Chapter 6

In the meantime, however, men were working in the mine; and now they began to ship ore. It was worth $27.00 a ton, and the stock became valuable. Scattered over the Northwest were 500,000 shares that were worth $500,000.00. Nearly all the men who had put money into the enterprise were Yankees,--mining men from Spokane, just over the border. These men began now to pick up all the stray shares that could be found; and in a little while eight-tenths of the shares were held by men living south of the line. At Northport, in Washington, they built one of the finest smelters in the Northwest, hauled their ore over there, and smelted it. The ore was rich in gold and copper. They put in a 300 horse-power hoisting-engine and a 40-drill air-compressor,--the largest in Canada,--taking all the money for these improvements out of the mine. The thing was a success, and news of it ran down to Chicago. A party of men with money started for the new gold fields, but as they were buying tickets three men rushed in and took tickets for Seattle. These were mining men; and those who had bought only to British Columbia cashed in, asked for transportation to the coast, and followed the crowd to the Klondike.

In that way Le Roi for the moment was forgotten.

II

The Lieutenant-Governor of the Northwest Territories, who had been a journalist and had a nose for news, heard of the new camp. All the while men were rushing to the Klondike, for it is the nature of man to go from home for a thing that he might secure under his own vine.

The Governor visited the new camp. A man named Ross Thompson had staked out a town at the foot of Le Roi dump and called it Rossland. The Governor put men to work quietly in the mine and then went back to his plank palace at Regina, capital of the Northwest Territories,--to a capital that looked for all the world like a Kansas frontier town that had just ceased to be the county seat. Here for months he waited, watching the "Imperial Limited" cross the prairie, receiving delegations of half-breeds and an occasional report from one of the common miners in Le Roi. If a capitalist came seeking a soft place to invest, the Governor pointed to the West-bound Limited and whispered in the stranger's ear. To all letters of inquiry coming from Ottawa or England,--letters from men who wanted to be told where to dig for gold,--he answered, "Klondike."

By and by the Governor went to Rossland again. The mine, of which he owned not a single share of stock, was still producing. When he left Rossland he knew all about the lower workings, the value and extent of the ore body.

By this time nearly all the Le Roi shares were held by Spokane people. The Governor, having arranged with a wealthy English syndicate, was in a position to buy the mine; but the owners did not seem anxious to sell. Eventually, however, when he was able to offer them an average of $7.50 for shares that had cost the holders but from ten to sixty cents a share, about half of them were willing to sell; the balance were not. Now the Governor cared nothing for this "balance" so long as he could secure a majority,--a controlling interest in the mine,--for the English would have it in no other way. A few thousand scattering shares he had already picked up, and now, from the faction who were willing to sell, he secured an option on 242,000 shares, which, together with the odd shares already secured, would put his friends in control of the property.

As news of the proposed sale got out, the gorge that was yawning between the two factions grew wider.

Finally, when the day arrived for the transfer to be made, the faction opposed to the sale prepared to make trouble for those who were selling, to prevent the moving of the seal of the company to Canada--in short, to stop the sale. They did not go with guns to the secretary and keeper of the seal and say, "Bide where ye be"; but they went into court and swore out warrants for the arrest of the secretary and those of the directors who favored the sale, charging them with conspiracy.

It was midnight in Spokane.

A black locomotive, hitched to a dark day-coach, stood in front of the Great Northern station. The dim light of the gauge lamp showed two nodding figures in the cab. Out on the platform a man walked up and down, keeping an eye on the engine, that was to cost him a cool $1000.00 for a hundred-mile run. Presently a man with his coat-collar about his ears stepped up into the gangway, shook the driver, and asked him where he was going.

"Goin' to sleep."

The man would not be denied, however, and when he became too pressing, the driver got up and explained that the cab of his engine was his castle, and made a move with his right foot.

"Hold," cried his tormentor, "do you know that you are about to lay violent hands upon an officer o' the law?"

"No," said the engineer, "but I'll lay a violent foot up agin the crown-sheet o' your trousers if you don't jump."

The man jumped.

Now the chief despatcher came from the station, stole along the shadow side of the car, and spoke to the man who had ordered the train.

A deputy sheriff climbed up on the rear end of the special, tried the door, shaded his eyes, and endeavored to look into the car.

"Have you the running orders?" asked the man who was paying for the entertainment.

"Yes."

"Let her go, then."

All this was in a low whisper; and now the despatcher climbed up on the fireman's side and pressed a bit of crumpled tissue-paper into the driver's hand.

"Pull out over the switches slowly, and when you are clear of the yards read your orders an' fly."

The driver opened the throttle gently, the big wheels began to revolve, and the next moment the sheriff and one of his deputies boarded the engine. They demanded to know where that train was bound for.

"The train," said the driver, tugging at the throttle, "is back there at the station. I'm goin' to the round-house."

When the sheriff, glancing back, saw that the coach had been cut off, he swung himself down.

"They've gi'n it up," said the deputy.

"I reckon--what's that?" said the sheriff. It was the wild, long whistle of the lone black engine just leaving the yards. The two officers faced each other and stood listening to the flutter of the straight stack of the black racer as she responded to the touch of the erstwhile drowsy driver, who was at that moment laughing at the high sheriff, and who would return to tell of it, and gloat in the streets of Spokane.

The sheriff knew that three of the men for whom he held warrants were at Hillier, seven miles on the way to Canada. This engine, then, had been sent to pick them up and bear them away over the border. An electric line paralleled the steam way to Hillier, and now the sheriff boarded a trolley and set sail to capture the engine, leaving one deputy to guard the special car.

By the time the engineer got the water worked out of his cylinders, the trolley was creeping up beside his tank. He saw the flash from the wire above as the car, nodding and dipping like a light boat in the wake of a ferry, shot beneath the cross-wires, and knew instantly that she was after him.

An electric car would not be ploughing through the gloom at that rate, without a ray of light, merely for the fun of the thing. A smile of contempt curled the lip of the driver as he cut the reverse-lever back to the first notch, put on the injector, and opened the throttle yet a little wider.

The two machines were running almost neck and neck now. The trolley cried, hissed, and spat fire in her mad effort to pass the locomotive. A few stray sparks went out of the engine-stack, and fell upon the roof of the racing car. At intervals of half a minute the fireman opened the furnace door; and by the flare of light from the white-hot fire-box the engine-driver could see the men on the teetering trolley,--the motor-man, the conductor, the sheriff, and his deputy.

Slowly now the black flier began to slip away from the electric machine.

The driver, smiling across the glare of the furnace door at his silent, sooty companion, touched the throttle again; and the great engine drew away from the trolley, as a jack-rabbit who has been fooling with a yellow dog passes swiftly out of reach of his silly yelp.

Now the men on the trolley heard the wild, triumphant scream of the iron horse whistling for Hillier. The three directors of Le Roi had been warned by wire, and were waiting, ready to board the engine.

The big wheels had scarcely stopped revolving when the men began to get on. They had barely begun to turn again when the trolley dashed into Hillier. The sheriff leaped to the ground and came running for the engine. The wheels slipped; and each passing second brought the mighty hand of the law, now outstretched, still nearer to the tail of the tank. She was moving now, but the sheriff was doing better. Ten feet separated the pursued and the pursuer. She slipped again, and the sheriff caught the corner of the engine-tank. By this time the driver had got the sand running; and now, as the wheels held the rail, the big engine bounded forward, almost shaking the sheriff loose. With each turn of the wheels the speed was increasing. The sheriff held on; and in three or four seconds he was taking only about two steps between telegraph poles, and then--he let go.

III

While the locomotive and the trolley were racing across the country the Governor, who was engineering it all, invested another thousand. He ordered another engine, and when she backed onto the coach the deputy sheriff told the driver that he must not leave the station. The engineer held his torch high above his head, looked the deputy over, and then went on oiling his engine. In the meantime the Governor had stored his friends away in the dark coach, including the secretary with the company's great seal. Now the deputy became uneasy.

He dared not leave the train to send a wire to his chief at Hillier, for the sheriff had said, "Keep your eye on the car."

The despatcher, whose only interest in the matter was to run the trains and earn money for his employer, having given written and verbal orders to the engineer, watched his chance and, when the sheriff was pounding on the rear door, dodged in at the front, signalling with the bell-rope to the driver to go. Frantically now the deputy beat upon the rear door of the car, but the men within only laughed as the wheels rattled over the last switch and left the lights of Spokane far behind.

Away they went over a new and crooked track, the sand and cinders sucking in round the tail of the train to torment the luckless deputy. Away over hills and rills, past Hillier, where the sheriff still stood staring down the darkness after the vanishing engine; over switches and through the Seven Devils, while the unhappy deputy hung to the rear railing with one hand and crossed himself.

Each passing moment brought the racing train still nearer the border,--to that invisible line that marks the end of Yankeeland and the beginning of the British possessions. The sheriff knew this and beat loudly upon the car door with an iron gun. The Governor let the sash fall at the top of the door and spoke, or rather yelled, to the deputy.

To the Governor's amazement, the sheriff pushed the bottle aside. Dry and dusty as he was, he would not drink. He was too mad to swallow. He poked his head into the dark coach and ordered the whole party to surrender.

"Just say what you want," said a voice in the gloom, "and we'll pass it out to you."

The sheriff became busy with some curves and reverse curves now, and made no reply.

Presently the Governor came to the window in the rear door again and called up the sheriff.

"We are now nearing the border," he said to the man on the platform. "They won't know you over there. Here you stand for law and order, and I respect you, though I don't care to meet you personally; but over the border you'll only stand for your sentence,--two years for carrying a cannon on your hip,--and then they'll take you away to prison."

The sheriff made no answer.

"Now we're going to slow down at the line to about twenty miles an hour, more or less; and if you'll take a little friendly advice, you'll fall off."

The train was still running at a furious pace. The whistle sounded,--one long, wild scream,--and the speed of the train slackened.

"Here you are," the Governor called, and the sheriff stood on the lower step.

The door opened and the Governor stepped out on the platform, followed by his companions.

"I arrest you," the sheriff shouted, "all of you."

"But you can't,--you're in British Columbia," the men laughed.

"Let go, now," said the Governor, and a moment later the deputy picked himself up and limped back over the border.

IN THE BLACK CAÑON

One Christmas, at least, will live long in the memory of the men and women who hung up their stockings at La Veta Hotel in Gunnison in 18--. Ah, those were the best days of Colorado. Then folks were brave and true to the traditions of Red Hoss Mountain, when "money flowed like liquor," and coal strikes didn't matter, for the people all had something to burn.

The Yankee proprietor of the dining-stations on this mountain line had made them as famous almost as the Harvey houses on the Santa Fé were; which praise is pardonable, since the Limited train with its café car has closed them all.

But the best of the bunch was La Veta, and the presiding genius was Nora O'Neal, the lady manager. Many an R. & W. excursionist reading this story will recall her smile, her great gray eyes, her heaps of dark brown hair, and the mountain trout that her tables held.

It will be remembered that at that time the main lines of the Rio Grande lay by the banks of the Gunnison, through the Black Cañon, over Cerro Summit, and down the Uncompaghre and the Grande to Grand Junction, the gate of the Utah Desert.

John Cassidy was an express messenger whose run was over this route and whose heart and its secret were in the keeping of Nora O'Neal.

From day to day, from week to week, he had waited her answer, which was to come to him "by Christmas."

And now, as only two days remained, he dreaded it, as he had hoped and prayed for it since the aspen leaves began to gather their gold. He knew by the troubled look she wore when off her guard that Nora was thinking.

* * * * *

Most of the men who were gunning in Gunnison in the early 80's were fearless men, who, when a difference of opinion arose, faced each other and fought it out; but there had come to live at La Veta a thin, quiet, handsome fellow, who moved mysteriously in and out of the camp, slept a lot by day, and showed a fondness for faro by night. When a name was needed he signed "Buckingham." His icy hand was soft and white, and his clothes fitted him faultlessly. He was handsome, and when he paid his bill at the end of the fourth week he proposed to Nora O'Neal. He was so fairer, physically, than Cassidy and so darker, morally, that Nora could not make up her mind at all, at all.

In the shadow time, between sunset and gas-light, on the afternoon of the last day but one before Christmas, Buck, as he came to be called, leaned over the office counter and put a folded bit of white paper in Nora's hand, saying, as he closed her fingers over it: "Put this powder in Cassidy's cup." He knew Cassidy merely as the messenger whose freight he coveted, and not as a contestant for Nora's heart and hand,--a hand he prized, however, as he would a bob-tailed flush, but no more.

As for Cassidy, he would be glad, waking, to find himself alive; and if this plan miscarried, Buck should be able to side-step the gallows. Anyway, dope was preferable to death.

Nora opened her hand, and in utter amazement looked at the paper. Some one interrupted them. Buck turned away, and Nora shoved the powder down deep into her jacket pocket, feeling vaguely guilty.

No. 7, the Salt Lake Limited, was an hour late that night. The regular dinner (we called it supper then) was over when Shanley whistled in.

* * * * *

As the headlight of the Rockaway engine gleamed along the hotel windows, Nora went back to see that everything was ready.

In the narrow passage between the kitchen and the dining-room she met Buckingham. "What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"Now, my beauty," said Buck, laying a cold hand on her arm, "don't be excited."

She turned her honest eyes to him and he almost visibly shrank from them, as she had shuddered at the strange, cold touch of his hand.

"Put that powder in Cassidy's cup," he said, and in the half-light of the little hallway she saw his cruel smile.

"And kill Cassidy, the best friend I have on earth?"

"It will not kill him, but it may save his life. I shall be in his car to-night. Sabe? Do as I tell you. He will only fall asleep for a little while, otherwise--well, he may oversleep himself." She would have passed on, but he stayed her. "Where is it?" he demanded, with a meaning glance.

She touched her jacket pocket, and he released his hold on her arm.

The shuffle and scuffle of the feet of hungry travellers who were piling into the dining-room had disturbed them. Nora passed on to the rear, Buck out to sit down and dine with the passengers, who always had a shade the best of the bill.

From his favorite seat, facing the audience, he watched the trainmen tumbling into the alcove off the west wing, in one corner of which a couple of Pullman porters in blue and gold sat at a small table, feeding with their forks and behaving better than some of their white comrades behaved.

* * * * *

Cassidy came in a moment later, sat down, and looked over to see if his rival was in his accustomed place. The big messenger looked steadily at the other man, who had never guessed the messenger's secret, and the other man looked down.

Already his supper, steaming hot, stood before him, while the table-girl danced attendance for the tip she was always sure of at the finish. She studied his tastes and knew his wants, from rare roast down to the small, black coffee with which he invariably concluded his meal.

When Buck looked up again he saw Nora approach the table, smile at Cassidy, and put a cup of coffee down by his plate.

The trainmen were soon through with their supper, being notoriously rapid feeders,--which disastrous habit they acquire while on freight, when they are expected to eat dinner and do an hour's switching in twenty minutes.

Unusually early for him, Buck passed out. Nora purposely avoided him, but watched him from the unlighted little private office. She saw him light a cigar and stroll down the long platform. At the rear of the last Pullman he threw his cigar away and crossed quickly to the shadow side of the train. She saw him pass along, for there were no vestibules then, and made no doubt he was climbing into Cassidy's car. As the messenger reached for his change, the cashier-manager caught his hand, drew it across the counter, leaned toward him, saying excitedly: "Be careful to-night, John; don't fall asleep or nod for a moment. Oh, be careful!" she repeated, with ever-increasing intensity, her hot hand trembling on his great wrist; "be careful, come back safe, and you shall have your answer."

When Cassidy came back to earth he was surrounded by half a dozen good-natured passengers, men and women, who had come out of the dining-room during the ten or fifteen seconds he had spent in Paradise.

A swift glance at the faces about told him that they had seen, another at Nora that she was embarrassed; but in two ticks of the office clock he protected her, as he would his safe; for his work and time had trained him to be ready instantly for any emergency.

"Good-night, sister," he called cheerily, as he hurried toward the door.

"Good-night, John," said Nora, glancing up from the till, radiant with the excitement of her "sweet distress."

"Oh, by Jove!" said a man.

"Huh!" said a woman, and they looked like people who had just missed a boat.

With her face against the window, Nora watched the red lights on the rear of No. 7 swing out to the main line.

* * * * *

Closing the desk, she climbed to her room on the third floor and knelt by the window. Away out on the shrouded vale she saw the dark train creeping, a solid stream of fire flowing from the short stack of the "shotgun"; for Peasley was pounding her for all she was worth in an honest effort to make up the hour that Shanley had lost in the snowdrifts of Marshall Pass. Presently she heard the muffled roar of the train on a trestle, and a moment later saw the Salt Lake Limited swallowed by the Black Cañon, in whose sunless gorges many a driver died before the scenery settled after having been disturbed by the builders of the road.

Over ahead in his quiet car Cassidy sat musing, smoking, and wondering why Nora should seem so anxious about him. Turning, he glanced about. Everything looked right, but the girl's anxiety bothered him.

Picking up a bundle of way-bills, he began checking up. The engine screamed for Sapinero, and a moment later he felt the list as they rounded Dead Man's Curve.

Unless they were flagged, the next stop would be at Cimarron, at the other end of the cañon.

His work done, the messenger lighted his pipe, settled himself in his high-backed canvas camp-chair, and put his feet up on his box for a good smoke. He tried to think of a number of things that had nothing whatever to do with Nora, but somehow she invariably elbowed into his thoughts.

He leaned over and opened his box--not the strong-box, but the wooden, trunk-like box that holds the messenger's street-coat when he's on duty and his jumper when he's off. On the under side of the lifted lid he had fixed a large panel picture of Nora O'Neal.

* * * * *

Buckingham, peering over a piano-box, behind which he had hidden at Gunnison, saw and recognized the photograph; for the messenger's white light stood on the little safe near the picture. For half an hour he had been watching Cassidy, wondering why he did not fall asleep. He had seen Nora put the cup down with her own hand, to guard, as he thought, against the possibility of a mistake. What will a woman not dare and do for the man she loves? He sighed softly. He recalled now that he had always exercised a powerful influence over women,--that is, the few he had known,--but he was surprised that this consistent Catholic girl should be so "dead easy."

"And now look at this one hundred and ninety-eight pounds of egotism sitting here smiling on the likeness of the lady who has just dropped bug-dust in his coffee. It's positively funny."

Such were the half-whispered musings of the would-be robber.

He actually grew drowsy waiting for Cassidy to go to sleep. The car lurched on a sharp curve, dislodging some boxes. Buck felt a strange, tingling sensation in his fingers and toes. Presently he nodded.

Cassidy sat gazing on the pictured face that had hovered over him in all his dreams for months, and as he gazed, seemed to feel her living presence. He rose as if to greet her, but kept his eyes upon the picture.

Suddenly realizing that something was wrong in his end of the car, Buck stood up, gripping the top of the piano-box. The scream of the engine startled him. The car crashed over the switch-frog at Curecanti, and Curecanti's Needle stabbed the starry vault above. The car swayed strangely and the lights grew dim.

Suddenly the awful truth flashed through his bewildered brain.

"O-o-o-oh, the wench!" he hissed, pulling his guns.

* * * * *