FIRST AID TO THE WOUNDED
Slowly, jerkily, the Time Freight began to gather headway as the big
Mogul pulled, hissing loudly, from the siding to the main track, the
ugly brown cars winding grudgingly after. This was before the days of
mile-long freight-trains with air-brakes and patent couplers. Over the
grades of the Transcontinental no engine yet had pulled more than
twenty "empties." There was ever the danger of breaking in two. In the
dim interior of the caboose the conductor, with Geordie Graham by his
side, was bending over a battered and dishevelled form. As the rear
trucks went clicking over the switch-points, the former sprang to the
open doorway to see that his brakeman reset and locked the switch, and
with a swift run overtook the caboose and swung himself aboard.
"I'll be up in a minute, Andy," cried Cullin to his aid, already
scrambling up the iron ladder for his station on the roof. "This poor
devil's battered into pulp and I can't leave him." And again he was by
Graham's side--Graham who, kneeling now and sponging with cold water
the bruised, hacked, disfigured face of the senseless victim, had made
a startling discovery.
Here, with his clothing ripped, torn, and covered with dirt and blood,
with one arm obviously broken and his head beaten, kicked, and cruelly
gashed--here, beyond a doubt, lay the man who nearly five years earlier
had been the one obstacle between him and the goal of his ambition, the
cadetship at West Point; here lay the son of the man probably most
prominent in the conspiracy against the absent shareholders of Silver
Shield; here, in fine, lay the almost lifeless body of the youth he had
seen spying upon their arrival at Denver--young Breifogle himself.
By this time the Mogul was grinding her way up the track, in determined
effort to land the Time Freight in the yards at Argenta before the
whistle blew for seven o'clock. It was a twelve-mile pull up-grade,
every inch of the way--twisting, turning, and tunnelling, as has been
said--and the caboose reeled and swayed from side to side as it rounded
the reverse curves and swung at the tail of the train. Cullin, lantern
in hand, had climbed to his seat in the lookout.
"I've got to be up here," he explained, "till we are through the
tunnels. Do what you can. I suppose sponging is all we _can_ do."
Graham nodded. He had stripped the leather-covered cushion from the
conductor's chair, and with this and a rolled coat made a support for
the senseless head. He had a fire-bucket of cold water, and even as he
plied the wet sponge and sought to stanch the trickling blood, his wits
were at work. The men on No. 4 had only time to say that four miles out
from Argenta, down the Run beyond Narrow Gauge Junction, their whistle
suddenly shrieked, the air-brakes were set with a clamp that jolted the
whole train, and they slowed down just enough not to knock into
flinders a hand-car that was sailing ahead of them, down-grade. "The
pilot hit it a lick that tossed it into the ditch," No. 4's crew had
explained, and beside it they had found--this.
And "this" it was now Geordie's task and duty to keep alive until they
could turn it over to competent hands at Argenta. "This," which others
failed to know, he had recognized. "This" it was for him to make known,
yet in so doing he might betray himself and the purpose of his coming,
and so undo every hope and plan he had made. There was no Toomey to
help him now--no devoted ex-trooper and friend to back him. Engineer,
fireman, conductor, and brakemen, every man of the crew had to be at
his post as the freight panted away up the winding mountain road. The
crew of No. 4 had searched the pockets in vain for a clew as to the
injured man's identity. Everything was gone. His assailants had seen to
that. Not a scrap had been found that could account for him. Even the
shirt "tab" bore no initials; the watch-pocket of the trousers bore no
name. The garments had been purchased ready-made and gave no sign.
Then there was another matter to be considered. Badly as he was
battered and bruised, the man was not dying. Graham knew how to test
the pulse, and its strength told him not to fear. The chances were that
his patient would return to consciousness before very long. Then
recognition of his grimy attendant would probably follow. Breifogle was
no fool, as Graham remembered, and a fireman's black cap and sooty
shirt and overalls would be but scant disguise.
And to carry out his plan it was essential that he should pass through
Argenta, reach Hatch's Cove and eventually the Silver Shield mine, and
reach this latter unknown and unsuspected. Toomey and he had hit on a
plan--once Toomey could succeed in getting word to Nolan. But that,
reasoned Geordie, might be impossible now in view of this new
complication--serious trouble at the mines, and "every man out at
Silver Shield."
If only he could see Toomey again for a moment! That was impossible.
Toomey's every muscle was needed to keep that fiery and insatiable
monster fed with fuel every rod of the way to Argenta. There was no
intermediate stop. There could be no signals--no sending of a message.
Half the distance had they gone, panting and straining, barely fifteen
miles to the hour. Broad daylight, and then the rejoicing sunshine, had
come to cheer and gladden and revive, and Cullin shouted inquiry, as he
bent down from his perch, and Graham nodded or shook his head by way of
reply. Swiftly and scientifically he kept up the play of the sponges;
shook his head to Cullin's suggestion of a little more whiskey--the
frontier's "first aid" for every kind of mishap. The pulse said there
was no further need of it, at the moment at least. And then, as they
rumbled over some resounding bridge-work and crossed the swift and
foaming Run, the train crept under the shadow of the cliff and
stretched away over a bit of open, undulating grassland, and then the
racket ceased for a while and it was possible, by bending down, to
catch the patient's breathing.
And it gave Geordie an idea.
The poor, bruised head was turning in restless pain; the puffed and
swollen lips were moving; the still unconscious man was muttering. Not
a word could Geordie distinguish. It was all guesswork. But, glancing
up at Cullin, he called: "He's trying to talk. Perhaps I can get his
name," and again inclined his ear and bent down over the luckless
fellow's face. "Yes," he said, loudly, so that Cullin could hear--"yes,
I understand.... Don't worry.... You're with friends.... Tell us your
name and home.... What? Try once again.... Bry--what? Oh, Breifogle?...
Yes. Argenta? That's just where we're going. We'll be there very soon.
Don't try to talk more now." And again the sponge was busily plied, and
then the grimy nurse glanced upward at Cullin, now shinning down from
his perch in the skylight. "His home's right ahead at Argenta.
Breifogle's the name."
"Breifogle!" shouted Cullin, aghast. "Why, that's the big brewer,
banker, mine-owner, and Lord knows what all--that owns half of Yampah
County and wants to own the rest. Could he tell who slugged him? Does
he know anything about it? Ask him."
Obediently Geordie put the question, but no answer came. "Seems to have
wandered off," he said. "Perhaps we'd be wise to worry him with no more
questions. If he's what you say, they'll be looking everywhere for him.
When did the men at Silver Shield go out?"
"Yesterday morning at ten o'clock, so they said on No. 4. There was a
pack of 'em come down to Argenta to get to the owners, they said. By
gad, they seem to have got _at_ one of 'em!"
A moan from the sufferer was the only answer. Graham shook his head.
"How soon can you make it?" he asked. "The sooner this man's in expert
hands the better 'twill be."
"Twelve minutes," said Cullin, with a snap of his silver watch-lid.
"_You_ seem no slouch of a handler yourself. Where'd you learn?"
"I lived with a doctor awhile," was the quiet answer. "He had to patch
men up occasionally." And Geordie could barely suppress the grin that
twitched the corners of his mouth. How strangely already his adventure
was faring! "I suppose after hammering him senseless they set him
adrift on that hand-car, hoping it would finish him and hide their
crime," he hazarded.
"Looks like it," was Cullin's short answer as once more he climbed to
his station.
Ten minutes later they were slowly trundling in among a maze of tracks
and sidings, with long trains of gondolas, coal-cars, and dingy-brown
freight-boxes on both sides. Cullin was shouting to invisible
switchmen, and presently the train came bumping to a stand. Another
minute and two or three early birds among the yardmen were climbing
aboard and curiously, excitedly, peering over Geordie's head. He never
looked up. Calmly he continued his sponging. Then Cullin's voice was
heard again. A stretcher was thrust in at the rear door. Three or four
men, roughly dressed, but with sorrow and sympathy in their careworn
faces, bent over the prostrate body. They seemed to look to Graham
for instructions.
[Illustration: "BIG BEN WAS BUSY WITH HIS OIL-CAN"]
"You know where to take him?" he asked. "All right, then, I'll leave
him with you." And before the station-master or other official could
come, Graham had seen his patient transferred to the stretcher, borne
forth into the sunshine and away to the passenger-room. Then, slipping
from the left rear steps, with the train between him and the building,
Geordie sauntered, softly whistling, up to the front again, and in five
minutes was helping Toomey at the cab.
It was not yet seven. Big Ben was busy with his oil-can. Three cars had
been cut out from the train and run to a platform close at hand. It was
high time they were off again, but the conductor was held in the
office, whither he had gone for orders, as well as to report concerning
their unsought passenger. Toomey was still angered against Cullin,
between whom and himself there was ever more or less friction, but
Geordie had begun to take a fancy to him. Cullin would never have said
what he did had he known the identity of Toomey's pupil, and Geordie
argued that Cullin's gruff and insolent greeting was in reality a
tribute to his powers--a recognition of the fact that he looked the
part he was trying to play.
With so very much at stake depending on Graham's remaining
unrecognized, with old Fort Reynolds only six miles ahead, and Silver
Shield only twenty-six farther, it would be foolish to become involved
in a squabble. But Toomey had been nursing his wrath. Big Ben was not
too fond of Cullin, and Geordie found that they were quite bent on
making trouble at first opportunity. In spite of the early hour an air
of excitement pervaded the station. Many men were idling about the
passenger platform, and here and there little groups could be seen in
muttered conversation. There was no laughter, no light-hearted chaff.
It was noted by both men in the cab, before Geordie rejoined them, that
as the injured man was borne on his stretcher across the yard into the
passenger station, these groups seemed rather to edge away instead of
crowding about in morbid curiosity.
No need to ask who or what they were. The pallor of the faces, so
startling in contrast to the healthy tan of the ranch folk or the
swarthy grime of the railway men--the mud-splashed boots and trousers
told their tale. They were miners to a man, and miners in ugly mood.
"The town's been full of 'em since noon yesterday," said a yardman to
Ben, in answer to his question. "They are here to see the Silver Shield
officers, and have been told they'd be up from Denver on No. 3. They
chased old Breifogle out of his office yesterday afternoon, and he's
been hiding ever since. Young Breifogle has been missing ever since
yesterday noon."
"That's him on the stretcher," said Big Ben, gloomily, for the news was
already flying round. "Cullin says he's about done for. This young
feller in here took care of him all the way up from Buffalo Butte. No.
4 picked him up down the gulch and put him aboard us there."
A long whistle was the only comment. At the first words spoken by the
yardman, a quick glance passed between the two young men on the
opposite, the fireman's, side of the cab. They could not see the
speaker, but they knew the voice. It was that of a former trooper of
the --th, another soldier who had sought to treble his savings at the
mines and had lost them all; then, too proud to return and "take on"
again, had found starvation-wages at Argenta.
"Stay here," whispered Toomey, "and keep sittin'." Then, wiping his
hands on a wad of waste, and with an affable grin on his face, he swung
over behind Ben and leaned out of the cab.
"Hullo, Scotty! Any of our fellers in that outfit?"
"Hullo, Toomey! None of 'em with _that_ gang, but there's three of 'em
came, and old Nolan's head of the whole caboodle. He's their cap' and
spokesman."
"Nolan! Nolan here?" cried Toomey, in great excitement, while Geordie
felt his heart beating hard.
"Nolan, as big as life and twice as wicked."