Part 12

“And do you remember that the Governor of this state and his military staff, all in uniform, as well as a half dozen other big-wigs, were on board, and that they all reported that there had been seven lusty bandits, all heavily armed, some of whom went through the train and robbed the passengers while others compelled the engineer and fireman to get down, uncouple the engine, and then blow open the express car door and safe for them and carry out the money, about twenty or thirty thousand dollars all told?”

Binns remembered it well. He had been on the _News_ at the time, and the full-page spread had attracted his keenest attention. It was illustrative, as he thought, of the character of this region--raw and still daring. It smacked so much of the lawlessness of the forties, when pack-train and stage-coach robberies were the rule and not the exception. It had caused his hair to tingle at the roots at times so real was it. Never had he been so close, as it were, to anything so dramatic.

“Yes, sir, I remember it very well,” he replied.

“And do you remember how the newspapers laughed over the fact that the Governor and his military staff had crawled into their berths and didn’t come out again until the train had started?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well now, Binns, just read this,” and here Mr. Waxby handed him a telegram, the while his eyes gleamed with a keen humorous light, and Mr. Binns read:

“Medicine Flats, M. K.

“Lem Rollins arrested here to-day confesses to single-handed robbery of M. P. express west of Dolesville February 2d last. Money recovered. Rollins being brought to O---- via C.T.&A. this p.m. Should arrive six-thirty.”

“Apparently,” cackled Mr. Waxby, “there was nothing to that seven-bandit story at all, Binns. There weren’t any seven robbers, but just one, and they’ve caught him, and he’s confessed,” and here he burst into more laughter.

“No, Binns,” went on Waxby, “if this is really true, it is a wonderful story. You don’t often find one man holding up a whole train anywhere and getting away with twenty or thirty thousand dollars. It’s amazing. I’ve decided that we won’t wait for him to arrive, but that you’re to go out and meet him. According to this time-table you can take a local that leaves here at two-fifteen and get to Pacific fifteen minutes ahead of the express on which he is coming in, and you’ve just about time to make it. That will give you all of an hour and a half in which to interview him. It’s just possible that the _News_ and the other papers won’t get wind of this in time to send a man. Think of the opportunity it gives you to study him! No seven robbers, remember, but just one! And the Governor and his whole staff on board! Make him tell what he thinks of the Governor and his staff. Make him talk. Ha! ha! You’ll have him all to yourself. Think of that! And they crawled into their berths! Ha! ha! Gee whiz, you’ve got the chance of a lifetime!”

Mr. Binns stared at the telegram. He recalled the detailed descriptions of the actions of the seven robbers, how some of them had prowled up and down outside the train, while others went through it rifling the passengers, and still others, forward, overawed the engineer and fireman, broke open and robbed the express car safe in the face of an armed messenger as well as mailman and trainmen, and how they had then decamped into the dark. How could one man have done it? It couldn’t be true!

Nevertheless he arose, duly impressed. It would be no easy task to get just the right touch, but he felt that he might. If only the train weren’t over-run with other reporters! He stuffed some notepaper into his pocket and bustled down to the Union Station--if Mr. Binns could be said to _bustle_. Here he encountered his first hitch.

On inquiring for a ticket to Pacific, the slightly disturbing response of “Which road?” was made.

“Are there two?” asked Mr. Binns.

“Yes--M.P. and C.T.&A.”

“They both go to Pacific, do they?”

“Yes.”

“Which train leaves first?”

“C.T.&A. It’s waiting now.”

Mr. Binns hesitated, but there was no time to lose. It didn’t make any difference, so long as he connected with the incoming express, as the time-table showed that this did. He paid for his ticket and got aboard, but now an irritating thought came to him. Supposing other reporters from either the _News_ or one of the three afternoon papers were aboard, especially the _News_! If there were not he would have this fine task all to himself, and what a beat! But if there were others? He walked forward to the smoker, which was the next car in front, and there, to his intense disgust and nervous dissatisfaction, he spied, of all people, the one man he would least have expected to find on an assignment of this kind, the one man he least wanted to see--Mr. Collins, no less, red-headed, serene, determined, a cigar between his teeth, crouched low in his seat smoking and reading a paper as calmly as though he were not bent upon the most important task of the year.

“Pshaw!” exclaimed Mr. Binns irritably and even bitterly.

He returned to his seat nervous and ill composed, all the more so because he now recalled Collins’s venomous threat, “Wait’ll we get a real case some time, you and me.” The low creature! Why, he couldn’t even write a decent sentence. Why should he fear him so? But just the same he did fear him--why, he could scarcely say. Collins was so raw, savage, brutal, in his mood and plans.

But why, in heaven’s name, he now asked himself as he meditated in his seat as to ways and means, should a man like Batsford send a man like Collins, who couldn’t even write, to interpret a story and a character of this kind? How could he hope to dig out the odd psychology of this very queer case? Plainly he was too crude, too unintellectual to get it straight. Nevertheless, here he was, and now, plainly, he would have this awful creature to contend with. And Collins was so bitter toward him. He would leave no trick unturned to beat him! These country detectives and sheriff and railroad men, whoever they were or wherever they came from, would be sure, on the instant, to make friends with Collins, as they always did, and do their best to serve him. They seemed to like that sort of man, worse luck. They might even, at Collins’s instigation, refuse to let him interview the bandit at all! If so, then what? But Collins would get something somehow, you might be sure, secret details which they might not relate to him. It made him nervous. Even if he got a chance he would have to interview this wonderful bandit in front of this awful creature, this one man whom he most despised, and who would deprive him of most of the benefit of all his questions by writing as though he had thought of and asked all of them himself. Think of it!

The dreary local sped on, and as it drew nearer and nearer to Pacific, Binns became more and more nervous. For him the whole charm of this beautiful September landscape through which he was speeding now was all spoiled. When the train finally drew up at Pacific he jumped down, all alive with the determination not to be outdone in any way, and yet nervous and worried to a degree. Let Collins do his worst, he thought. He would show him. Still--just then he saw the latter jumping down. At the same time, Collins spied him, and on the instant his face clouded over. He seemed fairly to bristle with an angry animal rage, and he glared as though he would like to kill Binns, at the same time looking around to see who else might get off. “My enemy!” was written all over him. Seeing no one, he ran up to the station-agent and apparently asked when the train from the West was due. Binns decided at once not to trail, but instead sought information from his own conductor, who assured him that the East-bound express would probably be on time five minutes later, and would certainly stop here.

“We take the siding here,” he said. “You’ll hear the whistle in a few minutes.”

“It always stops here, does it?” asked Binns anxiously.

“Always.”

As they talked, Collins came back to the platform’s edge and stood looking up the track. At the same time this train pulled out, and a few minutes later the whistle of the express was heard. Now for a real contest, thought Binns. Somewhere in one of those cars would be this astounding bandit surrounded by detectives, and his duty, in spite of the indignity of it, would be to clamber aboard and get there first, explain who he was, ingratiate himself into the good graces of the captors and the prisoner, and begin his questioning, vanquishing Collins as best he might--perhaps by the ease with which he should take charge. In a few moments the express was rolling into the station, and then Binns saw his enemy leap aboard and, with that iron effrontery and savageness which always irritated Binns so much, race through the forward cars to find the prisoner. Binns was about to essay the rear cars, but just then the conductor, a portly, genial-looking soul, stepped down beside him.

“Is Lem Rollins, the train robber they are bringing in from Bald Knob, on here?” he inquired. “I’m from the _Star_, and I’ve been sent out to interview him.”

“You’re on the wrong road, brother,” smiled the conductor. “He’s not on this train. Those detective fellows have fooled you newspaper men, I’m afraid. They’re bringing him in over the M.P., as I understand it. They took him across from Bald Knob to Wahaba and caught the train there--but I’ll tell you,” and here he took out a large open-face silver watch and consulted it, “you might be able to catch him yet if you run for it. It’s only across the field there. You see that little yellow station over there? Well, that’s the depot. It’s due now, but sometimes it’s a little late. You’ll have to run for it, though. You haven’t a minute to spare.”

Binns was all aquiver on the instant. Suppose, in spite of Collins’s zeal and savagery, he should outwit him yet by catching this other train while he was searching this one! All the gameness of his youth and profession rose up in him. Without stopping to thank his informer, he leaped like a hare along the little path which cut diagonally across this lone field and which was evidently well worn by human feet. As he ran he wondered whether the genial conductor could possibly have lied to him to throw him off the track, and also if his enemy, seeing him running, had discovered his error by now and was following, granting that the conductor had told him the truth. He looked back occasionally, taking off his coat and glasses as he ran, and even throwing away his cane. Apparently Collins was still searching the other train. And now Binns at the same time, looking eagerly forward toward the other station, saw a semaphore arm which stood at right angles to the station lower itself for a clear track for some train. At the same time he also spied a mail-bag hanging out on a take-post arm, indicating that whatever this train was and whichever way it might be going, it was not going to stop here. He turned, still uncertain as to whether he had made a mistake in not searching the other train. Supposing the conductor had deliberately fooled him! Suppose Collins had made some preliminary arrangements of which he knew nothing? Suppose he had! Supposing the burglar were really on there, and even now Collins was busy with the opening questions of his interview, while he was here, behind! Oh Lord, what a beat! And he would have no reasonable explanation to offer except that he had been outwitted. What would happen to him? He slowed up in his running, chill beads of sweat bursting out on his face as he did so, but then, looking backward, he saw the train begin to move and from it, as if shot out of a gun, the significant form of Collins leap down and begin to run along this same path. Then, by George, the robber was not on it, after all! The conductor had told him the truth! Ha! Collins would now attempt to make this other train. He had been told that the bandit was coming in on this. Binns could see him speeding along the path at top speed, his hat off, his hands waving nervously about. But by now Binns had reached the station a good three minutes ahead of his rival.

Desperately he ran into it, a tiny thing, sticking his eager perspiring face in at the open office window, and calling to the stout, truculent little occupant of it:

“When is the East-bound M.P. express due here?”

“Now,” replied the agent surlily.

“Does it stop?”

“No, it don’t stop.”

“Can it be stopped?”

“No, it _cannot_!”

“You mean to say you have no right to stop it?”

“I mean I won’t stop it.”

As they spoke there came the ominous shriek of the express’s whistle tearing on toward them. For the moment he was almost willing that Collins should join him if only he could make the train and gain this interview. He must have it. Waxby expected him to get it. Think of what a beat he would have if he won--what Waxby would think if he failed!

“Would five dollars stop it?” he asked desperately, diving into his pocket.

“No.”

“Will ten?”

“It might,” the agent replied crustily, and rose to his feet.

“Stop it,” urged Binns feverishly, handing over the bill.

The agent took it, and grabbing a tablet of yellow order blanks which lay before him, scribbled something on the face of one and ran outside, holding it up at arm’s length as he did so. At the same time he called to Binns:

“Run on down the track! Run after it. She won’t stop here--she can’t. She’ll go a thousand feet before she can slow up. Get on down there, and after you’re on I’ll let ’er go.”

He waved the yellow paper desperately, while Binns, all tense with excitement and desire, began running as fast as he could in the direction indicated. Now, if he were lucky, he would make it, and Collins would be left behind--think of it! He could get them to go ahead, maybe, before Collins could get aboard. Oh, my! As he ran and thought, he heard the grinding wheels of the express rushing up behind him. In a thought, as it were, it was alongside and past, its wheels shrieking and emitting sparks. True enough, it was stopping! He would be able to get on! Oh, glory! And maybe Collins wouldn’t be able to! Wouldn’t that be wonderful? It was far ahead of him now, but almost stock-still, and he was running like mad. As he ran he could hear the final gritty screech of the wheels against the brakes as the train came to a full stop farther on, and then coming up and climbing aboard, breathless and gasping painfully, he looked back, only to see that his rival had taken a diagonal course across the common, and was now not more than a hundred feet behind. He would make the train if he kept this up. It could scarcely be started quickly enough to leave him behind, even if Binns paid for it. Instead of setting himself to the stern task of keeping Mr. Collins off the train, however, as assuredly Mr. Collins would have done--with his fists or his feet, if necessary, or his money--Mr. Binns now hesitated, uncertain what to do. On the rear platform with him was a brakeman newly stepped forth and, coming out of the door, the conductor.

“Let her go!” he cried to the conductor. “Let her go! It’s all right! Go on!”

“Don’t that other fellow want to get on?” asked the latter curiously.

“No, no, no!” Binns exclaimed irritably and yet pleading. “Don’t let him on! He hasn’t any right on here. I arranged to stop this train. I’m from the _Star_. I’ll pay you if you don’t let him on. It’s the train robber I want. Go ahead,” but even as he spoke Mr. Collins came up, panting and wet, but with a leer of triumph and joy over his rival’s discomfiture written all over his face as he pulled himself up the steps.

“You thought you’d leave me behind, didn’t you?” he sneered as he pushed his way upward. “Well, I fooled you this time, didn’t I?”

Now was the crucial moment of Mr. Binns’s career had his courage been equal to it, but it was not. He had the opportunity to do the one thing which might have wrested victory from defeat--that is, push Mr. Collins off and keep him off. The train was beginning to move. But instead of employing this raw force which Mr. Collins would assuredly have employed, he hesitated and debated, unable in his super-refinement to make up his mind, while Mr. Collins, not to be daunted or parleyed with, dashed into the car in search of the robber. In the sudden immensity of his discomfiture, Binns now followed him with scarcely a thought for the moment, only to see Collins bustling up to the bandit in the third car ahead who, handcuffed to a country sheriff and surrounded by several detectives, was staring idly at the passengers.

“Gee, sport,” the latter was saying as Mr. Binns sat down, patting the burglar familiarly on the knee and fixing him with that basilisk gaze of his which was intended to soothe and flatter the victim, “that was a great trick you pulled off. The paper’ll be crazy to find out how you did it. My paper, the _News_, wants a whole page of it. It wants your picture, too. Say, you didn’t really do it all alone, did you? Well, that’s what I call swell work, eh, Cap?” and now he turned his ingratiating leer on the country sheriff and the detectives. In a moment or two more he was telling them all what an intimate friend he was of “Billy” Desmond, the chief of detectives of O---- and Mr. So-and-So, the chief of police, as well as various other dignitaries of that world.

Plainly, admitted Binns to himself, he was beaten now, as much so as this burglar, he thought. His great opportunity was gone. What a victory this might have been, and now look at it! Disgruntled, he sat down beside his enemy, beginning to think what to ask, the while the latter, preening himself in his raw way on his success, began congratulating the prisoner on his great feat.

“The dull stuff!” thought Mr. Binns. “To think that I should have to contend with a creature like this! And these are the people he considers something! And he wants a whole page for the _News_! My word! He’d do well if he wrote a half-column alone.”

Still, to his intense chagrin, he could not fail to see that Mr. Collins was making excellent headway, not only with the country sheriff, who was a big bland creature, but the detectives and even the burglar himself. The latter was a most unpromising specimen for so unique a deed--short, broad-shouldered, heavy-limbed, with a squarish, inexpressive, even dull-looking face, blue-gray eyes, dark brown hair, big, lumpy, rough hands, and a tanned and seamed skin. He wore the cheap, nondescript clothes of a laborer, a blue “hickory” shirt, blackish-gray trousers, brownish-maroon coat, and a red bandana handkerchief in lieu of a collar. On his head was a small round brown hat pulled down over his eyes after the manner of a cap. He had the still, indifferent expression of a captive bird, and when Binns finally faced him and sat down, he seemed scarcely to notice either him or Collins, or if so with eyes that told nothing. Binns often wondered afterward what he really did think. At the same time he was so incensed at the mere presence of Collins that he could scarcely speak.

The latter had the average detective-politician-gambler’s habit of simulating an intense interest and an enthusiasm which he did not feel, his face wreathing itself in a cheery smile, the while his eyes followed one like those of a hawk, attempting all the while to discover whether his assumed enthusiasm or friendship was being accepted at its face value or not. The only time Binns seemed to obtain the least grip on this situation, or to impress himself on the minds of the detectives and prisoner, was when it came to those finer shades of questioning which concerned just why, for what ulterior reasons, the burglar had attempted this deed alone. But even here, Binns noticed that his confrère was all ears, and making copious notes.

But always, to Binns’s astonishment and chagrin, the prisoner as well as his captors paid more attention to Collins than they did to himself. They turned to him as to a lamp, and seemed to be really immensely more impressed with him than with himself, although the principal lines of questioning fell to him. After a time he became so dour and enraged that he could think of but one thing that would really have satisfied him, and that was to attack Collins physically and give him a good beating.

However, by degrees and between them, the story was finally extracted, and a fine tale it made. It appeared that up to seven or eight months preceding the robbery, possibly a year, Rollins had never thought of being a train robber but had been only a freight brakeman or yard-hand on this same road at one of its division points. Latterly he had even been promoted to be a sort of superior switchman and assistant freight handler at some station where there was considerable work of this kind. Previous to his railroad work he had been a livery stable helper in the town where he was eventually apprehended, and before that a farm-hand somewhere near the same place. About a year before the crime, owing to hard times, this road had laid off a large number of men, including Rollins, and reduced the wages of all others by as much as ten per cent. Naturally a great deal of labor discontent ensued, and strikes, riots, and the like were the order of the day. Again, a certain number of train robberies which were charged and traced to discharged and dissatisfied employees now followed. The methods of successful train robbing were then and there so cleverly set forth by the average newspaper that nearly any burglar so inclined could follow them. Among other things, while working as a freight handler, Rollins had heard of the many money shipments made by express companies in their express cars, their large amounts, the manner in which they were guarded, and so on.

The road for which he worked at this time, the M.P., was, as he now learned, a very popular route for money shipments both East and West. And although express messengers (as those in charge of the car and its safe were called) were well and invariably armed owing to the many train robberies which had been occurring in the West recently, still these assaults had not been without success. Indeed, the deaths of various firemen, engineers, messengers, conductors, and even passengers, and the fact that much money had recently been stolen and never recovered, had not only encouraged the growth of banditry everywhere, but had put such an unreasoning fear into most employees connected with the roads that but few even of those especially picked guards ventured to give these marauders battle.