Meanwhile the other felon turned up another beautiful pile of bills in Dr. Temple's pocket. "Notso worse for a parson," he grinned. "You must be one of them Fifth Avenue sky-shaffures."
And now Mrs. Temple's gentle eyes and voice filled with tears again: "Oh, don't take that. That's the money for his vacation—after thirty long years. Please don't take that."
Her appeals seemed always to find the tender spot of this robber's heart, for he hesitated, and called out: "Shall we overlook the parson's wad, podner?"
"Take it, and shut up, you mollycoddle!" was the answer he got, and the vacation funds joined the old gewgaws.
And now everybody had been robbed but Marjorie. She happened to be at the center of the line, and both men reached her at the same time: "I seen her first," the first one shouted.
"You did not," the other roared.
"I tell you I did."
"I tell you I did." They glared threateningly at each other, and their revolvers seemed to meet, like two game cocks, beak to beak.
The porter voiced the general hope, when he sighed: "Oh, Lawd, if they'd only shoot each other."
This brought the rivals to their evil senses, and they swept the line with those terrifying muzzles and that heart-stopping yelp: "Hands up!"
Bill said: "You take the east side of her, and I'll take the west."
"All right."
And they began to snatch away her side-combs, the little gold chain at her throat, the jewelled pin that Mallory had given her as the first token of his love.
The young soldier had foreseen this. He had foreseen the wild rage that would unseat his reason when he saw the dirty hands of thieves laid rudely on the sacred body of his beloved. But his soldier-schooling had drilled him to govern his impulses, to play the coward when there was no hope of successful battle, and to strike only when the moment was ripe with perfect opportunity.
He had kept telling himself that when the finger of one of these men touched so much as Marjorie's hem, he would be forced to fling himself on the profane miscreant. And he kept telling himself that the moment he did this, the other man would calmly blow a hole through him, and drop him at Marjorie's feet, while the other passengers shrank away in terror.
He told himself that, while it might be a fine impulse to leap to her defence, it was a fool impulse to leap off a precipice and leave Marjorie alone among strangers, with a dead man and a scandal, as the only rewards for his impulse. He vowed that he would hold himself in check, and let the robbers take everything, leaving him only the name of coward, provided they left him also the power to defend Marjorie better at another time.
And now that he saw the clumsy-handed thugs rifling his sweetheart's jewelry, he felt all that he had foreseen, and his head fought almost in vain against the white fire of his heart. Between them he trembled like a leaf, and the sweat globed on his forehead.
The worst of it was the shivering terror of Marjorie, and the pitiful eyes she turned on him. But he clenched his teeth and waited, thinking fiercely, watching, like a hovering eagle, a chance to swoop.
But the robbers kept glancing this way and that, and one motion would mean death. They themselves were so overwrought with their own ordeal and its immediate conclusion, that they would have killed anybody. Mallory shifted his foot cautiously, and instantly a gun was jabbed into his stomach, with a snarl: "Don't you move!"
"Who's moving?" Mallory answered, with a poor imitation of a careless laugh.
And now the man called Bill had reached Marjorie's right hand. He chortled: "Golly, look at the shiners."
But Jake, who had chosen Marjorie's left hand, roared:
"Say, you cheated. All I get is this measly plain gold band."
"Oh, don't take that!" Marjorie gasped, clenching her hand.
Mallory's heart ached at the thought of this finalsacrilege. He had the license, and the minister at last—and now the fiends were going to carry off the wedding ring. He controlled himself with a desperate effort, and stooped to plead: "Say, old man, don't take that. That's not fair."
"Shut up, both of you," Jake growled, and jabbed him again with the gun.
He gave the ring a jerk, but Marjorie, in the very face of the weapon, would not let go. She struggled and tugged, weeping and imploring: "Oh, don't, don't take that! It's my wedding ring."
"Agh, what do I care!" the ruffian snarled, and wrenched her finger so viciously that she gave a little cry of pain.
That broke Mallory's heart. With a wild, bellowing, "Damn you!" he hurled himself at the man, with only his bare hands for weapons.
Passion sent Mallory into the unequal fight with two armed and desperate outlaws. But reason had planned the way. He had been studying the robber all the time, as if the villain were a war-map, studying his gestures, his way of turning, and how he held the revolver. He had noted that the man, as he frisked the passengers, did not keep his finger on the trigger, but on the guard.
Marjorie's little battle threw the desperado off his balance a trifle; as he recovered, Mallory struck him, and swept him on over against the back of a seat. At the same instant, Mallory's right hand went like lightning to the trigger guard, and gripped the fingers in a vise of steel, while he drove the man's elbow back against his side. Mallory's left hand meanwhile flung around his enemy's neck, and gave him a spinning fall that sent his left hand out for balance. It fell across the back of the seat, and Mallory pinioned it with elbow and knee before it could escape.
All in the same crowded moment, his left knuckles jolted the man's chin in air, and so bewildered himthat his muscles relaxed enough for Mallory's right fingers to squirm their way to the trigger, and aim the gun at the other robber, and finally to get entire control of it.
The thing had happened in such a flash that the second outlaw could hardly believe his eyes. The shriek of the astounded passengers, and the grunt of Mallory's prisoner, as he crashed backward, woke him to the need for action. He caught his other gun from its holster, and made ready for a double volley, but there was nothing to aim at. Mallory was crouched in the seat, and almost perfectly covered by a human shield.
Still, from force of habit and foolhardy pluck, Bill aimed at Mallory's right eyebrow, just abaft Jake's right ear, and shouted his old motto:
"Hands up! you!"
"Hands up yourself!" answered Mallory, and his victim, shuddering at the fierce look in his comrade's eyes, gasped: "For God's sake, don't shoot, Bill!"
Even then the fellow stood his ground, and debated the issue, till Mallory threw such ringing determination into one last: "Hands up, or by God, I'll fire!" that he caved in, lifted his fingers from the triggers, turned the guns up, and slowly raised both hands above his head.
A profound "Ah!" of relief soughed through the car, and Mallory, still keeping his eye on Bill, gotdown cautiously from the seat. The moment he released Jake's left hand, it darted to the holster where his second gun was waiting. But before he could clutch the butt of it, Mallory jabbed the muzzle of his own revolver in the man's back, and growled: "Put 'em up!" And the robber's left hand joined the right in air, while Mallory's left hand lifted the revolver, and took possession of it.
Mallory stood for a moment, breathing hard and a little incredulous at his own swift, sweet triumph. Then he made an effort to speak as if this sort of thing were quite common with him, as if he overpowered a pair of outlaws every morning before breakfast, but his voice cracked as he said, in a drawing-room tone:
"Dr. Temple, would you mind relieving that man of those guns?"
Dr. Temple was so set up by this distinction that he answered: "Not by a——"
"Walter!" Mrs. Temple checked him, before he could utter the beautiful word, and Dr. Temple looked at her almost reproachfully, as he sighed: "Golly, I should like to swear just once more."
Then he reached up and disarmed the man who had taken his wallet and his wife's keepsakes. But the doctor was not half so happy over the recovery of his property as over the unbelievable luxury of finding himself taking two revolvers away from a masked train-robber.
American children breathe in this desperado romance with their earliest traditions, and Dr. Temple felt all his boyhood zest surge back with a boy's tremendous rapture in a deed of derring-do. And now nothing could check his swagger, as he said to Mallory:
"What shall we do with these dam-ned sinners?"
He felt like apologizing for the clerical relapse into a pulpitism, but Mallory answered briskly: "We'd better take them into the smoking room. They scare the ladies. But first, will the conductor take those bags and distribute the contents to their rightful owners?"
The conductor was proud to act as lieutenant to this Lieutenant, and he quickly relieved the robbers of their loot-kits.
Mallory smiled. "Don't give anybody my things," and then he jabbed his robber with one of the revolvers, and commanded: "Forward, march!"
The little triumphal procession moved off, with Bill in the lead, followed by Dr. Temple, looking like a whole field battery, followed by Jake, followed by Mallory, followed by the porter and as many of the other passengers as could crowd into the smoking room.
The rest went after those opulent feed-bags.
Marjorie, as the supposed wife of the rescuing angel, was permitted first search, and the first thing she hunted for was a certain gold bracelet that was none of hers. She found it and seized it with a prayer of thanks, and concealed it among her own things.
Mrs. Temple gave her a guilty start, by speaking across a barrier:
"Mrs. Mallory, your husband is the bravest man on earth."
"Oh, I know he is," Marjorie beamed, and added with a spasm of conscience: "but he isn't my husband!"
Mrs. Temple gasped in horror, but Marjorie dragged her close, and poured out the whole story, while the other passengers recovered their properties with as much joy as if they were all new gifts found on a bush.
Meanwhile, under Mallory's guidance, the porter fastened the outlaws together back to back with the straps of their own feed-bags. The porter was rejoicing that his harvest of tips was not blighted after all.
Mallory completed his bliss, by giving him Dr. Temple's brace of guns, and establishing him as jailer, with a warning: "Now, porter, don't take your eye off 'em."
"Lordy, I won't bat an eyelid."
"If either of these lads coughs, put a hole through both of 'em."
The porter chuckled: "My fingers is just a-itchin' fer them lovin' triggers."
And now Mr. Baumann, having scrambled back his possessions, hastened into the smoking room, and regarded the two hangdog culprits with magnificent generosity; he forgave them their treatment. In fact, he went so far as to say: "You gents vill be gettin' off at Reno, yes? You'll be needing a good firm of lawyers. Don't forget us. Baumann" (he put a card in Bill's hat) "and Blumen" (he put a card in Jake's hat). "Avoid substitoots."
Mallory pocketed two of the captured revolvers, lest a need might arise suddenly again. As he hurried down the aisle, he was received with cheers. The passengers gave him an ovation, but he only smiled timidly, and made haste to Marjorie's side.
She regarded him with such idolatry that he almost regretted his deed. But this mood soon passed in her excitement, and in a moment she was surreptitiously showing him the bracelet. He became an accessory after the fact, and shared her guilt, forwhen she groaned with a sudden droop: "She'll get it back!" he grimly answered, "Oh, no she won't!" hoisted the window, and flung the bracelet into a little pool by the side of the track, with a farewell: "Good-bye, trouble!"
As he drew his head in, a side glance showed him that up near the engine a third train-robber held the miserably weary train crew in line.
He found the conductor just about to pull the bell-rope, to proceed. The conductor had forgotten all about the rest of the staff. Mallory took him aside, and told him the situation, then turned to Marjorie, said: "Excuse me a minute," and hurried forward. The conductor followed Mallory through the train into the baggage coach.
The first news the third outlaw had of the counter-revolution occurring in the sleeping car was a mysterious bullet that flicked the dust near his heel, and a sonorous shout of "Hands up!" As he whirled in amaze, he saw two revolvers aimed point blank at him from behind a trunk. He hoisted his guns without parley, and the train crew trussed him up in short order.
Mallory ran back to Marjorie, and the conductor followed more slowly, reassuring the passengers in the other cars, and making certain that the train was ready to move on its way.
Mallory went straight to Dr. Temple, with a burning demand:
"You dear old fraud, will you marry me?"
Dr. Temple laughed and nodded. Marjorie and Mrs. Temple had been telling him the story of the prolonged elopement, and he was eager to atone for his own deception, by putting an end to their misery.
"Just wait one moment," he said, and as a final proof of affection, he unbuttoned his collar and put it on backwards. Mrs. Temple brought out the discarded bib, and he donned it meekly. The transformation explained many a mystery the old man had enmeshed himself in.
Even as he made ready for the ceremony, the conductor appeared, looked him over, grinned, and reached for the bell-cord, with a cheerful: "All aboard!"
Mallory had a sort of superstitious dread, not entirely unfounded on experience, that if the train got under way again, it would run into some new obstacle to his marriage. He turned to the conductor:
"Say, old man, just hold the train till after my wedding, won't you?"
It was not much to ask in return for his services, but the conductor was tired of being second in command. He growled:
"Not a minute. We're 'way behind time."
"You might wait till I'm married," Mallory pleaded.
"Not on your life!" the conductor answered, and he pulled the bell-rope twice; in the distance, the whistle answered twice.
Mallory's temper flared again. He cried: "This train doesn't go another step till I'm married!" He reached up and pulled the bell-rope once; in the distance the whistle sounded once.
This was high treason, and the conductor advanced on him threateningly, as he seized the cord once more. "You touch that rope again, and I'll——"
"Oh, no, you won't," said Mallory, as he whisked a revolver from his right pocket and jammed it into the conductor's watch-pocket. The conductor came to attention.
Then Mallory, standing with his right hand on military duty, put out his left hand, and gave the word: "Now, parson."
He smiled still more as he heard Kathleen's voice wailing: "But I can't find my bracelet. Where's my bracelet?"
"Silence! Silence!" Dr. Temple commanded, and then: "Join hands, my children."
Marjorie shifted Snoozleums to her left arm, put her right hand into Mallory's, and Dr. Temple, standing between them, began to drone the ritual. Everybody said they made a right pretty picture.
When the old clergyman had done his work, the young husband-at-last graciously rescinded militarylaw, recalled the artillery from the conductor's very midst, and remembering Manila, smiled:
"You may fire when ready, conductor."
The conductor's rage had cooled, and he slapped the bridegroom on the back with one hand, as he pulled the cord with the other. The train began to creak and tug and shift. The ding-dong of the bell floated murmurously back as from a lofty steeple, and the clickety-click, click-clickety-click quickened and softened into a pleasant gossip, as the speed grew, and the way was so smooth for the wheels that they seemed to be spinning on rails of velvet.
THE END