Whispering Smith

  CHAPTER X

  SWEEPING ORDERS

  The burning of Smoky Creek Bridge was hardly off the minds of themountain men when a disaster of a different sort befell the division.In the Rat Valley east of Sleepy Cat the main line springs between tworanges of hills with a dip and a long supported grade in eachdirection. At the point of the dip there is a switch from which a spurruns to a granite quarry. The track for two miles is straight and theswitch-target and lights are seen easily from either direction save atone particular moment of the day--a moment which is in the valleyneither quite day nor quite night. Even this disadvantage occurs totrains east-bound only, because due to unusual circumstances. When thesun in a burst of dawning glory shows itself above the crest of theeastern range an engineman, east-bound, may be so blinded by the raysstreaming from the rising sun that he cannot see the switch at thefoot of the grade. For these few moments he is helpless shouldanything be wrong with the quarry switch. Down this grade, a fewweeks after the Smoky Creek fire, came a double-headed stock trainfrom the Short Line with forty cars of steers. The switch stood open;this much was afterward abundantly proved. The train came down thegrade very fast to gain speed for the hill ahead of it. The headengineman, too late, saw the open target. He applied the emergencyair, threw his engine over, and whistled the alarm. The mightiestefforts of a dozen engines would have been powerless to check theheavy train. On the quarry track stood three flat cars loaded withgranite blocks for the abutment of the new Smoky Creek Bridge. On asanded track, rolling at thirty miles an hour and screaming in theclutches of the burning brakes, the heavy engines struck the switchlike an avalanche, reared upon the granite-laden flats, and with fortyloads of cattle plunged into the canyon below; not a car remained onthe rails. The head brakeman, riding in the second cab, was instantlykilled, and the engine crews, who jumped, were badly hurt.

  The whole operating department of the road was stirred. What made theaffair more dreadful was that it had occurred on the time of NumberSix, the east-bound passenger train, held that morning at Sleepy Catby an engine failure. Glover came to look into the matter. Thetestimony of all tended to one conclusion--that the quarry switch hadbeen thrown at some time between four-thirty and five o'clock thatmorning. Inferences were many: tramps during the early summer had beenunusually troublesome and many of them had been rigorously handled bytrainmen; robbery might have been a motive, as the express cars ontrain Number Six carried heavy specie shipments from the coast.

  Yet a means so horrible as well as so awkward and ineffectiveseemed unlike mountain outlaws. Strange men from headquarters were onthe ground as soon as they could reach the wreck, men from thespecial-service department, and a stock inspector who greatlyresembled Whispering Smith was on the ground looking into the brandsof the wrecked cattle. Glover was much in consultation with him,and there were two or three of the division men, such as Anderson,Young, McCloud, and Lee, who knew him but could answer no inquiriesconcerning his long stay at the wreck.

  A third and more exciting event soon put the quarry wreck into thebackground. Ten days afterward an east-bound passenger train wasflagged in the night at Sugar Buttes, twelve miles west of Sleepy Cat.When the heavy train slowed up, two men boarded the engine and withpistols compelled the engineman to cut off the express cars and pullthem to the water-tank a mile east of the station. Three men there inwaiting forced the express car, blew open the safe, and the gang rodeaway half an hour later loaded with gold coin and currency.

  Had a stick of dynamite been exploded under the Wickiup there couldnot have been more excitement at Medicine Bend. Within three hoursafter the news reached the town a posse under Sheriff Van Horn, with acarload of horseflesh and fourteen guns, was started for Sugar Buttes.The trail led north and the pursuers rode until nearly nightfall. Theycrossed Dutch Flat and rode single file into a wooded canyon, wherethey came upon traces of a camp-fire. Van Horn, leading, jumped fromhis horse and thrust his hand into the ashes; they were still warm,and he shouted to his men to ride up. As he called out, a riflecracked from the box-elder trees ahead of him. The sheriff fell, shotthrough the head, and a deputy springing from his saddle to pick himup was shot in precisely the same way, through the head. The riderlesshorses bolted; the posse, thrown into a panic, did not fire a shot,and for an hour dared not ride back for the bodies. After dark theygot the two dead men and at midnight rode with them into Sleepy Cat.

  When the news reached McCloud he was talking with Bucks over thewires. Bucks had got into headquarters at the river late that night,and was getting details from McCloud of the Sugar Buttes robberywhen the superintendent sent him the news of the killing of Van Hornand the deputy. In the answer that Bucks sent came a name new to thewires of the mountain division and rarely seen even in specialcorrespondence, but Hughie Morrison, who took the message, neverforgot that name; indeed, it was soon to be thrown sharply into thespotlight of the mountain railroad stage. Hughie repeated themessage to get it letter-perfect; to handle stuff at the Wickiupsigned "J. S. B." was like handling diamonds on a jeweller's tongsor arteries on a surgeon's hook; and, in truth, Bucks's words werethe arteries and pulse-beat of the mountain division. Hughie handedthe message to McCloud and stood by while the superintendent read:

  Whispering Smith is due in Cheyenne to-morrow. Meet him at the Wickiup Sunday morning; he has full authority. I have told him to get these fellows, if it takes all the money in the treasury, and not to stop till he cleans them out of the Rocky Mountains. J. S. B.