man has a weapon!" a woman shrieked.
John saw Brennan's automatic protruding from his coat pocket. Brennan,
who was talking to Gibson, did not notice him take the pistol from him.
"How did it happen, Mr. Commissioner?" Brennan asked.
"Come along, I'll tell you as we ride back to the city," promised
Gibson, who shook the hands thrust out in the path that was opened for
him as he walked through the crowd toward the road and the waiting
automobiles.
Returning to the city, Gibson told his story. "Red Mike," he said, did
not become suspicious until a second or so before the engineer applied
the brakes to the train and then his suspicion seemed born of instinct.
At the first sound of the screeching brakes, he said "Red Mike" shot at
him and he fired back.
"I was lucky--my first shot got him," Gibson said. "He went down, but he
continued firing. He was shooting wild and I wasn't half as afraid of
his shots as those my men were raining down from the sides of the hill.
"I hope," he said, with a touch of regret, "that 'Red Mike' doesn't die.
He's a bad one, as bad as they come, and should be put some place where
he can't do harm. I hope, though, that he recovers."
"He hasn't much to live for," Brennan put in.
"No," said Gibson. "He told me that he had been blacklisted by the
railroads because he was an I. W. W. Revenge was as much a part of his
motive in attempting to wreck the 'Lark' as robbery. I really believe he
might have got away with it if----"
"If you hadn't been there," John completed the sentence for Gibson.
"Thanks, Gallant," Gibson acknowledged. "Of course, boys, I'll have to
talk to the morning newspapermen when they find me, but you saw the
whole thing for yourselves and you've got the only pictures made out
there where it happened."
"The A. M.'s will get the break on the story, but we'll have the edge on
them at that," said Brennan. "It was too late, you know, for us to come
out with an extra unless you had permitted us to tell our city editor
what was coming off."
They left the automobile when it reached their office.
"I'm on my way home now to get this doctored up," said Gibson, inclining
his head to his bandaged shoulder. "I want a bath and a sound sleep. I
haven't had either since I met 'Red Mike.' Good night, boys, see you,
tomorrow."
As they went into the office to telephone P. Q. what they had seen and
what the [text not readable - some words missing] the first edition in
the morning, John, feeling certain of a different answer than those he
had received in the past, asked Brennan what he thought of Gibson now.
"He's got nerve, all right," Brennan said. "But----"
"But what?" asked John, wondering what possible criticism Brennan could
have in view of Gibson's display of courage.
"But," said Brennan, "he's a grandstander."
"A grandstander?" exclaimed John.
"You said it, after me," said Brennan. "A grandstander, a man who plays
to the crowd instead of playing the game for what it's worth."
A surge of exasperation went through John. Was this man incapable of
ever believing anything or in anyone?
"Good heavens, Brennan!" he said, hotly. "He risked his life, didn't
he?"
"I said he had nerve."
"He did it to save others, didn't he?"
"Others?" said Brennan sarcastically. "Others? Bosh! He did it to be a
hero, for public acclamation, for glory, for power. Others? Why, don't
you see that he risked the lives of all those others you say he saved
just to make himself a hero?"
Brennan's answer, the sarcastic way he gave it, maddened John.
"Ah, you make me tired," he said in his aggravation. "What do you want
to look at it that way for? You tell me to keep my faith in men, to
believe as much as I can, and then you talk this way."
Apparently ignoring what John said, Brennan telephoned to P. Q.
"Hello, P. Q.," he said. "This is Brennan. Gibson has pulled off a great
stunt, great story. The mornings' will have the break on it, but we have
the only pictures and lots of eye-witness stuff."
He proceeded to give what even John admitted to himself was an accurate
account of the attempt to wreck the "Lark" and how Gibson had saved the
train and "shot it out" with "Red Mike."
Hanging up the receiver he looked around to find John standing waiting
for him. Lighting a fresh cigarette from the butt of the one he had
finished he motioned to John to sit down.
"Now, Gallant, you listen to me for a while," he said. "You can believe
what I'm going to say or not, but I'm going to tell you a few things.
And don't get the idea I'm just talking for the sake of hearing myself
blatt.
"Hasn't it ever occurred to you that Gibson didn't have to go through
with this business tonight at all? When he discovered that 'Red Mike'
was going to try to wreck the 'Lark' he could have had him arrested
right then and sent him up for a good long stretch.
"He didn't have to let things go as far as he did. He could have stopped
it right there. Why, he actually endangered the lives of everyone on
that train simply to make a big show of it. There wouldn't have been so
much glory in it for him to have arrested 'Red Mike' when he found out
what he was planning to do.
"Sure, he had nerve. He did what few of us would want to do, even if we
were forced to. 'Red Mike' got no more than he deserved, but I can't
help thinking of him as something of a victim of Gibson's lust for glory
and power just the same. A really great man doesn't have to make a
display of his courage like Gibson did. A really great man would have
been satisfied by the realization that he had prevented a disaster
without endangering the lives of others.
"That's why I say Gibson is a grandstander, Gallant. Understand, when I
say he's a grandstander I don't mean that he isn't sincere in his
crusade to clean up the city. He's simply a grandstander in the way he
does things and that makes it impossible for him to ever be a truly big
man.
"Grandstanders often make good, but not in the way some of us would
like. Oftener they fall down, tripped up by their insatiable desire for
public acclaim. Full reward should be given to those who do big things,
but they shouldn't do them for the reward. They should work for the
satisfaction their accomplishments bring to themselves, within
themselves."
"I saw you shooting at 'Red Mike' yourself," said John.
"Certainly," said Brennan. "Don't think I class Gibson with criminals
like 'Red Mike.' It was either his life or 'Red Mike's' and what choice
was there? I confess, though, it was the excitement more than anything
else that made me shoot."
They were silent for a few minutes.
"Think it over, Gallant," said Brennan, rising and putting a hand on
John's shoulder. "I may sound like a cynic, but I'm not. There's one
thing that disgusts me more than anything else and that's selfish
hypocrisy. I look for the real things in life and I've been disappointed
so often that I frequently misjudge.
"Remember we're newspaper reporters. Whatever we think, whatever we
feel, about things must be kept to ourselves. It isn't our opinion that
people want to read. It isn't how things look to us, but facts, truth,
accuracy, that we must write. Opinions we must leave to the readers to
form for themselves and it is unfair to give them untrue impressions for
them to form their opinions from."
John carried Brennan's words home with him. Until he dropped off to
sleep he thought them over. Perhaps Gibson was a grandstander, a glory
seeker, after all--but was he to be blamed if what he sought above all
else was the admiration of one like Consuello?
Gibson's heroism in preventing the wreck of the "Lark" covered the front
pages and scattered throughout the inside pages of the morning papers.
The whole city talked of him. There were more resolutions of
commendation and he was termed the "fighting crusader," the "man of the
hour."
Spread across the front page was a statement issued by Gibson and
carried under the headline of "Gibson Hits at Police." In this statement
Gibson again condemned Sweeney as inefficient.
"If my detectives, working where Sweeney's men ought to be, had not
discovered 'Red Mike's' plot the 'Lark' would have been wrecked last
night, scores killed, the mail car robbed and 'Red Mike' would have been
over the border today," a part of the statement read.
It was a telling blow to the mayor and Police Chief Sweeney. Gibson was
sweeping everything before him. For the mayor or the chief to have
detracted from Gibson's act by hinting that he should have informed the
police and caused "Red Mike's" arrest without going through with the
plot to the point of assisting in placing the derailer on the track
would have been instantly resented as an embittered and ungrateful
move--a cry of "sour grapes."
During the day John received his first praise from P. Q., who called him
to his desk.
"Brennan tells me that if it had not been for you we wouldn't have been
in on Gibson's little party last night," the city editor said. "I told
you Gibson would be a man worth knowing. You're coming along
splendidly, Gallant. Just keep it up and practice writing. Read
Brennan's stuff and study how he does it. I'll give you all the chance
you want and there'll be a little more in your pay envelope this week."
John thanked him and hunted up Brennan.
"It was mighty kind of you to tell P. Q. that I've helped you," he said.
"Forget it," said Brennan.
"Your story had all the others beaten to death," he said, referring to
what Brennan had written of the attempted train wreck.
"Forget that, too," said Brennan.
Later in the afternoon he heard from Consuello. He was considerably
surprised when he recognized her voice.
"I do so want to thank you for what appeared in your paper about Mr.
Gibson," she said. "He tells me that it was the best account of what
occurred that appeared in any of the papers."
"I'm sorry," John confessed, "but it happens that I did not write a word
of it."
"Really? I thought--he said you were there----"
"I was, but you must remember I'm only a cub. I couldn't be trusted with
a big story like that. It was written by our star man."
"Wasn't it wonderful?"
"You mean what Mr. Gibson did?"
"Yes," before he realized he added, "and I have an idea that to hear
you say so means more to him than all that has been written."
"He has--been kind enough--to say--something like that."
Then she laughed.
"I suppose," she said, "he wouldn't care very much to have me tell you
such things. You wouldn't believe me if I told you that what he said
didn't please me, would you?"
"Well----"
"I won't insist that you answer that."
"You spoke of wishing to meet mother?" he ventured. "You were so kind
Sunday--could you--would you--visit us at home? It's not much but--it's
home, you know."
"I've been waiting for you to say that," she replied. "Make it whenever
you wish. I do want to meet your mother."
"Sunday--for dinner?"
"Yes."
"At three."
"At three," she repeated.
Mrs. Gallant rejoiced with him that evening over the increase in salary
P. Q. had promised him. She had learned of Consuello from the talks they
had each evening, when John recounted to her the events of the day.
"I'll do my best to make things nice for her," Mrs. Gallant said when
John spoke to her of having invited Consuello for dinner Sunday. "It is
so good of her to wish to meet me."
"Mother," he said, taking her in his arms, "no one can be a friend of
mine who is not a friend of yours."
"Not even Consuello?" she asked him, banteringly.