A CHANGE OF BASE
We did not reach Flagstaff till seven, and I told the stage-load
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 Forks 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 towards 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 Forks. 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 over-careful 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.