CHAPTER XX
A second and more serious disturbance followed close on the fight atthe railroad station. A passenger alighting in the evening from awestbound train was set upon, robbed, and beaten into insensibilitywithin ten feet of the train platform. A dozen other passengershastened to his assistance. They joined in repulsing his assailantsand were beating them off when other thugs, reinforcing their fellows,attacked the passengers and those railroad men that had hurried up todrive off the miscreants.
In the melee, a brakeman was shot through the head and a secondpassenger wounded. But the railroad men rallied and, returning thepistol fire, drove off the outlaws.
The train was hurried out of town and measures were taken at once todefend the railroad property for the night. Guards were set in theyards, and a patrol established about the roundhouse, the railroadhotel and the eating-house and freight-houses.
Stanley, with his car attached to the night passenger train, was onhis way to Casement's camp when the fight occurred, and had takenBucks with him. The despatch detailing the disturbance reached him ata small station east of Point of Rocks, where he was awakened and themessage was read to him advising the manager of the murder of thebrakeman.
A freight-train, eastbound, stood on the passing track. Stanley rousedBucks and, notifying the despatchers, ordered the engine cut off fromthe freight-train, swung up into the cab, and started for MedicineBend. As they pulled out, light, Stanley asked for every notch ofspeed the lumbering engine could stand, and Oliver Sollers, theengineman, urged the big machine to its limit.
The new track, laid hastily and only freshly ballasted, was as roughas corduroy, and the lurching of the big diamond stack made the cabtopple at every rail joint. But Sollers was not the runner to losenerve under difficulties and did not lessen the pressure on thepistons. If Stanley, determined and silent, his lips set and hangingon for dear life as the cab jumped and swung under him, felt anyqualms at the dangerous pace he had asked for, he betrayed none. WithBucks, open-eyed with surprise, hanging on in front of him, Stanleygave no heed to the bouncing, and the freight-engine pounded throughthe mountains like a steam-roller with a touch of crushed-stonedelirium. Hour after hour the wild pace was kept up through the SleepyCat Mountains and across the Sweet Grass Plains. There was no easingup until the frantic machine struck the gorge of the Medicine Riverand whistled for the long yards above the roundhouse.
Things had so quieted down by the time Stanley, springing up thestairs two steps at a time, reached the despatchers' office, that theywere sorry they had sent in such haste for him. Stanley himself had noregrets. He knew better than those about him the temper of the crowdhe had to deal with and felt that he needed every minute to preparefor what he had to do. Bucks was sent to bring in Dancing, Bob Scott,and the more resolute among the railroad men. A brief consultation washeld, and the attitude of the gamblers carefully discussed.
Scott, who had been up town since the murder, had collected sufficientproof that the chief outlaw, Levake, had done the shooting, andStanley now sent Scott to Brush, the sheriff, with a verbal messagedemanding Levake's arrest.
Every man that heard the order given knew what it meant. Every onethat listened realized it was the beginning of a fight in which therecould be no retreat for Stanley; that it would be a fight to a finish,and that no man could say where it would end.
Bob Scott hitched his trousers at the word from his sandy-hairedchief. For Bob, orders meant orders and the terror of Levake's name inMedicine Bend had no effect on him.
"You might as well ask a jack-rabbit to tackle a mountain lion as totry to get Brush to arrest Levake," declared Dave Hawk cynically.
But Stanley's hand struck the table like a hammer: "We are going tohave a show-down here. We will go through the forms; this is thebeginning--and I am going to follow it to the end. Either Levake hasgot to quit the town or I have."
Dave Hawk looked around with a new idea. He bent his eyes on Bob:"Better get Brush to deputize _you_ to make the arrest."
"That is it!" exclaimed Stanley. "Get him to deputize you, Bob, and wewill clean up this town as it hasn't been cleaned since the flood."
Scott shook his head: "I don't believe Brush has the sand for that. Wewill see."
Up Front Street, through the various groups of men still discussingthe events of the evening, Scott, followed only by Bill Dancing, madehis way, nodding and patiently or pleasantly grinning as the greetingsor ridicule of the crowd were thrown at him. He went to the rooms ofthe sheriff only to find them locked, and made his way down town againlooking through the resorts in a search for Brush.
After much trouble, he found him at a gaming-table, inclined to appearsceptical as to the story that Levake had killed an unoffendingbrakeman. When Scott repeated Stanley's demand that Levake bearrested, the sheriff slammed down his cards and declared he would notbe made a cat's-paw for any man; that the brakeman, according toaccounts reaching him, had been killed in a fair fight and he wouldhear no more of it. Then, as if his game had been unreasonablyinterfered with and his peace of mind injured, he rose from the tableto relieve his annoyance.
Meantime Bill Dancing slipped into his vacated seat, picked up thediscarded hand of cards and announced it was too good to throw away."Will anybody," Bill asked dryly, "play the hand with me while Brushis arresting Levake?" The laugh of Brush's own companions at thisproposal stung him as an imputation of his cowardice, and he made anadditional display of rage to counteract the unconcealed contempt inwhich his cronies held him.
He turned on Scott angrily. "Go arrest the man yourself, if you wanthim," he thundered.
Scott snapped up the suggestion. He pointed a lean finger at theshifty peace officer. "Deputize me to do it, if you dare, Brush!" hesoftly exclaimed, fixing his brown eyes on the flushed face of thecoward.
Not a man in the room moved or spoke. Brush saw himself trapped.Scott's finger called for an answer and the sheriff found no escape."I knew you hadn't the nerve to give me a deputy's badge," laughedScott, to spur the man's lagging courage; "you are too afraid ofLevake."
The taunt had its effect. Brush raved about his courage, and BillDancing, slapping him ferociously on the back, convinced him that hereally was a brave man. Taken volubly in tow by the two railroademissaries, who were far from being as simple as they seemed, Brushreturned to his lodgings at the jail to issue the coveted paperauthorizing Scott to serve any warrants in his stead.
Before the ink was dry on the certificate the word had gone down FrontStreet, and the town knew that Levake's arrest was in prospect. AsDancing and Scott left the jail and walked down to the station, theywere surrounded by a curious throng of men watching for furtherdevelopments in the approaching crisis of the struggle with outlawryin the railroad town.
The night was far advanced, but a third element was now to make itselffelt in the situation. The decent business men had already seen theapproach of the storm and resolved on protecting their own interests,which they realized were on the side of law and order. Word had beenpassed from one to another of a proposed meeting. It was held towarddaybreak in a secret place. One and all present were pledged to acttogether under a leadership then and there agreed upon, and after soorganizing, with a resolute merchant named Atkinson at their head, andwith a quiet that foreboded no good to the gamblers and outlaws, themen who had gone to the rendezvous as business men left it asvigilantes, banded together to defend their rights and propertyagainst the lawless element that had terrorized legitimate business.
In the morning secret word was brought by Atkinson to Stanley of theresolve of the new allies to stand by him in his efforts to ridthe town of its undesirables for good and all. It was welcomeintelligence, and the railroad chief assured the plucky merchantof his hearty cooperation in the designs of the newly constitutedlaw-and-order committee.
"When the machinery of the law has miserably failed to protect ourlives and property," he said concisely, "we have nothing left for itbut to protect them ourselves." Arms had been telegraphed f
or andevery effort made to secure troops in the emergency. But the Indianuprising had taken every available infantryman and trooper into thenorth and there was not now sufficient time to get them together foraction. The railroad men, Stanley knew, must depend on themselves andupon such assistance as the decent element in the town could render.
Meantime the outlaws were not idle. They spent the day whipping thegamblers and their hangers-on into line, upon the prediction that ifthey themselves were dispersed scant quarter would be shown theirdisorderly associates.
Scott spent the day leisurely. Stanley had asked him not to moveuntil his own arrangements for a defensive fight were completed. Thatthe outlaws had secret sources of information even in the railroadcircles, came out startlingly. A special train--an express car pulledby an engine--entered the railroad yard at dusk that evening, when aparty of men running out from the cover of the freight warehouseattempted to rush it for arms and ammunition.
They were met at the car doors by six of the best men that could bepicked up along the line during the day run of the special across theplains. Stanley had wired instructions to head-quarters to send himsix men that feared neither smoke nor powder, and six stalwarts takenon at Grand Island, North Platte, and Julesburg guarded the car andtumbled like cats out of a bag upon the surprised raiders.
The encounter was spirited, but it took only a moment to convince theassaulting party that they had made a mistake. Clubbing their heavyrevolvers, the guards, any one of whom in close quarters could accountfor two ordinary men, threw themselves from the car step directlyinto the crowd and struck right and left. There was no regard forpersons, and in the half-dark the Medicine Bend ruffians, surprisedand confused, were soon fighting one another.
But one-sided as the contest was, it did not go fast enough to suitthe guards, who, seizing the clubs thrown away by the rabble, chargedthem in a line and drove them up the street. Railroad men who camerunning from the station to help were too late. The flurry was overand they found nothing to do but to cheer their new aids.
Nor were the gamblers asleep. Word had gone out both east and west ofthe approaching crisis between the disorderly and the law-and-orderelements, and every passenger train into Medicine Bend broughtmysterious men from towns and railroad camps who were openly orsecretly allied in one or another vicious calling to the classes thatwere now making a stand for the rule or ruin of the railroad town.
A mob of sympathizers gathered in Front Street to protect fromfurther punishment the party that had tried to capture the expresscar. But the railroad men had no idea of pursuing the raiders beyondthe yard limits, and indeed were restrained by strict orders fromdoing so. Stanley sent word immediately to the sheriff, demanding thearrest of the new peace-disturbers, but the sheriff no longer made apretence of arresting law-breakers. In Front Street, the mob,emboldened by their apparent control of the situation and increasingin clamor and numbers, were now in a humor for anything that promisedpillage or vengeance. There were still among them a few cool-headedcriminals who counselled caution, but these were hooted down by menwho had never tasted the rigor of vigilante rule.
Out of a dozen wild schemes broached by as many wild heads of theexcited crowd, in which were now lined up for any lawlessness all theidlers, floaters, the improvident, and the reckless elements of afrontier gambling town, one caught the popular fancy. Some oneproposed a jail delivery to release Rebstock and Seagrue, persecutedby the railroad company. The idea spread like wildfire, and a score ofmen, reinforced by more at every door as they proceeded up FrontStreet, made their way to the jail.
Fast as they came, time was given for word to the sheriff, whoconveniently got out of the way, and, led by half a dozen men withcrowbars and spike-mauls, the outlaws surrounded and overran the jailyard and without a show of resistance from any one began smashing inthe entrance and battering down the cell doors.
The first suggestion included only the delivery of the two men. Butthis was effected so easily that more was undertaken. The jail atMedicine Bend, being the only one within many miles in any direction,harbored the criminals of the whole mountain region, and these nowcried to friendly ears for their own freedom. Cell after cell wasbattered open and the released criminals, snatching tools from themob, led in the fight to free their fellows. In less than half an hourevery cell had been emptied and a score of hardened malefactors hadbeen added to the mob, which now proposed to celebrate the success ofits undertaking by setting fire to the jail itself.
The vigilantes down town, though taking the alarm, had moved tooslowly. A jail delivery meant, they knew, that their stores would belooted, and, under the leadership of Atkinson, they attempted to avertthe mischief impending.
Gathering twenty-five determined men, they started with a shout forthe hill, only to see the sky already lighting with the flames of theburning building. The mob, not understanding at first, welcomed thenew-comers with a roar of approval.
But they were soon undeceived. The vigilantes began to try to save thejail and their efforts brought about the first clash of a nightdestined long to be remembered in Medicine Bend. The brawlers in thecrowd stayed to fight the vigilantes. The thieves and night-birds fellaway in the darkness, and like black cats scurried down town topillage the stores and warehouses of the fire-fighters on the hill.
The few clerks and watchmen defending the stores, these knaves madeshort work of. Dancing and Scott, with Stanley, Bucks, and a party ofrailroad men, uneasy at the reports from the jail and now able to seethe sky reddening with the flames, moved in and out of the gloom ofside streets to keep track of the alarming situation and were theearliest to discover the looting movement.
A convenient general store at Front and Hill Streets was the first tobe pillaged. Dancing wanted to lead a party against the looters, butStanley pointed out the folly of half a dozen men trying to police thewhole street.
"We can do nothing here, Bill. Those vigilantes have no business onthe hill. Get word to them, if you can, that the stores are beingrobbed. They can't save the jail; they ought to come back and savetheir own property. I can't bring men up from the roundhouse. We'vegot to protect our own property first. If we could get word tothem--but a man never could get through that mob to the jail."
"I reckon I can, colonel," said Bill Dancing, throwing off his coat.
"They will kill you, Bill," predicted Stanley.
"No," growled the lineman, rolling up his shirt sleeves. "Not me. Iwouldn't stand for it."