BAD NEWS FROM THE MINES
"A hold-up," muttered Toomey, as, obedient to Big Ben's orders, "Duck,
you two!" he and Geordie crouched for the moment in the dark interior
of the cab. But who would hold up a freight bound to, not away from,
the mines? Twice, thrice, indeed, since the cavalry had been sent from
Fort Reynolds, the overland express had been flagged between Argenta
and Summit Siding, and masked men had boarded the train, despoiled the
passengers and Pullmans; and once old Shiner had come under suspicion
because certain plunder was found at his place.
"The robbers are discharged soldiers," swore the sheriff of Yampah;
"their haunt is at Shiner's." Yet not so much as a scrap of other
evidence was there found. Shiner threw open his doors to the officers,
bade them search high and low, declared upon honor as he would upon
oath that he himself had found the damaging evidence--two pocket-books
and some valueless papers--on the open prairie a mile from his place
the day after the third of the "hold-ups." There had long been bad
blood betwixt him and the sheriff, and this time the man of the law
gave the lie, and but for prompt work of bystanders--deputy Shiners and
sheriffs both--there would have been cause for a coroner's inquest on
the spot. Before that day it had been avowed hostility between them;
now it was war to the knife. Much of this was known to the men of the
railway, who sided according to their lights. Few of them knew Shiner;
many knew the sheriff. It was patent at a glance that Big Ben held to
the views of the latter and looked upon Shiner's hand, or Shiner's
hands, as the cause of the hold-up. Nor was he entirely wrong. Even as
Cullin came running up the track from the rear of the train, and
brakemen running atop of it, eager to learn the cause of the stop, two
men with saddle-bags slung over the left arm stepped out from behind
the passenger depot and met the conductor half-way. Glancing back, Ben
caught sight of them and, pistol in hand, started to swing from the
engine, crying "Come on!" to Toomey. Springing to his feet, Toomey gave
one look back to the platform. His keen eyes danced with excitement and
joy. "Hold on!" he shouted to Ben. "It's all right. Lay low," he
whispered to Geordie. "It's Shiner himself!"
And old Shiner it was, cool, quiet, pale, resolute in face of a furious
conductor and a threatening crew--Shiner, presently backed by a
sergeant of regulars and two of his men, who had come running over the
foot-bridge at the stop of the train, and now silently ranged
themselves in tacit support. What Cullin had demanded was how Shiner
dared tamper with the signals--how, in fact, he had managed to, since
they had been carefully locked--and who was he, anyhow. And Shiner had
simply answered: "I've a boy shot and dying at Silver Shield. I only
heard it late in the night. There's no other way to get to him. I pay
full fare and all damages"--but he got no further, for Toomey came
atrot from the engine, threw himself upon him, and grasped his hand.
"What's the trouble, old man?" was the instant question.
And Shiner, turning, saw an old friend and beneficiary, and should have
taken heart at the sight. Instead of which, at sound of a sympathetic
voice, he who had been firm and fearless in the face of abuse and
opposition now wellnigh broke down. "They've killed--little Jack!" he
almost sobbed. "Thank God _you're_ here, Toomey!"
"Of course you'll take him!" cried Toomey, turning sharp on Cullin.
"Of course I _won't_ take him!" snarled Cullin, wrath and temper
stiffening his back, "but the law shall, quick as I can fix it. Back to
your cab, both of you!" he waved, for Ben, too, was bulkily climbing
the platform steps. "Pull out at once and don't you stop for no more
snidework!"
"And leave this man here?" shouted Toomey. "Then you can do your own
firing from here on, Cullin. Hold on, Ben, till I get my things off.
You can obey if you like, but it's the last run I make with
this--faugh! And you say _you've_ been a soldier!" It was Toomey's
chance, after weeks of pent-up rage for battle, and he couldn't throw
it away. Seeing that Ben, dull, heavy, and uncomprehending, was staring
stupidly about him, not knowing what to do; seeing that even Cullin was
melting at sight of the grief in Shiner's face; seeing the sympathy in
the eyes of the bluecoats and the shame in those of the brakemen,
Toomey turned loose on his adversary, and Toomey, when fairly started,
could talk to the point. It was a tongue-lashing, indeed, and one that
left the conductor no chance to reply.
"It's 'gainst orders, and you know it, Toomey," was his futile gasp,
when Toomey stopped for breath.
"'Gainst orders you've broken time and again, and you know it! 'Gainst
orders Bob Anthony would break your head for not breaking! It's 'gainst
orders for you to pull out now when you're blocked, till you get
further orders--and yet you say go."
"How can I get orders without a man or a wire at the station?" burst in
Cullin, grasping at straws. "How can I get authority to take this man
along? He's liable to arrest anyhow for tampering with the signals."
And then another voice was interjected, another disputant stepped
quickly forward, and Toomey checked himself in the first breath of an
impassioned outburst; his black hand suddenly shot half-way up to the
cap-visor, then came down with a jerk; his heels had clicked together
and his knees straightened out, then as suddenly went limp. The
new-comer had sprung up the steps. The form was slender and sinewy.
Hands, face, and dress were black with soot, but the young voice was
deep and the ring of accustomed command was in every word. "That's your
cue, Mr. Cullin. Arrest him and fetch him along." Then turning to
Toomey: "There's no one at the cab. Better get back, quick!" he added.
And Toomey went.
Big Ben gave one look and, without a word, waddled after his fireman.
The tears that stood in old Shiner's eyes dashed away at the brush of a
sleeve. A light of astonishment, comprehension, relief suddenly gleamed
in their place. The sergeant stared for a moment, looked blankly at his
men, then side-stepped for another long gaze at the new-comer's face.
Cullin turned sharply, resentful at first at the tone of authority,
wrath in his heart and rebuke on his tongue, but then came sudden
reminder of Anthony's card--the card the strange young fellow had
presented only when needed to convince, the card he had been so
sagacious as to retain, the card that proclaimed him a friend of the
powers and a person to be considered. Moreover, the friend and person
had suggested a means by which actual surrender to the situation might
appear as virtual and moral victory. One more look at Shiner and then
Shiner settled it. "I submit to arrest, Mr. Cullin. Let me go with
you--and settle."
"Get aboard the caboose," was the gruff answer, and, all apparent
meekness, Shiner obeyed. "Not you," added Cullin, as Shiner's
saddle-bag-bearing friend would have followed. "Give me the bags," said
Shiner, "and you look to--" A significant glance at the signal told the
rest. Cullin followed it with his eyes, saw the arm still lowered to
the "stop," knew that it should not be left there, and for a moment
held back.
"_He_'ll fix it," said Shiner, from the platform of the caboose, while
his eyes sought the face of the tall young fellow at Cullin's back.
Cullin strode to the corner of the office and followed the ranchman
with curious eyes. That sun-tanned, bow-legged person straddled down
the back steps, his big spurs jingling, a high boot-heel catching on
next to the lowermost and pitching him forward. He clamped his
broadbrim on his head with one hand and steadied his holster with the
other, straightened up with half-stifled expletive, and the next minute
was swarming up the slender iron rungs of the signal-ladder. "He's got
to prop it up where it belongs," said the sergeant. "Reckon he must
have shot the wire that held it." And of a truth the wire was severed.
But when Cullin turned back to his train with the mystery cleared, the
sight and sound of new commotion blocked his own signal to start.
Two horsemen, on foam-spattered broncos, were spurring vehemently down
the road from the eastward ridge. Two others were trailing exhaustedly
two hundred lengths behind, only just feebly popping over the divide.
And to these persons both his prisoner and his prisoner's advocate, who
were clasping hands as he whirled and saw them, were now signalling
cheer and encouragement. Ten cars ahead, at the cab, Big Ben and
Toomey, too, were leaning far out and eagerly watching the chase; the
sergeant and his men, wondering much at the sight, but professionally
impassive, strode to the end of the platform for better view, then all
of a sudden began to shout and swing their caps, and before Cullin
could recover from his surprise the foremost rider, tall, spare, with
long, grizzled mustache and fiery eyes, threw himself from saddle and
came bounding up the steps. He was surrounded in an instant, only one
man hanging back. The slender young fellow in the grimy cap and
overalls quietly stepped into the dark interior of the caboose.
In the glare of the unclouded sunshine, breathing hard from his
exertion, his hand grasped successively by Shiner and the three
soldiers, the veteran trooper told his hurried tale, while, one after
another, his followers, wellnigh exhausted, labored after him, and
finally rolled stiffly to _terra firma_ at the station, their wretched
livery mounts, with dripping, quivering flanks and drooping heads,
stood straddling close at hand, too utterly used up to stagger away.
Nolan's story was brief but explicit. Somebody in the swarm that
overwhelmed the Narrow Gauge train the previous night had crept back to
town after midnight and started the story that young Breifogle had been
slugged by the gang. By early morning it got to the father's ears. With
the sheriff and some friends he had driven down in the wake of No. 4,
found plenty of men who could tell of the mobbing, but none who could
tell of his son. The miners had scattered; the few passengers also,
glad that they were not "wanted" by that infuriated crowd. It was then
after sunrise, and, almost crazed by anxiety and wrath, Breifogle had
hurried back to Argenta. His first thought seemed to be vengeance on
Nolan, whom rumor declared the ringleader of his son's assailants, and
a warrant was out for his arrest, even as the big Mogul was rolling
into the yard, with its dingy-brown train of freight-cars and the
battered body of that luckless youth, Nolan's assailant at Silver
Shield.
The first full peril of his situation broke upon Nolan the instant the
news was rushed to him. Innocent of any part in the assault though he
was--ignorant of it, in fact, until dawn--he well knew that every
artifice would be played against him, and that all the power, the
means, and methods of the Breifogle clique would be lavishly used. Long
imprisonment would be sure, harsh trial certain, acquittal improbable,
hanging almost a certainty.
"Away with you! Get back to the mines and the mountains!" was the
instant warning, and without the loss of a minute, mounted on such
horses as his friends could hire, he and three of his trustiest
followers had galloped away. They thought the sheriff was at their
heels when the Fast Freight came thundering after them, but hailed,
with amaze and joy, the signal from the tender, and, feeling sure the
train would await them here, had spurred on to the station.
"You'll send the horses back for us, will you, sergeant?" he finished.
Then eagerly, "Now, conductor, shall we pull out for Summit?"
"Pull out for nothing," was the astounding answer. "You know perfectly
no Time Freight on this road takes a passenger of any kind, and it
would be more'n my job's worth to take you!"
"Then, in God's name, why did you signal?" was the almost agonized
question.
"Signal be jiggered! I never signalled. No man of _my_ crew signalled.
If you want to get back to the mines, stay here and flag No. 5. She'll
be along at eleven."
"Along at _eleven_! Man alive, the sheriff will be here with a posse of
forty long before that!"
"_Long_ before that!" almost screamed old Shiner. "Look, there, what
you see! He's coming now!"
And then Geordie Graham, listening with beating heart within the open
doorway of the caboose, could stand the strain no longer. The man he
must see, the man on whom everything depended, the old friend whom he
most trusted and believed in stood in sore peril. The cause for which
he had come all these miles must fail so sure as Nolan slipped into the
power of the adversary, even though grasped by the hand of the law. It
was no time for ethics--no time for casuists. He let his voice out in
the old tone of authority:
"You've no time to lose, Mr. Cullin. Arrest them, too, and come on!"
With wonderment in his eyes, with Shiner whispering caution in his ear,
"Long" Nolan was hustled aboard the caboose just as the wheels began to
turn, his breathless followers clambering after, while afar up the
divide toward the east, by twos and threes, in eager pursuit, egged on
by lavish promise of reward, the sheriff of Yampah, with a score of his
men, spurred furiously on the trail of a train that, starting slowly
and heavily, speedily gained headway and soon went thundering up the
grade, "leaving the wolves behind."