Part 13

Leaning uncomfortably now to this side, now to that, and with angry grinding of flange on rail, it swept around the curves with ever-increasing speed. A crashing roar, a flare of yellow sunset light reflected from rocky walls, told of a cutting safely passed, while bridge, and culvert, and trestle bellowed again as the engine cleared them at a bound.

The Three-Sevens devoured the way. Again and again Hosselkus proved the correctness of his theory by the terrific bursts of speed with which the mighty engine responded to his every impulse; but his nerves were no longer responsive to the exultant thrill of triumph. A sickening foreboding griped his heart; yet, whenever he would have shut off steam and slackened speed, an unconquerable impulse restrained him; for, in the exhaust of the engine and the roar of wheels, he fancied he heard one word repeated over and over again, with maddening persistency: “Hurry! hurry! hurry! hurry!” And the fireman, as he shoveled in coal and struggled to maintain his difficult footing, noted with wonder, not unmixed with uneasiness, that Hosselkus was working steam on grades where it was usual to “let them down” under the restraining pressure of the air-brakes.

The lagging summer twilight gradually deepened until the illuminated faces of clock and steam-gauge stood out with pallid distinctness in the gloom of the cab. Lights in lonely section-houses shot past, and occasionally a great flare of red rushed upward from the momentarily opened door of the fire-box. The dazzling light of the furnace revealed old Hard Luck crouching forward on his seat, one hand on the throttle, the other grasping the reversing lever. His features were set and sharpened, and so pale that through its grimy enameling his face looked positively blue. An occasional swift, comprehensive glance took in clock, steam-gauge, and water-glass, and then his eyes were again fixed upon the arrowy torrent of ties that streamed into the glare of the headlight and disappeared beneath the pilot with unbroken, dizzying swiftness. At last a white post flitted by and Hosselkus relaxed. He glanced at the clock, and the next moment a long, wailing blast of the whistle warned the yardmen at the division’s end.

The record was broken; the passenger run was his at last; old Hard Luck had actually got over the division without a mishap and in time never before equaled; but instead of exulting over it, as he shut off steam, he found himself marveling how faint and far away the whistle had sounded; had he not felt the vibration of the escaping steam, he would hardly have believed it was the Three-Seven’s stentorian voice. Undoubtedly there was something wrong; he would have to fix it the first thing in the morning. The engine lurched over the switches, and Hosselkus cursed the sudden fog that had dimmed the switch-lamps so he could hardly tell red from white, but at length he pulled up before the Railway Hotel--fortune favored him to the last, he made a splendid stop.

With a great sigh of relief he leaned back on his seat, while the eating-house gong banged and thundered a hospitable welcome to the belated guests.

“You made a magnificent run, Hosselkus. I’ll fix it with the master-mechanic--you go out on Number Three to-morrow,” called out the superintendent, as he hurried by.

Presently a yardman uncoupled the engine and waved his lantern. “All right!” called out the fireman, who was standing in the gangway.

The engineer made no move.

“What’s the matter?” inquired the switchman, climbing into the cab; “Why in----” The light of his lantern fell upon the engineer’s face; he paused suddenly, for it was white beneath the grime.

Hard Luck was taken from the engine, laid upon a bench, and a physician hastily summoned. Engineers, with smoky torches, and trainmen, with lanterns, crowded around with bated breath, while the doctor listened long and attentively for a sound of life, but only the air-pump on the Three-Sevens sighed softly, as the light rings of smoke from her stack floated up, and up, and up in the quiet air, where still a tinge of twilight lingered.

“Dead!” said the doctor, and the tension was relaxed.

Then they all praised their late comrade, and all agreed that the old fellow had a good heart in him, anyway--that is, all but the doctor, who, as he rose and carefully wiped his spectacles, muttered something about “Organic weakness--told him so.”

The next day, as the superintendent had promised, Hard Luck went out on Number Three--but he went in a box, lashed to the platform of the baggage-car.

THE DOTTED TRAIL

By W. H. Irwin

The first time that Dudley Latimer kissed Belle Sharp, the half-Spanish “help” at the P. L. Ranch, he was not in earnest; he would have been the last to say that there was any serious intention in it. He did it partly in a spirit of pure bravado, and partly because the morning was as warm and white as new milk, and she, smiling back over her shoulder as she emptied her pails, looked a part of it. Equally innocent of any harmful intent, she let him after a formal struggle. He was tall and clean, and as handsome as a young Englishman can be when he is in perfect condition, and has a fine, red coat of tan. Then he bade her good-by. He had been at the ranch a week, ranging the hills in a vain hunt for antelope, already then, in the early eighties, becoming scarce. His canvas-covered wagon and his “side partner,” the Hon. Justin Weymouth, waited by the gate.

The Hon. Justin was taking a parting nip with the “Old Man,” and did not see the diversion, and none of the four noticed that Emilio Gonolez, horse trainer and man-of-all-work, was coming in through the kitchen yard carrying an antelope so freshly killed that its throat was not yet cut. Emilio stood and watched. He saw the struggle, heard the girl cry “The gall of you!” saw her color turn as she lifted her face with unwilling willingness, saw her throw at young Latimer, walking away, a look of admiration that he took for something else. Then Emilio slipped round the barn with his quarry, and came upon the wagon in front. Dudley was smiling across the fence at Belle, who had found business in the front yard. For half a minute, Emilio looked what he felt; then smiled as he slipped into view, and said: “I make-a present you thees antelope. He ees fresh. Myself, I shoot heem. He come ver’ close.”

“Careful how you tie it, Emmy,” said the Old Man. “Dump it in for ’em. Well, boys, stacking in the north field. Good-by, and luck to you.”

While Dudley chatted across the fence with Belle, Emilio was explaining to the Hon. Justin how an antelope should be tied and hung for a journey. “Head down so he bleed--the dust bother ver’ leetle--oh, yes, a lee-tle cut on the throat so he bleed slow. That ees bes’. I cut heem.” A slow, red stream trickled over snowy throat and gray jaws. The wagon drove on. Down the road behind it trailed an irregular line of wet dots, the centres for an army of noisy flies.

“Awfully jolly girl,” said Dudley, as they bowled easily along through the red dust. The Hon. Justin puffed at his pipe, and made no answer. He might have said that he hastened their going just because his companion was very young and the girl very pretty. A flock of sage-hens started from the olive-green brush to one side. Justin pulled up, took out his shotgun and followed, Dudley throwing stones to make them rise. A right and left shot brought down a brace. They gathered up the birds, and turned to the wagon, and as they did so, the elder man looked back. Just level with the ranch house, two miles behind, a cloud of red dust veiled the road and lapped far over its edge. Through the thin atmosphere came a muffled rumble, and then a few dots, followed at an interval by another, heaved out of the mass.

“Cattle!” said Dudley. “That’s jolly. I always wanted to see one of those big droves on the foot. Shall we wait for them to pass?”

“I think not,” said the Hon. Justin. “Not until we get to the next ranch. They say that those wild range cattle do singular things.” But still they stood and watched, fascinated by the shimmering, shifting, red cloud, the distant rumble, the glint of a blazing sun on the sabred heads of a thousand Texas long-horns.

Of a sudden the dust-cloud, which had spilled over the road only to the right, away from the ranch fence, widened out, shifted to the left. They had passed the fence corner, and were on open range. No dust arose on that wing; it was hard prairie, tied close by sagebrush. And inexperienced as were their eyes, the two Englishmen could see some commotion running through the mass; the units composing it were spreading hither and thither; two compound dots, mounted men, were swinging wide about them. The rumble grew louder, lulled, rose again, and above the noise came the sound of a dozen shots, fired in quick succession. Away back in his consciousness, Dudley began to regret that they had chosen, in their young British insolence, to travel without a guide, who might explain to them the strange happenings of this incomprehensible country.

Justin started at the sound of a frightened snort in his ear. He turned to see his horses quivering in every nerve. Almost before he could catch its bridle, the near one was plunging and pitching.

“Get the reins!” yelled Justin; “we’d best be out of here.”

The team broke into a dead run. Looking back, Justin saw the cloud ominously, frightfully near. A struggling advance-guard of long-horns heaved out before, and ahead of them were two men, riding like demons, yet ever beating backward as they rode. Then the red veil fell, and there was nothing but a dust-cloud, rolling on nearer and nearer.

* * * * *

When the Englishmen were gone, Belle looked after their retreating wagon, and sighed. She was just realizing, now that the week was past and these clean, courteous, easy-moving beings of another world were gone, that she had been dreaming dreams. Emilio looked also, sometimes after the wagon, sometimes after the girl. When he bent his gaze on Belle he was serious enough, but when his eye ran down the track of bloody dots, he drew his lips back from his white teeth, and smiled. He was holding the reins of his roan bronco; he dropped them to lean over the fence, and looked up the road, away from the wagon.

“What is it that you see up there?” she asked, carelessly, in Spanish.

“Something that your white-haired friend will be glad to see,” he answered. She looked, saw the dust-cloud coming, saw the little, caking pool of blood, and went white in a moment.

“That,” she cried, “that is what your antelope meant! You knew that cattle were coming this way to-day.”

“A thousand head passing up to the White River country. And wild, very wild.”

“They will trample them; kill them!”

“You thought about that when you kissed him,” he sneered; “the blood goes straight, and the wind is right. He will have a run for it--your lover.”

Then the roar of padding feet was louder, and the herd was coming. They were fifty yards away--and a great, white steer, horned in splendor, lowered his muzzle, and bellowed, and tore the earth, and shot out in advance. Another followed, and still another, each breaking into that rocking run, each one stretching out his nostrils to taste the polluted air. They plunged together over the little pool of blood; they rolled over and over, horns tossing, feet stamping, throats acclaim. The leaders crowded against the corral until its foot-wide posts bent and cracked. A deafening roar, the bellow of a thousand mad cattle, and then nothing but a tangled riot, speeding on down the scent, a thousand great, horned hounds after their quarry.

It was the blood stampede that makes half-wild cattle wholly demons. A clap of lightning, a sudden shot, even the appearance of a dismounted man, will send the mercurial herd rushing in panic fear; but let them once scent blood, and all hell is loosed in them. No pack of wolves follows with the relentless fury of range cattle on the trail of blood. Huddled by the barn, still showing his teeth, but half in fright, at the box of demons that he had opened, the man who laid the trail knew all this. And the girl knew it best of all.

She was between him and his horse as she turned on him.

“You did this--you murderer!”

“I will go,” he said; “I will cut it loose--it will stop the cattle.”

“Yes--_you_! I will go myself.” He jumped at her as she sprang into his saddle. She saw the movement. His lariat hung at the saddle-horn. She brought it down on his wrist. The same movement started the high-strung little roan, already a-quiver with fear. His heels clattered against the bars; Belle, astride like a man, her calico skirts tucked about her hips, was riding after the red cloud, swinging wide into the sage-brush to pass them.

The roan had a dash of the thoroughbred. He was the swiftest thing coursing that day in the four-cornered race between cattle, cowboys, hunted team, and woman, yet he had two hundred yards the worst of his start. But, like a thoroughbred, he caught the bit and shook out his dapple mane, and laid his belly to the earth as he skimmed. Over sage-brush, over treacherous ant-hills, tangling gopher-holes he sped, the reins loose, for he knew his work. Two cowboys, caught in the press, fighting, swearing, striking brutally at heads and horns as they were borne on, called to her in warning; but the roan rounded the pack, shook himself free, and galloped on.

And then Belle saw what she had feared. Knowing their peril, but ignorant of the cause, the two Englishmen were hurrying on ahead, with the carcass still bumping from the tail-board. The cattle in the road, where the running was freer, had gained upon those on the flanks. They were going in a wedge, with the speed of an express train. The cows, fleeter and fiercer than the males, were leading on. Half a dozen cowboys skirmished before, shooting and lashing out desperately, trying to back-fire by a counter-panic, taking chances of life with every gopher-hole. But there was no checking that mass; when a steer flinched before the heavy whip, he was pushed on from behind. And ever they bellowed, with a note of tigers in their voices.

A moment Belle ran before the herd; then calling to the roan, who understood as only a cow-horse can understand, she cut an oblique course across the herd’s face. She gained the road; the herd was behind her, and the roan, gathering his nerve for a final spurt, made for the wagon. She shouted, but the roar behind drowned her voice, and so she reached for the holster, where Emilio kept his knife. As she whipped it out and drew even, reaching for the carcass, the wagon slackened and stopped. Her own horse swerved in his course, and shot past before she could check him.

The off-horse, what with fear and exhaustion, had stumbled and fallen dead. And the wedge was coming on, now but a quarter of a mile away.

Deadly as was their fear, the two Englishmen, who had jumped to the ground, stood and stared to see her turn in beside the standing horse and, without any ceremony, cut his traces and reins. He reared and plunged; Justin caught his bridle.

“Mount quick!” she shouted. And before he could grasp the situation she had pushed Dudley to her roan, almost thrown him into the saddle, and mounted behind.

As the snorting horses bounded away, the roar was almost on their flanks. It rose to its climax in a great, dull crash. Looking back, the girl saw that they were no longer followed. The dust-cloud was a whirlpool that rolled and tumbled over the spot where the wagon had been. For only a minute; the cowboys closed in, and the panic was over. Slowly the men beat back the sullen, sated demons. And when the press split there was no wagon at all--only broken wheels and scattered bits of woodwork, and flattened belongings and blood--blood and gleaming gray hairs trampled into everything.

The two men dismounted and turned to the girl. Then was she first aware of her skirts tucked about her hips, and of the manner in which she had ridden. Her color rose, and she jumped down. She turned redder a moment later when Dudley Latimer took her in his arms and, for the second time that morning, kissed her.

And that time he kissed her in deadly earnest.

THE WHITE GRAVE

By C. Alfred

Harrison and his wife were evidently tenderfeet. Worse than that, they had never been outside the City of New York before; and why an inexperienced, city-bred young man like Harrison should have attempted to move a year’s outfit, which weighs a ton, over the Chilkoot Pass, and tempt Fate in the bleakness of the Yukon country, no one knew.

The reason really was Harrison’s wife. Tired of a living salary in the city, she was ready, when news of the Klondike gold-fields reached the world in 1897, to catch the gold fever; caught it, and argued Harrison into resigning his clerkship in an insurance company, and into taking her with him to Alaska. They were very much in love, and could not be separated. So they invested their savings in sacks of flour, and blankets, and tins of coffee, and in tickets to Dyea.

They landed there in December. This, of course, was an idiotic time to arrive, but they didn’t know, and there were lots of other idiots just then. When Harrison grasped the fact that he must, himself, pull all his pile of provisions over the desolate mountain range that ran upward in front of him, his heart failed him; as the Yukoners say, he got cold feet. But his wife cheered him. Mrs. Harrison was young, and, therefore, hopeful. Moreover, she was a pretty little woman, with a great mass of flaxen hair, and on her account many a rough packer on the trail gave Harrison a lift with his load in the steeper places.

They struggled on together through storms and snowdrifts. Little by little the outfit neared the summit that had lain eighteen miles from them when first they landed. Every morning Harrison would load some two hundred and fifty pounds on the sled, pull it up the trail seven miles or so, and come back in the afternoon. And the girl, for she was nothing more, would cook their little meals on the sheet-iron stove, and dry Harrison’s moccasins and coddle him, and tell him how like it all was to a picnic, and how she enjoyed the life. Which was not true.

And so they passed through Canyon City, beyond which there is no God, the packers say, and up to Sheep Camp, which is far up in the mountains on the timber line, and beyond which there lies a frozen desolation that supports no living thing--not even the scrubby spruce that can exist on the bare rock in lower altitudes. Here they disappeared from view, because the horses do not go past Sheep Camp, the trail being too rough; and the packers, not seeing them, could bring no word.

Now, there were hotels of a fashion in Dyea at this time, but the entire downstairs part was usually made into one room, and used as a bar, dance-hall, and gambling house. So when Harrison came back down the trail two weeks later at three o’clock in the morning, he had to elbow his way up to the bar in the Comique to ask for a room. The first bartender looked at him inquiringly, for he had seen the Harrisons on the trail, and the teamsters had said they must be over the summit by now. His curiosity got the better of him.

“Are you the party that went up with a little blonde lady three weeks ago?” he asked.

“I may be,” said Harrison.

“She seemed kind of light for this country,” pursued the bartender. “Hope she’s standing it all right. Did she come down with you?”

“I brought her with me,” said Harrison.

“Isn’t she coming in? She doesn’t have to pass through the saloon here if she don’t like. She can----”

Harrison’s hand went to his forehead. “She’s dead,” he said.

A teamster came in the side door and spoke to him, and he followed the man out. So did two of the dance-hall girls and the first bartender. Outside in one of the big freighting sleds lay Mrs. Harrison. Her flaxen hair waved as in life over the girlish face, hard now as marble and colder. The moon shone full upon her, and a snow crystal hung here and there on the little fur parkee that she wore. She might have been a marble Madonna there in the moonlight. Through the open door came the noise of the next waltz. One of the girls slipped in, and the orchestra stopped. Quickly a little group began to gather, but Harrison did not move. He seemed as in a trance, staring open-eyed, mistily, at the frozen woman in the sled.

Presently, Blanche, the girl who had stopped the music, touched him on the arm.

“I know there is nothing much I can do for you,” she said. “I know how it feels; but I thought perhaps you’d like to bring her inside, and you can have my room till you--till the funeral.”

And Harrison thanked her. But next day he moved the body to an empty cabin that stood on the river bank in the pine grove back of the Comique. He could not bury her, he could not give her up, he said. True, she could not speak to him, nor move, but even to have her body with him was something, a kind of comfort. The bitter cold of the Northland, the icy winds that roared in untrammeled fury down the cañon--these had killed her; now they would preserve the beauty they had stilled; keep her forever young, as he had known and loved her. Why should he bury her? And when they spoke to him of burial, he bade them leave him alone.

Only in the afternoons, when there was no dancing in the Comique, Blanche used still to go daily to the cabin in the pines, and brought him a padlock for the door, and a lantern, and other things.

It all might have drifted on in such wise indefinitely, had it not been that in a month Harrison had no money to buy his meals with, and that Blanche asked him point blank about it.

“Why don’t you come over and ask Coughlin for something to do?” she said, when Harrison admitted that he had eaten no dinner that day. Coughlin was the man who ran the Comique.

“What could I do?” inquired Harrison. “I’m only a bookkeeper.”

But that night he asked Coughlin about it. Now twice a day Coughlin put all the gold and bank-notes that were in the cash drawer into his pocket, leaving the silver for change; and he kept his accounts, which were few, in his head; and he didn’t need a bookkeeper. But he was sorry for Harrison; and, besides, Blanche had spoken to him of it, and he wanted to oblige her. For Blanche was popular among the men, and was asked to drink oftener than any girl in the house, and was valuable on that account in a country where one gets a dollar for two drinks. So he told Harrison he could go to work.

“In the morning?” said Harrison.

“Any time,” said Coughlin.

Harrison looked around a moment. “If you’ll show me the books, I think I might look them over now.”

“Books?” said Coughlin, hesitatingly. “There aint any, but I guess you can figure all right in this, perhaps.” He produced a small paper-covered blank book from under the bottle rack. “You’ll find a lead pencil in the drawer any time”; and he bustled over to the faro-bank, satisfied that he had demonstrated his familiarity with the bookkeeping craft. He came back to ask Harrison what wages he was going to work for.

“Anything,” said Harrison. “In New York I got seventy-five dollars a month.”

“That aint much,” said Coughlin. “I never asked any man to take less than three dollars a day and board. You can eat in the restaurant there.” Then he introduced Harrison to Big Joe, the day bartender, telling Joe this was the bookkeeper.

An hour later Joe called Harrison to announce that Red Sheehan had got a drink without paying therefor.

“He never will pay for it, either,” continued the experienced Joe, “but I suppose you’ll put it down in the bookkeeping.”