Chapter 9

BAD NEWS FROM THE MINES

"A hold-up," muttered Toomey, as, obedient to Big Ben's orders, "Duck, you two!" he and Geordie crouched for the moment in the dark interior of the cab. But who would hold up a freight bound to, not away from, the mines? Twice, thrice, indeed, since the cavalry had been sent from Fort Reynolds, the overland express had been flagged between Argenta and Summit Siding, and masked men had boarded the train, despoiled the passengers and Pullmans; and once old Shiner had come under suspicion because certain plunder was found at his place.

"The robbers are discharged soldiers," swore the sheriff of Yampah; "their haunt is at Shiner's." Yet not so much as a scrap of other evidence was there found. Shiner threw open his doors to the officers, bade them search high and low, declared upon honor as he would upon oath that he himself had found the damaging evidence--two pocket-books and some valueless papers--on the open prairie a mile from his place the day after the third of the "hold-ups." There had long been bad blood betwixt him and the sheriff, and this time the man of the law gave the lie, and but for prompt work of bystanders--deputy Shiners and sheriffs both--there would have been cause for a coroner's inquest on the spot. Before that day it had been avowed hostility between them; now it was war to the knife. Much of this was known to the men of the railway, who sided according to their lights. Few of them knew Shiner; many knew the sheriff. It was patent at a glance that Big Ben held to the views of the latter and looked upon Shiner's hand, or Shiner's hands, as the cause of the hold-up. Nor was he entirely wrong. Even as Cullin came running up the track from the rear of the train, and brakemen running atop of it, eager to learn the cause of the stop, two men with saddle-bags slung over the left arm stepped out from behind the passenger depot and met the conductor half-way. Glancing back, Ben caught sight of them and, pistol in hand, started to swing from the engine, crying "Come on!" to Toomey. Springing to his feet, Toomey gave one look back to the platform. His keen eyes danced with excitement and joy. "Hold on!" he shouted to Ben. "It's all right. Lay low," he whispered to Geordie. "It's Shiner himself!"

And old Shiner it was, cool, quiet, pale, resolute in face of a furious conductor and a threatening crew--Shiner, presently backed by a sergeant of regulars and two of his men, who had come running over the foot-bridge at the stop of the train, and now silently ranged themselves in tacit support. What Cullin had demanded was how Shiner dared tamper with the signals--how, in fact, he had managed to, since they had been carefully locked--and who was he, anyhow. And Shiner had simply answered: "I've a boy shot and dying at Silver Shield. I only heard it late in the night. There's no other way to get to him. I pay full fare and all damages"--but he got no further, for Toomey came atrot from the engine, threw himself upon him, and grasped his hand.

"What's the trouble, old man?" was the instant question.

And Shiner, turning, saw an old friend and beneficiary, and should have taken heart at the sight. Instead of which, at sound of a sympathetic voice, he who had been firm and fearless in the face of abuse and opposition now wellnigh broke down. "They've killed--little Jack!" he almost sobbed. "Thank God _you're_ here, Toomey!"

"Of course you'll take him!" cried Toomey, turning sharp on Cullin.

"Of course I _won't_ take him!" snarled Cullin, wrath and temper stiffening his back, "but the law shall, quick as I can fix it. Back to your cab, both of you!" he waved, for Ben, too, was bulkily climbing the platform steps. "Pull out at once and don't you stop for no more snidework!"

"And leave this man here?" shouted Toomey. "Then you can do your own firing from here on, Cullin. Hold on, Ben, till I get my things off. You can obey if you like, but it's the last run I make with this--faugh! And you say _you've_ been a soldier!" It was Toomey's chance, after weeks of pent-up rage for battle, and he couldn't throw it away. Seeing that Ben, dull, heavy, and uncomprehending, was staring stupidly about him, not knowing what to do; seeing that even Cullin was melting at sight of the grief in Shiner's face; seeing the sympathy in the eyes of the bluecoats and the shame in those of the brakemen, Toomey turned loose on his adversary, and Toomey, when fairly started, could talk to the point. It was a tongue-lashing, indeed, and one that left the conductor no chance to reply.

"It's 'gainst orders, and you know it, Toomey," was his futile gasp, when Toomey stopped for breath.

"'Gainst orders you've broken time and again, and you know it! 'Gainst orders Bob Anthony would break your head for not breaking! It's 'gainst orders for you to pull out now when you're blocked, till you get further orders--and yet you say go."

"How can I get orders without a man or a wire at the station?" burst in Cullin, grasping at straws. "How can I get authority to take this man along? He's liable to arrest anyhow for tampering with the signals."

And then another voice was interjected, another disputant stepped quickly forward, and Toomey checked himself in the first breath of an impassioned outburst; his black hand suddenly shot half-way up to the cap-visor, then came down with a jerk; his heels had clicked together and his knees straightened out, then as suddenly went limp. The new-comer had sprung up the steps. The form was slender and sinewy. Hands, face, and dress were black with soot, but the young voice was deep and the ring of accustomed command was in every word. "That's your cue, Mr. Cullin. Arrest him and fetch him along." Then turning to Toomey: "There's no one at the cab. Better get back, quick!" he added. And Toomey went.

Big Ben gave one look and, without a word, waddled after his fireman. The tears that stood in old Shiner's eyes dashed away at the brush of a sleeve. A light of astonishment, comprehension, relief suddenly gleamed in their place. The sergeant stared for a moment, looked blankly at his men, then side-stepped for another long gaze at the new-comer's face. Cullin turned sharply, resentful at first at the tone of authority, wrath in his heart and rebuke on his tongue, but then came sudden reminder of Anthony's card--the card the strange young fellow had presented only when needed to convince, the card he had been so sagacious as to retain, the card that proclaimed him a friend of the powers and a person to be considered. Moreover, the friend and person had suggested a means by which actual surrender to the situation might appear as virtual and moral victory. One more look at Shiner and then Shiner settled it. "I submit to arrest, Mr. Cullin. Let me go with you--and settle."

"Get aboard the caboose," was the gruff answer, and, all apparent meekness, Shiner obeyed. "Not you," added Cullin, as Shiner's saddle-bag-bearing friend would have followed. "Give me the bags," said Shiner, "and you look to--" A significant glance at the signal told the rest. Cullin followed it with his eyes, saw the arm still lowered to the "stop," knew that it should not be left there, and for a moment held back.

"_He_'ll fix it," said Shiner, from the platform of the caboose, while his eyes sought the face of the tall young fellow at Cullin's back. Cullin strode to the corner of the office and followed the ranchman with curious eyes. That sun-tanned, bow-legged person straddled down the back steps, his big spurs jingling, a high boot-heel catching on next to the lowermost and pitching him forward. He clamped his broadbrim on his head with one hand and steadied his holster with the other, straightened up with half-stifled expletive, and the next minute was swarming up the slender iron rungs of the signal-ladder. "He's got to prop it up where it belongs," said the sergeant. "Reckon he must have shot the wire that held it." And of a truth the wire was severed. But when Cullin turned back to his train with the mystery cleared, the sight and sound of new commotion blocked his own signal to start.

Two horsemen, on foam-spattered broncos, were spurring vehemently down the road from the eastward ridge. Two others were trailing exhaustedly two hundred lengths behind, only just feebly popping over the divide. And to these persons both his prisoner and his prisoner's advocate, who were clasping hands as he whirled and saw them, were now signalling cheer and encouragement. Ten cars ahead, at the cab, Big Ben and Toomey, too, were leaning far out and eagerly watching the chase; the sergeant and his men, wondering much at the sight, but professionally impassive, strode to the end of the platform for better view, then all of a sudden began to shout and swing their caps, and before Cullin could recover from his surprise the foremost rider, tall, spare, with long, grizzled mustache and fiery eyes, threw himself from saddle and came bounding up the steps. He was surrounded in an instant, only one man hanging back. The slender young fellow in the grimy cap and overalls quietly stepped into the dark interior of the caboose.

In the glare of the unclouded sunshine, breathing hard from his exertion, his hand grasped successively by Shiner and the three soldiers, the veteran trooper told his hurried tale, while, one after another, his followers, wellnigh exhausted, labored after him, and finally rolled stiffly to _terra firma_ at the station, their wretched livery mounts, with dripping, quivering flanks and drooping heads, stood straddling close at hand, too utterly used up to stagger away.

Nolan's story was brief but explicit. Somebody in the swarm that overwhelmed the Narrow Gauge train the previous night had crept back to town after midnight and started the story that young Breifogle had been slugged by the gang. By early morning it got to the father's ears. With the sheriff and some friends he had driven down in the wake of No. 4, found plenty of men who could tell of the mobbing, but none who could tell of his son. The miners had scattered; the few passengers also, glad that they were not "wanted" by that infuriated crowd. It was then after sunrise, and, almost crazed by anxiety and wrath, Breifogle had hurried back to Argenta. His first thought seemed to be vengeance on Nolan, whom rumor declared the ringleader of his son's assailants, and a warrant was out for his arrest, even as the big Mogul was rolling into the yard, with its dingy-brown train of freight-cars and the battered body of that luckless youth, Nolan's assailant at Silver Shield.

The first full peril of his situation broke upon Nolan the instant the news was rushed to him. Innocent of any part in the assault though he was--ignorant of it, in fact, until dawn--he well knew that every artifice would be played against him, and that all the power, the means, and methods of the Breifogle clique would be lavishly used. Long imprisonment would be sure, harsh trial certain, acquittal improbable, hanging almost a certainty.

"Away with you! Get back to the mines and the mountains!" was the instant warning, and without the loss of a minute, mounted on such horses as his friends could hire, he and three of his trustiest followers had galloped away. They thought the sheriff was at their heels when the Fast Freight came thundering after them, but hailed, with amaze and joy, the signal from the tender, and, feeling sure the train would await them here, had spurred on to the station.

"You'll send the horses back for us, will you, sergeant?" he finished. Then eagerly, "Now, conductor, shall we pull out for Summit?"

"Pull out for nothing," was the astounding answer. "You know perfectly no Time Freight on this road takes a passenger of any kind, and it would be more'n my job's worth to take you!"

"Then, in God's name, why did you signal?" was the almost agonized question.

"Signal be jiggered! I never signalled. No man of _my_ crew signalled. If you want to get back to the mines, stay here and flag No. 5. She'll be along at eleven."

"Along at _eleven_! Man alive, the sheriff will be here with a posse of forty long before that!"

"_Long_ before that!" almost screamed old Shiner. "Look, there, what you see! He's coming now!"

And then Geordie Graham, listening with beating heart within the open doorway of the caboose, could stand the strain no longer. The man he must see, the man on whom everything depended, the old friend whom he most trusted and believed in stood in sore peril. The cause for which he had come all these miles must fail so sure as Nolan slipped into the power of the adversary, even though grasped by the hand of the law. It was no time for ethics--no time for casuists. He let his voice out in the old tone of authority:

"You've no time to lose, Mr. Cullin. Arrest them, too, and come on!"

With wonderment in his eyes, with Shiner whispering caution in his ear, "Long" Nolan was hustled aboard the caboose just as the wheels began to turn, his breathless followers clambering after, while afar up the divide toward the east, by twos and threes, in eager pursuit, egged on by lavish promise of reward, the sheriff of Yampah, with a score of his men, spurred furiously on the trail of a train that, starting slowly and heavily, speedily gained headway and soon went thundering up the grade, "leaving the wolves behind."