TOWER W
At the end of a long and neglected hall on the second floor of the old
bank block in Hill Street, Whispering Smith had a room in which he
made headquarters at Medicine Bend; it was in effect Whispering
Smith's home. A man's room is usually a forlorn affair in spite of any
effort to make it home-like. If he neglects his room it looks barren,
and if he ornaments it it looks fussy. Boys can do something with a
den because they are not yet men, and some tincture of woman's nature
still clings to a boy. Girls are born to the deftness that is to
become all theirs in the touch of a woman's hand; but men, if they
walk alone, pay the penalty of loneliness.
Whispering Smith, being logical, made no effort to decorate his
domestic poverty. All his belongings were of a simple sort and his
room was as bare as a Jesuit's. Moreover, his affairs, being at times
highly particular, did not admit of the presence of a janitor in his
quarters, and he was of necessity his own janitor. His iron bed was
spread with a pair of Pullman blankets, his toilet arrangements
included nothing more elaborate than a shaving outfit, and the mirror
above his washstand was only large enough to make a hurried shave,
with much neck-stretching, possible. The table was littered with
letters, but it filled up one corner of the room, and a rocking-chair
and a trunk filled up another. The floor was spread with a Navajo
blanket, and near the head of the bed stood an old-fashioned wardrobe.
This served not to ward Whispering Smith's robes, which hung for the
most part on his back, but to accommodate his rifles, of which it
contained an array that only a practised man could understand. The
wardrobe was more, however, than an armory. Beside the guns that stood
racked in precision along the inner wall, McCloud had once, to his
surprise, seen a violin. It appeared out of keeping in such an
atmosphere and rather the antithesis of force and violence than a
complement for it. And again, though the rifles were disquietingly
bright and effective-looking, the violin was old and shabby, hanging
obscurely in its corner, as if, whatever it might have in common with
its master, it had nothing in common with its surroundings.
The door of the room in the course of many years had been mutilated
with keyholes and reenforced with locks until it appeared difficult
to choose an opening that would really afford entrance; but two men
besides Whispering Smith carried keys to the room--Kennedy and George
McCloud. They had right of way into it at all hours, and knew how to
get in.
McCloud had left the bridge camp on the river for Medicine Bend on the
Saturday that Marion Sinclair--whose husband had finally told her he
would give her one more chance to think it over--returned with Dicksie
safely from their trip to the Frenchman ranch.
Whispering Smith, who had been with Bucks and Morris Blood, got back
to town the same day. The president and general manager were at the
Wickiup during the afternoon, and left for the East at nine o'clock in
the evening, when their car was attached to an east-bound passenger
train. McCloud took supper afterward with Whispering Smith at a Front
Street chop-house, and the two men separated at eleven o'clock. It was
three hours later when McCloud tapped on the door of Smith's room, and
in a moment opened it. "Awake, Gordon?"
"Sure: come in. What is it?"
"The second section of the passenger train--Number Three, with the
express cars--was stopped at Tower W to-night. Oliver Sollers was
pulling; he is badly shot up, and one of the messengers was shot all
to pieces. They cracked the through safe, emptied it, and made a clean
get-away."
"Tower W--two hundred and seventy-six miles. Have you ordered up an
engine?"
"Yes."
"Where's Kennedy?"
A second voice answered: "Right here."
"Strike a light, Farrell. What about the horses?"
"They're being loaded."
"Is the line clear?"
"Rooney Lee is clearing it."
"Spike it, George, and leave every westbound train in siding, with the
engine cut loose and plenty of steam, till we get by. It's now or
never this time. Two hundred and seventy-six miles; they're giving us
our money's worth. Who's going with us, Farrell?"
"Bob Scott, Reed Young, and Brill, if Reed can get him at Sleepy Cat.
Dancing is loading the horses."
"I want Ed Banks to lead a _posse_ straight from here for Williams
Cache; Dancing can go with him. And telephone Gene and Bob Johnson to
sit down in Canadian Pass till they grow to the rocks, but not to let
anybody through if they want to live after I see them. They've got all
the instructions; all they need is the word. It's a long chance, but
I think these are our friends. You can head Banks off by telephone
somewhere if we change our minds when we get a trail. Start Brill
Young and a good man from Sleepy Cat ahead of us, George, if you can,
in a baggage car with any horses that they can get there. They can be
at Tower W by daybreak and perhaps pick up a trail before we reach
there, and we shall have fresh horses for them. I'm ready, I guess;
let's go. Slam the door, George!" In the hall Whispering Smith threw a
pocket-light on his watch. "I want you to put us there by seven
o'clock."
"Charlie Sollers is going to pull you," answered McCloud. "Have you
got everything? Then we're off." The three men tiptoed down the dark
hall, down the stairs, and across the street on a noiseless run for
the railroad yard.
The air was chill and the sky clear, with a moon more than half to the
full. "Lord, what a night to ride!" exclaimed Whispering Smith,
looking mournfully at the stars. "Well planned, well planned, I must
admit."
The men hastened toward the yard, where lanterns were moving about
the car of the train-guards near the Blue Front stables. The
loading board had been lowered, and the horses were being carefully
led into the car. From a switch engine behind the car a shrill
cloud of steam billowed into the air. Across the yard a great
passenger engine, its huge white side-rod rising and falling slowly
in the still light of the moon--one of the mountain racers,
thick-necked like an athlete and deep-chested--was backing down for
the run with the single car almost across the west end of the
division. Trainmen were running to and from the Wickiup platform. By
the time the horses were loaded the conductor had orders. Until the
last minute, Whispering Smith was in consultation with McCloud, and
giving Dancing precise instructions for the _posse_ into the Cache
country. They were still talking at the side door of the car,
McCloud and Dancing on the ground and Whispering Smith squatting on
his haunches inside the moving car, when the engine signalled and
the special drew away from the chute, pounded up the long run of the
ladder switch, and moved with gathering speed into the canyon. In the
cab Charlie Sollers, crushing in his hand the tissue that had
brought the news of his brother's death, sat at the throttle. He had
no speed orders. They had only told him he had a clear track.