XXIV
THE STOCK TRAIN
It was almost unpleasantly hot in the little iron-roofed room at therailroad depot, and the agent, who flung the door open, stood still aminute or two blinking into the darkness. A big lamp that flickered in thewind cast an uncertain gleam upon the slushy whiteness under foot, and theblurred outline of a towering water-tank showed dimly through the slidingsnow. He could also just discern the great locomotive waiting on theside-track, and the sibilant hiss of steam that mingled with the moaningof the wind whirling a white haze out of the obscurity. Beyond the track,and showing only now and then, the lights of the wooden town blinkedfitfully; on the other hand and behind the depot was an empty waste ofsnow-sheeted prairie. The temperature had gone up suddenly, but the agentshivered as he felt the raw dampness strike through him, and, closing thedoor, took off and shook his jacket and sat down by the stove again.
He wore a white shirt of unusually choice linen, with other garments offashionable city cut, for a station agent is a person of importance in theWest, and this one was at least as consequential as most of the rest. Hehad finished his six o'clock supper at the wooden hotel a little earlier;and as the next train going west would not arrive for two or three hours,he took out a rank cigar, and, placing his feet upon a chair, prepared todoze the time away, though he laid a bundle of accounts upon his knee, incase anyone should come in unexpectedly. This, however, was distinctlyimprobable on such a night.
The stove flung out a drowsy heat, and it was not long before his eyesgrew heavy. He could still hear the wailing of the wind and the swish ofthe snow that whirled about the lonely building, and listened for a whilewith tranquil contentment; for the wild weather he was not exposed toenhanced the comfort of the warmth and brightness he enjoyed. Then, thesounds grew less distinct and he heard nothing at all until hestraightened himself suddenly in his chair as a cold draught struck him. Afew flakes of snow also swept into the room and he saw that the door wasopen.
"Hallo!" he called. "Wait there a moment. I guess this place doesn'tbelong to you."
A man who looked big and shapeless in his whitened furs signed to somebodyoutside without answering, and four or five other men in fur caps andsnow-sprinkled coats came in. They did not seem to consider it necessaryto wait for permission, and it dawned upon the agent that somethingunusual was about to happen.
"We have a little business to put through," said one.
"Well," said the agent brusquely, "I can't attend to you now. You can comeback later--when the train comes in."
One of the newcomers smiled sardonically, and the agent recognized two ofhis companions. They were men of some importance in that country, who had,however joined the homestead movement and were under the ban of thecompany's chief supporters, the cattle-barons. There was accordingly noinducement to waste civility on them; but he had an unpleasant feelingthat unnecessary impertinence would not be advisable.
"It has got to be put through now," said the first of them, with a littlering in his voice. "We want a locomotive and a calaboose to take us toBoynton, and we are quite willing to pay anything reasonable."
"It can't be done. We have only the one loco here, and she is wanted toshove the west-bound train up the long grade to the hills."
"I guess that train will have to get through alone to-night," said anotherman.
The agent got up with an impatient gesture. "Now," he said, "I don't feellike arguing with you. You can't have the loco."
"No?" said the homesteader, with a little laugh. "Well, I figure you'remistaken. We have taken charge of her already and only want the bill. Ifyou don't believe me, call your engineer."
The agent strode to the door, and there was a momentary silence after hecalled, "Pete!"
Then, a shout came out of the sliding snow: "I can't come."
It broke off with significant suddenness, and the agent turned to the manwho had first spoken. "You are going to be sorry for this, Mr. Grant," hesaid and then tried to slip away, but one of the others pulled the door toand stood with his back to it while Grant, smiling, said, "I'm quitewilling to take my chances. Have the stock-cars passed Perry's siding?"
"I don't know," said the agent.
"Then, hadn't you better call them up and see? We are giving you the firstchance of doing it out of courtesy, but one of us is a good operator."
"I was on the Baltimore and Ohio road," said one man. "You needn't playany tricks with me."
The agent sat down at the telegraph instrument, and looked up when itrapped out an answer to his message.
"Stock train left Birch Hollow. No sign of her yet."
"That's all right," said the man who had served the B. and O. "Tell themto side-track her for half an hour, anyway, after your loco comes through.It's necessary. Don't worry 'bout any questions, but tell them to keep usa clear road, now."
The agent, who saw that the other man was prepared to do the work himself,complied, and the latter once more nodded when the instrument clicked outthe answer.
"Make out your bill," said Grant, taking a wallet from his pocket.
"No," said the agent; "we're going to have the law of you."
Grant laughed. "It strikes me there is very little law in this countrynow, and your company would a good deal sooner have the dollars than aletter telling them you had let us take one of their locomotives away fromyou."
"That," said the agent reflectively, "sounds quite sensible. Well, I'lltake the dollars. It doesn't commit us to anything."
The bills were counted over, and as the men went out Grant turned in thedoorway. "It would not be advisable for you to wire any of the folks alongthe line to stop us," he said. "We are going through to Boynton as fast asyour engineer can shove his loco along, and if anybody switched us into aside-track it would only mean the smashing up of a good deal of thecompany's property."
He had gone out in another moment, and, in a few more, climbed into thelocomotive cab, while somebody coupled on a calaboose in the rear. Then,he showed the engineer several bills and the agent's receipt together.
"If you can hold your tongue and get us through to Boynton five minutesunder the mail schedule time, the dollars are yours," he said.
The engineer looked doubtful for a moment, then, his eyes twinkling, hetook the bills.
"Well," he said, "you've got the agent's receipt, and the rest is not mybusiness. Sit tight, and we'll show you something very like flyingto-night."
Another man flung open the furnace door, a sudden stream of brightnessflashed out as he hurled in coal, the door shut with a clang, and therewas a whirr of slipping wheels as the engineer laid his hand on the lever.The great locomotive panted, and Grant, staring out through the glasses,saw a blinking light slide back to them. Then, the plates beneath himtrembled, the hammering wheels got hold, and the muffled clanging andthudding swelled into a rhythmic din. The light darted past them, thefilmy whiteness which had streamed down through the big headlamp's glarenow beat in a bewildering rush against the quivering glass, and thefan-shaped blaze of radiance drove on faster through the snow.
Five minutes passed, and Grant, who held a watch in his hand, glanced atthe engineer as the blaze whirled like a comet along the clean-cut edge ofa dusky bluff.
"You'll have to do better," he said.
"Wait till we have got her warmed up," said the man, who stood quietlyintent, his lean hand on the throttle. "Then you'll see something."
Grant sat down on a tool-locker, took out his cigar-case, and passed it toBreckenridge who sat opposite him. Breckenridge's face was eager and therewas an unusual brightness in his eyes, for he was young and somethingthrilled within him in unison with the vibration of the great machine.There was, however, very little to see just then beyond the tense,motionless figure of the man at the throttle and the damp-beaded face ofanother forced up in the lurid glare from the furnace door. A dimwhiteness lashed the glasses, and when Breckenridge pressed his face toone of them the blaze of radiance against which the smoke-stack waspro
jected blackly only intensified the obscurity they were speedingthrough.
Still, there was much to feel and hear--the shrill wail of the wind thatbuffeted their shelter, the bewildering throb and quiver of the locomotivewhich, with its suggestion of Titanic effort, seemed to find a response inhuman fibre, pounding and clashing with their burden of strain, and theroar of the great drivers that rose and fell like a diapason. PerhapsBreckenridge, who was also under a strain that night, was fanciful, but itseemed to him there was hidden in the medley of sound a theme or motivethat voiced man's domination over the primeval forces of the universe, andurged him to the endurance of stress, and great endeavour. It was, for themost part, vague and elusive; but there were times when it rang exultinglythrough the subtly harmonious din, reminding him of Wagnerian music.
Leaning forward, he touched Grant's knee. "Larry, it's bracing. The lastfew months were making me a little sick of everything--but this gets holdof one." Grant smiled, but Breckenridge saw how weary his bronzed faceshowed in the dim lantern light. "There was a time, two or three yearsago, when I might have felt it as you seem to do," he said. "I don't seemto have any feeling but tiredness left me now."
"You can't let go," said Breckenridge.
"No," and Grant sighed, "not until the State takes hold instead of me, orthe trouble's through."
Breckenridge said nothing further, and Grant sat huddled in a corner withthe thin blue cigar-smoke curling about him. He knew it was possible hewas taking a very heavy risk just then, since the homesteaders might havechanged their plans again; and his task was a double one, for he had notonly to save the stock train, but prevent an encounter between hismisguided followers and the cavalry. So there was silence between themwhile, lurching, rocking, roaring, the great locomotive sped on throughthe night, until the engineer, turning half-round, glanced at Grant.
"Is she making good enough time to suit you? Perry's siding is just ahead,and we'll be on the Bitter Creek trestle five minutes after that," hesaid.
Grant rose and leaned forward close to the glasses. He could see nothingbut the radiance from the headlamp whirling like a meteor through thefilmy haze; but the fierce vibration of everything, and the fashion inwhich the snow smote the glasses, as in a solid stream, showed the pace atwhich they were travelling. He looked round and saw that Breckenridge'seyes were fixed upon him. His comrade's voice reached him faint andstrained through the hammering of the wheels.
"You feel tolerably sure Harper was right about the bridge?"
Grant nodded. "I do."
"What if he was mistaken, and they meant to try there after all? There areeight of us."
"We have got to take the risk," said Grant very quietly, "and it is a bigresponsibility; but if the boys got their work in and fell foul of Cheyne,we would have half the State ablaze."
He signed for silence, and Breckenridge stared out through the glasses,for he feared his face would betray him, and fancied he understood theburden that was upon the man who, because it seemed the lesser evil, wasrisking eight men's lives.
As he watched, a blink of light crept out of the snow, grew brighter, andswept back to them. Others appeared in a cluster behind it, a bigwater-tank flashed by, and the roar of wheels and scream of whistle wasflung back by a snow-covered building. Then, as Breckenridge glanced tothe opposite side, the blaze of another headlamp dazzled his eyes and hehad a blurred vision of a waiting locomotive and a long row ofsnow-smeared cars. In another second cars and station had vanished assuddenly as they had sprung up out of the night, and they were once morealone in the sliding snow. Breckenridge drew a breath of relief.
"There's the stock train, any way. And now for the bridge!" he said.
"That was the easiest half of it. Muller was there--I saw him--and hecould have warned the agent at the last minute," Grant answered.
Neither of them said anything further, but Breckenridge felt his heartbeat faster as the snow whirled by. The miles were slipping behind them,and he was by no means so sure as Larry was that no attempt would be madeupon the bridge. His fancy would persist in picturing the awful leap intothe outer darkness through the gap in the trestle, and he felt his lipsand forehead grow a trifle colder and his flesh shrink in anticipation ofthe tremendous shock. He looked at Grant; the latter's face was veryquiet, and had lost its grimness and weariness--there was almost asuggestion of exaltation in it.
"We are almost on the bridge now," he said.
The engineer nodded, and the next moment Breckenridge, who had beenwatching the light of the headlamp flash along the snow beside the track,saw it sweep on, as it were, through emptiness. Then, he heard a roar oftimber beneath him, and fancied he could look down into a black gulfthrough the filmy snow. He knew it was a single track they were speedingover, and that the platform of the calaboose behind them overhung thefrozen river far below.
He set his lips and held his breath for what seemed a very long time, andthen, with a sigh of relief, sank back into his seat as he felt by thelessening vibration, that there was frozen soil under them. But in spiteof himself the hands he would have lighted a cigar with shook, and theengineer who looked round glanced at him curiously.
"Feeling kind of sick?" he said. "Well, it's against the regulations, butthere's something that might fix you as well as tea in that can."
Breckenridge smiled feebly. "The fact is, I have never travelled on alocomotive before, and when I took on the contract I didn't quite know allI was letting myself in for," he said.
"How far are we off the long down grade with the curve in it?" askedGrant.
"We might get there in 'bout ten minutes," said the engineer.
"Slacken up before you reach the grade and put your headlamp out," saidGrant. "I want you to stop just this side of the curve, and wait for mefive minutes."
The engineer looked at him steadily. "Now, there's a good deal I don'tunderstand about all this. What do you want me to stop there for?"
"I don't see why you should worry. It does not concern you. Any way, Ihave hired this special, and I give you my word that nothing I am going todo will cause the least damage to any of the company's property. I wantyou to stop, lend me a lantern, and sit tight in the cab until I tell youto go on. We will make it two dollars a minute."
The engineer nodded. "I don't know what you are after, but I guess I cantake your word," he said. "You seem that kind of a man."
Ten minutes later the fireman vanished into the darkness, and the blaze ofthe headlamp went out before he returned and the roar of the drivers sank.The rhythmic din grew slack, and became a jarring of detached soundsagain, the snow no longer beat on the glasses as it had done, and, rockingless, the great locomotive rolled slowly down the incline until itstopped, and Grant, taking the lantern handed him, sprang down from thecab. Four other men were waiting on the calaboose platform, and when Granthid the lantern under his fur coat they floundered down the side of thegraded track which there crossed a hollow. A raw wind whirled the whiteflakes about them and Breckenridge could scarcely see the men behind him.He was thankful when, slipping, sliding, stumbling, they gained thelevel.
From there he could just distinguish the road bed as something solidthrough the whirling haze, and he felt they were following a bend of itwhen Grant stopped and a clinking sound came out of the obscurity abovethem. It might have been made by somebody knocking out key wedges orspikes with a big hammer and in his haste striking the rail or chair.
Then Grant said something Breckenridge could not catch, and they werecrawling up the slope, with the clinking and ringing growing a triflelouder. Breckenridge's heart beat faster than usual, but he was tolerablycollected now. He had a weapon he was not unskilled with in his pocket,and the chance of a fight with even desperate men was much lessdisconcerting than that of plunging down into a frozen river with alocomotive. He had also a reassuring conviction that if Larry couldcontrive it there would be no fight at all.
He crawled on, with the man behind clutching at him, now and then, and theone in front sliding
back on him, until his arms were wet to the elbowsand his legs to the knees; but the top of the grade seemed strangelydifficult to reach, and he could see nothing with the snow that blew overit in his eyes. Suddenly Larry rose up, there was a shout and a flounder,and, though he did not quite know how he got there, Breckenridge foundhimself standing close behind his comrade, and in the light of the lanternheld up saw a man drop his hammer. There were other men close by, but theywere apparently too astonished to think of flight.
"It's Larry!" somebody exclaimed.
"Stop where you are," said Grant sharply as one man made a move. "I don'twant to shoot any of you, but I most certainly will if you make me. Arethere any more of you?"
"No," said one of the men disgustedly.
Grant walked forward swinging his lantern until his eyes rested on onepartly loosened rail. "And that is as far as you have got?" he said. "Takeup your hammer and drive the wood key in. Get hold of their rifles,Charley. I guess they are under that coat."
There was an angry murmur, and a man started to speak; but Grant stoppedhim.
"Hammer the wedges in," he said. "It was pure foolishness made me comehere to save you from the cavalry who had heard of what you meant to do,because we have no use for men of your kind in this country. You haven'teven sense enough to keep your rifles handy, and there will be two orthree less of you to worry decent folks if you keep us waiting."
A man took up the hammer, and then waited a moment, looking at those whostood about Larry. He could see the faces of one or two in the lanternlight, and recognized that he need expect no support from them. The menwere resolute Americans, who had no desire for anything approachinganarchy.
"We are with Larry, and don't feel like fooling. Hadn't you better startin?" one of them said.
The rail was promptly fastened, and Grant, after examining it, came back.
"Go on in front of us, and take your tools along! It will not be nice forthe man who tries to get away," he said.
The prisoners plodded dejectedly up the track until they reached thecalaboose, into which the others drove them. Then Grant and Breckenridgewent back to the locomotive, and the former nodded to the engineer:
"Take us through to Boynton as fast as you can."
"That is a big load off your mind," Breckenridge said as the pantingengine got under way.
But Grant, huddled in a corner, neither moved nor spoke until, half anhour later, they rolled into a little wooden town and the men in thecalaboose got down. There was nobody about the depot to ask them anyquestions, and they crossed the track to the straggling street apparentlyon good terms with each other, though four of them knew that unpleasantresults would follow any attempt at a dash for liberty. In answer toGrant's knock, a man let them into one of the stores.
"I guess we'll lock them in the back store until morning," he said, aftera short conference apart with Grant. "A little cooling down is not goingto do them much harm, and I don't think anyone could get out without anaxe."
The building looked secure and, when food and hot coffee had been servedthem, Grant retired to rest. He slept soundly, and it was close ondaylight when a pounding on the door awakened him.
"I guess you had better get up at once," their host called.
A few minutes later Grant and Breckenridge went downstairs with him, andthe storekeeper, opening a door, lifted the lamp he held and pointed to anopen window in the roof. A barrel, with a box or two laid upon it, stoodsuggestively beneath it.
Breckenridge glanced at Larry, and saw a curious little smile on his face."Yes," he said, "it's quite simple. Now, I never saw that window. Wherewould they be likely to head for?"
"Pacific Slope," said the storekeeper. "Wages are high just now, and theyseemed quite afraid of you. The west-bound fast freight stopped here forwater about two hours ago, and it was snowing that thick nobody would seethem getting into a box car. They heave a few dry goods out hereoccasionally."
Breckenridge turned to Grant. "You seem relieved."
"Yes," said Grant, with a little shake of his shoulders. "If they have litout of the country it will content me. I have had quite enough hard thingsto do lately."
A sudden thought struck Breckenridge. "You didn't mean--" he said with ashudder.
"I didn't mean to let them go, but I'm glad they've gone," Grant answered."We made a warning of one of the cattle-barons' men, and the man who takesthe law into his own hands is doubly bound to do the square thing allround. If he does less, he is piling up a bigger reckoning than I wouldcare to face."