Chapter 7

Cassidy, absorbed in the photo, heard a door slam; and it came to him instantly that Nora had boarded the train at Gunnison, and that some one was showing her over to the head end. As he turned to meet her, he saw Buck staggering toward him, holding a murderous gun in each hand. Instantly he reached for his revolver, but a double flash from the guns of the enemy blinded him and put out the bracket-lamps. As the messenger sprang forward to find his foe, the desperado lunged against him. Cassidy grabbed him, lifted him bodily, and smashed him to the floor of the car; but with the amazing tenacity and wonderful agility of the trained gun-fighter, Buck managed to fire as he fell. The big bullet grazed the top of Cassidy's head, and he fell unconscious across the half-dead desperado.

Buck felt about for his gun, which had fallen from his hand; but already the "bug-dust" was getting in its work. Sighing heavily, he joined the messenger in a quiet sleep.

At Cimarron they broke the car open, revived the sleepers, restored the outlaw to the Ohio State Prison, from which he had escaped, and the messenger to Nora O'Neal.

JACK RAMSEY'S REASON

When Bill Ross romped up over the range and blew into Edmonton in the wake of a warm chinook, bought tobacco at the Hudson's Bay store, and began to regale the gang with weird tales of true fissures, paying placers, and rich loads lying "virgin," as he said, in Northern British Columbia, the gang accepted his tobacco and stories for what they were worth; for it is a tradition up there that all men who come in with the Mudjekeewis are liars.

That was thirty years ago.

The same chinook winds that wafted Bill Ross and his rose-hued romances into town have winged them, and the memory of them, away.

In the meantime Ross reformed, forgot, the people forgave and made him Mayor of Edmonton.

* * * * *

When Jack Ramsey called at the capital of British Columbia and told of a territory in that great Province where the winter winds blew warm, where snow fell only once in a while and was gone again with the first peep of the sun; of a mountain-walled wonderland between the Coast Range and the Rockies, where flowers bloomed nine months in the year and gold could be panned on almost any of the countless rivers, men said he had come down from Alaska, and that he lied.

To be sure, they did not say that to Jack,--they only telegraphed it one to another over their cigars in the club. Some of them actually believed it, and one man who had made money in California and later in Leadville said he _knew_ it was so; for, said he, "Jack Ramsey never says or does a thing without a 'reason.'"

At the end of a week this English-bred Yankee had organized the "Chinook Mining and Milling Company, Limited."

This man was at the head of the scheme, with Jack Ramsey as Managing Director.

Ramsey was a prospector by nature made proficient by practice. He had prospected in every mining camp from Mexico to Moose Factory. If he were to find a real bonanza, his English-American friend used to say, he would be miserable for the balance of his days, or rather his to-morrows. He lived in his to-morrows,--in these and in dreams. He loved women, wine, and music, and the laughter of little children; but better than all these he loved the wilderness and the wildflowers and the soft, low singing of mountain rills. He loved the flowers of the North, for they were all sweet and innocent. On all the two thousand five hundred miles of the Yukon, he used to say, there is not one poisonous plant; and he reasoned that the plants of the Peace and the Pine and the red roses of the Upper Athabasca would be the same.

And so, one March morning, he sailed up the Sound to enter his mountain-walled wonderland by the portal of Port Simpson, which opens on the Pacific. His English-American friend went up as far as Simpson, and when the little coast steamer poked her prow into Work Channel he touched the President of the Chinook Mining and Milling Company and said, "The Gateway to God's world."

* * * * *

The head of the C.M. & M. Company was not surprised when Christmas came ahead of Jack Ramsey's preliminary report. Jack was a careful, conservative prospector, and would not send a report unless there was a good and substantial reason for writing it out.

In the following summer a letter came,--an extremely short one, considering what it contained; for it told, tersely, of great prospects in the wonderland. It closed with a request for a new rifle, some garden-seeds, and an H.B. letter of credit for five hundred dollars.

After a warm debate among the directors it was agreed the goods should go.

The following summer--that is, the second summer in the life of the Chinook Company--Dawson dawned on the world. That year about half the floating population of the Republic went to Cuba and the other half to the Klondike.

As the stream swelled and the channel between Vancouver Island and the mainland grew black with boats, the President of the C.M. & M. Company began to pant for Ramsey, that he might join the rush to the North. That exciting summer died and another dawned, with no news from Ramsey.

When the adventurous English-American could withstand the strain no longer, he shipped for Skagway himself. He dropped off at Port Simpson and inquired about Ramsey.

Yes, the Hudson people said, it was quite probable that Ramsey had passed in that way. Some hundreds of prospectors had gone in during the past three years, but the current created by the Klondike rush had drawn most of them out and up the Sound.

One man declared that he had seen Ramsey ship for Skagway on the "Dirigo," and, after a little help and a few more drinks, gave a minute description of a famous nugget pin which the passing pilgrim said the prospector wore.

And so the capitalist took the next boat for Skagway.

By the time he reached Dawson the death-rattle had begun to assert itself in the bosom of the boom. The most diligent inquiry failed to reveal the presence of the noted prospector. On the contrary, many old-timers from Colorado and California declared that Ramsey had never reached the Dike--that is, not since the boom. In a walled tent on a shimmering sand-bar at the mouth of the crystal Klondike, Captain Jack Crawford, the "Poet Scout," severely sober in that land of large thirsts, wearing his old-time halo of lady-like behavior and hair, was conducting an "Ice Cream Emporium and Soft-drink Saloon."

"No," said the scout, with the tips of his tapered fingers trembling on an empty table, straining forward and staring into the stranger's face; "no, Jack Ramsey has not been here; and if what you say be true--he sleeps alone in yonder fastness. Alas, poor Ramsey!--Ah knew 'im well"; and he sank on a seat, shaking with sobs.

* * * * *

The English-American, on his way out, stopped at Simpson again. From a half-breed trapper he heard of a white man who had crossed the Coast Range three grasses ago. This white man had three or four head of cattle, a Cree servant, and a queer-looking cayuse with long ears and a mournful, melancholy cry. This latter member of the gang carried the outfit.

Taking this half-caste Cree to guide him, the mining man set out in search of the long-lost Ramsey. They crossed the first range and searched the streams north of the Peace River pass, almost to the crest of the continent, but found no trace of the prospector.

When the summer died and the wilderness was darkened by the Northern night, the search was abandoned.

The years drifted into the past, and finally the Chinook Mining and Milling Company went to the wall. The English-American promoter, smarting under criticism, reimbursed each of his associates and took over the office, empty ink-stands and blotting paper, and so blotted out all records of the one business failure of his life.

But he could not blot out Jack Ramsey from his memory. There was a "reason," he would say, for Ramsey's silence.

One day, when in Edmonton, he met Mayor Ross, who had come into the country by the back door some thirty years ago. The tales coaxed from the Mayor's memory corresponded with Ramsey's report; and having nothing but time and money, the ex-President of the C.M. & M. Company determined to go in _via_ the Peace River pass and see for himself. He made the acquaintance of Smith "The Silent," as he was called, who was at that time pathfinding for the Grand Trunk Pacific, and secured permission to go in with the engineers.

At Little Slave Lake he picked up Jim Cromwell, a free-trader, who engaged to guide the mining man into the wonderland he had described.

The story of Ramsey and his rambles appealed to Cromwell, who talked tirelessly, and to the engineer, who listened long; and in time the habitants of Cromwell's domains, which covered a country some seven hundred miles square, all knew the story and all joined in the search.

Beyond the pass of the Peace an old Cree caught up with them and made signs, for he was deaf and dumb. But strange as it may seem, somehow, somewhere, he had heard the story of the lost miner and knew that this strange white man was the miner's friend.

Long he sat by the camp fire, when the camp was asleep, trying, by counting on his fingers and with sticks, to make Cromwell understand what was on his mind.

When day dawned, he plucked Cromwells' sleeve, then walked away fifteen or twenty steps, stopped, unrolled his blankets, and lay down, closing his eyes as if asleep. Presently he got up, rubbed his eyes, lighted his pipe, smoked for awhile, then knocked the fire out on a stone. Then he got up, stamped the fire out as though it had been a camp fire, rolled up his blankets, and travelled on down the slope some twenty feet and repeated the performance. On the next march he made but ten feet. He stopped, put his pack down, seated himself on the trunk of a fallen tree and, with his back to Cromwell, began gesticulating, as if talking to some one, nodding and shaking his head. Then he got a pick and began digging.

At the end of an hour Cromwell and the engineer had agreed that these stations were day's marches and the rests camping places. In short, it was two and a half "sleeps" to what he wanted to show them,--a prospect, a gold mine maybe,--and so Cromwell and the English-American detached themselves and set out at the heels of the mute Cree in search of something.

On the morning of the third day the old Indian could scarcely control himself, so eager was he to be off.

All through the morning the white men followed him in silence. Noon came, and still the Indian pushed on.

At two in the afternoon, rounding the shoulder of a bit of highland overlooking a beautiful valley, they came suddenly upon a half-breed boy playing with a wild goose that had been tamed.

Down in the valley a cabin stood, and over the valley a small drove of cattle were grazing.

Suddenly from behind the hogan came the weird wail of a Colorado canary, who would have been an ass in Absalom's time.

They asked the half-breed boy his name, and he shook his head. They asked for his father, and he frowned.

The mute old Indian took up a pick, and they followed him up the slope. Presently he stopped at a stake upon which they could still read the faint pencil-marks:--

C.M. M. Co. L'T'D

The old Indian pointed to the ground with an expression which looked to the white men like an interrogation. Cromwell nodded, and the Indian began to dig. Cromwell brought a shovel, and they began sinking a shaft.

The English-American, with a sickening, sinking sensation, turned toward the cabin. The boy preceded him and stood in the door. The man put his hand on the boy's head and was about to enter when he caught sight of a nugget at the boy's neck. He stooped and lifted it. The boy shrank back, but the man, going deadly pale, clutched the child, dragging the nugget from his neck.

Now all the Indian in the boy's savage soul asserted itself, and he fought like a little demon. Pitying the child in its impotent rage, the man gave him the nugget and turned away.

Across the valley an Indian woman came walking rapidly, her arms full of turnips and onions and other garden-truck. The white man looked and loathed her; for he felt confident that Ramsey had been murdered, his trinkets distributed, and his carcass cast to the wolves.

When the boy ran to meet the woman, the white man knew by his behavior that he was her child. When the boy had told his mother how the white man had behaved, she flew into a rage, dropped her vegetables, dived into the cabin, and came out with a rifle in her hands. To her evident surprise the man seemed not to dread death, but stood staring at the rifle, which he recognized as the rifle he had sent to Ramsey. To his surprise she did not shoot, but uttering a strange cry, started up the slope, taking the gun with her. With rifle raised and flashing eyes she ordered the two men out of the prospect hole. Warlike as she seemed, she was more than welcome, for she was a woman and could talk. She talked Cree, of course, but it sounded good to Cromwell. Side by side the handsome young athlete and the Cree woman sat and exchanged stories.

Half an hour later the Englishman came up and asked what the prospect promised.

"Ah," said Cromwell, sadly, "this is another story. There is no gold in this vale, though from what this woman tells me the hills are full of it. However," he added, "I believe we have found your friend."

"Yes?" queried the capitalist.

"Yes," echoed Cromwell, "here are his wife and his child; and here, where we're grubbing, his grave."

"Quite so, quite so," said the big, warm-hearted English-American, glaring at the ground; "and that was Ramsey's 'reason' for not writing."

THE GREAT WRECK ON THE PÈRE MARQUETTE

The reader is not expected to believe this red tale; but if he will take the trouble to write the General Manager of the Père Marquette Railroad, State of Michigan, U.S.A. enclosing stamped envelope for answer, I make no doubt that good man, having by this time recovered from the dreadful shock occasioned by the wreck, will cheerfully verify the story even to the minutest detail.

* * * * *

Of course Kelly, being Irish, should have been a Democrat; but he was not. He was not boisterously or offensively Republican, but he was going to vote the prosperity ticket. He had tried it four years ago, and business had never been better on the Père Marquette. Moreover, he had a new hand-car.

The management had issued orders to the effect that there must be no coercion of employees. It was pretty well understood among the men that the higher officials would vote the Republican ticket and leave the little fellows free to do the same. So Kelly, being boss of the gang, could not, with "ju" respect to the order of the Superintendent, enter into the argument going on constantly between Burke and Shea on one side and Lucien Boseaux, the French-Canadian-Anglo-Saxon-Foreign-American Citizen, on the other. This argument always reached its height at noon-time, and had never been more heated than now, it being the day before election. "Here is prosper tee," laughed Lucien, holding up a half-pint bottle of _vin rouge_.

"Yes," Burke retorted, "an' ye have four pound of cotton waste in the bottom o' that bucket to trow the grub t' the top. Begad, I'd vote for O'Bryan wid an empty pail--er none at all--before I'd be humbugged."

"Un I," said Lucien, "would pour Messieur Rousveau vote if my baskett shall all the way up be cotton."

"Sure ye would," said Shea, "and ate the cotton too, ef your masther told ye to. 'Tis the likes of ye, ye bloomin' furreighner, that kapes the thrust alive in this country."

When they were like to come to blows, Kelly, with a mild show of superiority, which is second nature to a section boss, would interfere and restore order. All day they worked and argued, lifting low joints and lowering high centres; and when the red sun sank in the tree-tops, filtering its gold through the golden leaves, they lifted the car onto the rails and started home.

When the men had mounted, Lucien at the forward handle and Burke and Shea side by side on the rear bar, they waited impatiently for Kelly to light his pipe and seat himself comfortably on the front of the car, his heels hanging near to the ties.

There was no more talk now. The men were busy pumping, the "management" inspecting the fish-plates, the culverts, and, incidentally, watching the red sun slide down behind the trees.

At the foot of a long slope, down which the men had been pumping with all their might, there was a short bridge. The forest was heavy here, and already the shadow of the woods lay over the right-of-way. As the car reached the farther end of the culvert, the men were startled by a great explosion. The hand-car was lifted bodily and thrown from the track.

The next thing Lucien remembers is that he woke from a fevered sleep, fraught with bad dreams, and felt warm water running over his chest. He put his hand to his shirt-collar, removed it, and found it red with blood. Thoroughly alarmed, he got to his feet and looked, or rather felt, himself over. His fingers found an ugly ragged gash in the side of his neck, and the fear and horror of it all dazed him.

* * * * *

He reeled and fell again, but this time did not lose consciousness.

Finally, when he was able to drag himself up the embankment to where the car hung crosswise on the track, the sight he saw was so appalling he forgot his own wounds.

On the side opposite to where he had fallen, Burke and Shea lay side by side, just as they had walked and worked and fought for years, and just as they would have voted on the morrow had they been spared. Immediately in front of the car, his feet over one rail and his neck across the other, lay the mortal remains of Kelly the boss, the stub of his black pipe still sticking between his teeth. As Lucien stooped to lift the helpless head his own blood, spurting from the wound in his neck, flooded the face and covered the clothes of the limp foreman. Finding no signs of life in the section boss, the wounded, and by this time thoroughly frightened, French-Canadian turned his attention to the other two victims. Swiftly now the realization of the awful tragedy came over the wounded man. His first thought was of the express now nearly due. With a great effort he succeeded in placing the car on the rails, and then began the work of loading the dead. Out of respect for the office so lately filled by Kelly, he was lifted first and placed on the front of the car, his head pillowed on Lucien's coat. Next he put Burke aboard, bleeding profusely the while; and then began the greater task of loading Shea. Shea was a heavy man, and by the time Lucien had him aboard he was ready to faint from exhaustion and the loss of blood.

Now he must pump up over the little hill; for if the express should come round the curve and fall down the grade, the hand-car would be in greater danger than ever.

After much hard work he gained the top of the hill, the hot blood spurting from his neck at each fall of the handle-bar, and went hurrying down the long easy grade to Charlevoix.

To show how the trifles of life will intrude at the end, it is interesting to hear Lucien declare that one of the first thoughts that came to him on seeing the three prostrate figures was, that up to that moment the wreck had worked a Republican gain of one vote, with his own in doubt.

But now he had more serious work for his brain, already reeling from exhaustion. At the end of fifteen minutes he found himself hanging onto the handle, more to keep from falling than for any help he was giving the car. The evening breeze blowing down the slope helped him, so that the car was really losing nothing in speed. He dared not relax his hold; for if his strength should give out and the car stop, the express would come racing down through the twilight and scoop him into eternity. So he toiled on, dazed, stupefied, fighting for life, surrounded by the dead.

Presently above the singing of the wheels he heard a low sound, like a single, smothered cough of a yard engine suddenly reversed. Now he had the feeling of a man flooded with ice-water, so chilled was his blood. Turning his head to learn the cause of delay (he had fancied the pilot of an engine under his car), he saw Burke, one of the dead men, leap up and glare into his face. That was too much for Lucien, weak as he was, and twisting slightly, he sank to the floor of the car.

Slowly Burke's wandering reason returned. Seeing Shea at his feet, bloodless and apparently unhurt, he kicked him, gently at first, and then harder, and Shea stood up. Mechanically the waking man took his place by Burke's side and began pumping, Lucien lying limp between them. Kelly, they reasoned, must have been dead some time, by the way he was pillowed.

When Shea was reasonably sure that he was alive, he looked at his mate.

"Phat way ar're ye feelin'?" asked Burke.

"Purty good fur a corpse. How's yourself?"

"Oh, so-so!"

"Th' Lord is good to the Irish."

"But luck ut poor Kelly."

"'Tis too bad," said Shea, "an' him dyin' a Republican."

"'Tis the way a man lives he must die."

"Yes," said Shea, thoughtfully, "thim that lives be the sword must go be the board."

When they had pumped on silently for awhile, Shea asked, "How did ye load thim, Burke?"

"Why--I--I suppose I lifted them aboard. I had no derrick."

"Did ye lift me, Burke?"

"I'm damned if I know, Shea," said Burke, staring ahead, for Kelly had moved. "Keep her goin'," he added, and then he bent over the prostrate foreman. He lifted Kelly's head, and the eyes opened. He raised the head a little higher, and Kelly saw the blood upon his beard, on his coat, on his hands.

"Are yez hurted, Kelly?" he asked.

"Hurted! Man, I'm dyin'. Can't you see me heart's blood ebbin' over me?" And then Burke, crossing himself, laid the wounded head gently down again.

By this time they were nearing their destination. Burke, seeing Lucien beyond human aid, took hold again and helped pump, hoping to reach Charlevoix in time to secure medical aid, or a priest at least, for Kelly.

When the hand-car stopped in front of the station at Charlevoix, the employees watching, and the prospective passengers waiting, for the express train gathered about the car.

"Get a docther!" shouted Burke, as the crowd closed in on them.

In a few moments a man with black whiskers, a small hand-grip, and bicycle trousers panted up to the crowd and pushed his way to the car.

"What's up?" he asked; for he was the company's surgeon.

"Well, there's wan dead, wan dying, and we're all more or less kilt," said Shea, pushing the mob back to give the doctor room.

Lifting Lucien's head, the doctor held a small bottle under his nose, and the wounded man came out. Strong, and the reporter would say "willing hands," now lifted the car bodily from the track and put it down on the platform near the baggage-room.

When the doctor had revived the French-Canadian and stopped the flow of blood, he took the boss in hand. Opening the man's clothes, he searched for the wound, but found none.

They literally stripped Kelly to the waist; but there was not a scratch to be found upon his body. When the doctor declared it to be his opinion that Kelly was not hurt at all, but had merely fainted, Kelly was indignant.

Of course the whole accident (Lucien being seriously hurt) had to be investigated, and this was the finding of the experts:--