XVIIIWITH THE CONSTRUCTION TRAIN
On a newly-made siding parallel to the main-line tracks, and in the center of a rolling vista of yellow-brown prairie, stood a trampish-looking train of weather-beaten passenger coaches and box-cars. In the sides of the latter small windows had been cut, and from the roofs projected chimneys. North of the train, to a din of clanking, pounding and shoveling, a throng of men were laying ties and rails, driving spikes and tightening bolts, in the construction of further short stretches of track.
It was the Yellow Creek branch “boarding” and construction train, and the laying of the sidings of the newly-created Yellow Creek Junction was the first step in the race of the Middle Western and the K. & Z., some miles below the southern horizon, for the just-discernible break to the southwest in the blue line of the Dog Rib Mountains—the coveted entrance to the new gold fields in the valley beyond.
And here, the first of the construction operators sent forward, Alex had been two days established in the “telegraph-car.”
As he had anticipated, Alex was enjoying the experience hugely. It was every bit as good as camping out, he had declared over the wire to Jack—having for an office a table at one end of the old freight-car, sleeping in a shelf-like bunk at the other end, and eating in the rough-and-ready diner with the inspectors, foremen, time-keepers and clerks who shared the telegraph-car with him. As well, the work going on about him was a constant source of interest during Alex’s spare moments.
On this, the second day, Alex had been particularly interested in the newly-arrived track-laying machine—which did not actually lay track at all, but by means of roller-bottomed chutes fed out a stream of rails and ties to the men ahead of it. After supper, the wire being silent, Alex made his way amid several trains of track-material already filling completed sidings, for a closer view of the big machine.
There proved to be less to see than he had expected; and having climbed aboard the pilot-car and examined the engine, Alex ascended the tower from which a brakeman controlled the movements of the train.
On his right lay a string of flats piled high with timbers for bridges and culverts. Glancing along them, Alex was surprised to see a man’s head cautiously emerge from an opening in the lumber on one of the cars, and quickly disappear on discovering him. A moment after he had a fleeting glimpse of the intruder running low along the side of the train toward the rear.
“Only a hobo,” Alex decided on second thought. For numbers of tramps had come through on the material-trains. And presently Alex returned to the telegraph-car.
Shortly after midnight the young operator was awakened by someone running through the car and shouting for Construction Superintendent Finnan. When he caught the word “Fire!” he scrambled into his clothes and leaped to the floor, and out.
Over the tops of the cars in the direction of the track-machine was a dancing glare.
In alarm Alex joined the stream of men dropping to the ground all along the boarding-cars. Dodging through the intervening trains, he brought up with an expression of relief beside, not the track-machine, but a car of bridge material.
Fanned by a brisk wind, flames were spouting from amid the timbers at several points. Already men were pitching the burning beams over the side, however; and finding a shovel, Alex joined those who were smothering them with sand.
“Tramps, sure!” Alex heard another of the shovelers remark angrily. Immediately then he recalled the man he had seen from the track-machine tower, and pausing in his work, he counted the cars back.
It was the same car. Yes; undoubtedly the fire was the careless work of the tramp he had seen running away.
The force of fire fighters was rapidly augmented,and soon, despite the fresh breeze, the last of the burning beams were smothered, and all danger of a general conflagration was past.
It was as Alex at last headed back for the boarding-train that a theory other than the tramp theory of the origin of the fire occurred to him. It came from a sudden recollection of Division Superintendent Cameron’s prediction of interference from the K. & Z. “Could that be the real explanation?” he asked himself with some excitement.
The first streak of dawn found Alex again at the scene of the fire, bent on proving or disproving the theory of incendiarism. Climbing aboard the scorched car, he dropped to his knees and began carefully brushing aside the sand with which the burning floor had been covered.
A few minutes’ search produced the burned ends of shavings!
“So!—the ‘fight’ is on!” observed Alex to himself gravely.
With several of the tell-tale fragments in his pocket Alex was about to leap to the ground when Construction Superintendent Finnan appeared. “Good morning, my lad. You beat me here, eh?” he said genially. “Well, what do you make of it?”
Alex sprang down beside him, and produced the charred pine whittlings. “I found these on the bottom of the car, sir. They don’t seem to support the careless tramp theory, do they?” Continuing, Alex then told of the man he had seen there the evening before.“Do you think it was the work of the K. & Z., sir?” he concluded.
The superintendent’s lips were drawn tight. “Yes; I believe it was. Could you identify the man?”
“I am afraid not, sir. It was getting dusk, and he was five or six car-lengths from me, and running stooped over.
“Perhaps we could follow his footsteps down the side of the train?” Alex suggested.
“Good idea! Lead ahead. There has been a good deal of tramping about, but we may pick them out.”
Proceeding to the point several cars distant at which he had seen the stranger on the ground, Alex moved on slowly, carefully inspecting the freshly turned but considerably trampled earth, the superintendent following him.
A car-length beyond, the latter suddenly paused, retraced his steps a few feet, and pointing out three succeeding impressions, exclaimed, “I think we have him, Ward! See? A long step! He was running on his toes.”
Aided by the known length of the stride, they continued, following the footprints with comparative ease. Passing the second car from the end, they found the steps shorten, then change to a walk. “Probably turned in between this and the last car,” the superintendent observed.
“Yes; here they go,” announced Alex, halting at the opening between the two flats. “He stood for a moment, then went on through.”
Alex and the superintendent followed, and continued toward the rear of the last car. Half way Alex halted, and with an ejaculation stooped and picked up something white. “A small shaving, sir!”
The official took it. “That decides the matter,” he said. “Probably it was sticking to his clothes.”
“He sat down here, for some time, did he not?” Alex was pointing to a depression in the earth well under the car, between two ties, and to the marks of bootheels. The superintendent went to his knees and closely examined the impressions left by the heels.
“Good! Look here,” he said with satisfaction. “The marks of spurs! Our ‘tramp’ was a horseman.”
Alex turned to look about. “Where would he have kept his horse?”
Superintendent Finnan led the way beyond the cars into the open. A mile distant, and hidden from the boarding-train by the cars on the sidings, was a depression in the prairie bordered with low scrub. “We’ll have a look there,” he said.
Some minutes later they stood in the bottom of the miniature valley, beside the unmistakably fresh hoofprints of a hobbled pony.
The official was grimly silent as they retraced their steps toward the construction-train. They had almost reached it when Alex, who had been examining the fragments of burned shavings, broke the silence. “Mr. Finnan, let me see the bit of shaving we found by the rear car, please.” There was a touch of excitement in Alex’s voice, and the superintendent halted.
“What is it?” he asked as he produced the whittling.
Alex glanced at it, and smiling, placed it beside two of the charred fragments in his hand. “Look at these little ridges, sir! The same knife whittled them all. The blade had two small nicks in it.
“All we have to do now, sir, is to find the owner of the knife!”
“A bright idea, Ward! Splendid!” exclaimed the superintendent heartily.
“But,” he added as they moved on, “how are we going to find him? We can’t very well round up the whole Dog Rib country, and hold a jack-knife inspection.”
They came within sight of the bleached-out dining-cars. Basking in the morning sun on the steps of one of the old coaches was the figure of a young Indian, who had come from no one knew where the first day of their arrival, and had attached himself to the kitchen department.
Alex laid his hand on the superintendent’s arm. “Mr. Finnan, why not try Little Hawk?”
“It occurred to me just as you spoke. I will. Right now.
“You go on in to breakfast, Ward,” he directed. “And say nothing of our suspicions or discoveries.”
“Very well, sir.”
The members of the telegraph-car party were leaving for the diner as Alex appeared.
“Hello, Ward! Catch the early worm?” inquired one of the track-foremen jocularly.
“You mean, ‘did he shoot it?’” corrected a time-clerk.
At this there was a general laugh, and glancing about for an explanation, Alex saw Elder, Superintendent Finnan’s personal clerk and aide de camp, hastily remove a cartridge-belt and revolver from his waist and toss them into his bunk.
Elder was the one unpopular man in the telegraph-car. An undersized, aggressively important individual, just out of college, and affecting a stylish khaki hunting-suit, natty leather leggings and a broad-brimmed hat, he bore himself generally as though second in importance only to the construction superintendent himself. And naturally he had promptly been made the butt of the party.
“But you know,” gravely observed one of the inspectors, as they took their places about the plain board table in the dining-car, “some of these tramps are dangerous fellows. They’d just as soon pull a gun on you as borrow a dime. So there’s nothing like being prepared. Particularly when one carries about such evidence of wealth and rank as friend Elder, here.”
At the chuckles which followed the clerk bridled angrily.
“Well, anyway, Ryan,” he retorted, “I am ready to fight if one of them interferes with me. I’ll not stick up my hands and let him go through me, as you did once.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t, eh?”
“No, I wouldn’t. In fact, I’d like to see anyone make me throw up my hands, even if I didn’t have a revolver,” Elder went on emphatically. “I’d rather be shot—yes, sir, I’d rather be shot than have to think afterward that I’d been such a weak-kneed coward. And that’s what I think of any man who would permit a low-down tramp to go through his pockets.”
Loud applause greeted these remarks, clapping, banging of plates, and cries of “Hear, hear!”
“Go it, Elder!”
“Show him up!”
“It’s on me. He has me labelled, OK,” admitted Ryan with marked humility. “But then, gentlemen, I protest it is hardly fair to compare an ordinary mortal to so remarkably courageous a man as Elder. I claim it is not given many men to be that fearless. Why, ‘with half an eye,’ as the old grammars say, you can see courage sticking out all over him.”
“All right, laugh. But I never showed the white feather to a hobo,” Elder repeated scathingly.
“No; but—what is it Kipling, or Shakespeare, says?—‘While there’s life there’s soap?’” observed Ryan, a sudden twinkle appearing in his eye.
The inspector explained the meaning of his facetiously garbled quotation when Elder left the table. The proposal he made was greeted with enthusiasm.
Work had been started on the branch road itself that morning, and on returning to the telegraph-car at noon the superintendent’s clerk found most of the party there before him, preparing for dinner. An animated debatewhich was in progress ceased as he entered, and someone exclaimed, “Here he is now. He’d soon straighten them up.”
“What is the trouble, men?” inquired Elder, with the air of a sergeant-major.
“Our two head-spikers had a disagreement this morning, and have gone across the yards to settle it,” explained one of the time-keepers through his towel. “Couldn’t you go after them, and interfere? They may put each other out of commission. Refused to listen to me or the foreman.”
“The childish idiots! Certainly,” agreed Elder, turning back to the door. “Which way did they go?”
“Straight across the yard. But hadn’t you better take your gun?” the time-clerk suggested. “They are a pair of pretty tough customers.”
“Well—perhaps I had, since you mention it,” Elder responded. Going to his bunk, he secured and buckled on the belt, drew the revolver from its holster to examine it, and set forth grimly. As he disappeared the men in the car broke into barely-subdued splutterings of laughter, and crowding to the door, waited expectantly.
With an air of responsibility and determination the clerk made his way between the adjacent cars. There were six tracks filled with the long trains of construction material. He had passed the fifth, and was stooping beneath the couplings of two flats beyond, when from the other side he heard footsteps.
One hand on the butt of his revolver, he leaped forth. Uttering a choking cry he sprang back. Within a foot of his eyes were the barrels of two big Colt’s-pistols, and looking over the tops of them was a villainous handkerchief-masked face.
“Hands up!” ordered the tramp hoarsely.
Elder’s hands flew into the air. Immediately, despite his fright, there returned a remembrance of his boast that morning. He half made as though to bring his hands down. Instantly the cold muzzles of the pistols were pressed close beneath his nose. With a wild flutter Elder’s fingers shot upward to their fullest stretch.
“Come out!” ordered the tramp.
Quaking, and almost on tiptoes in his effort to keep his hands aloft, Elder obeyed. Lowering one of the pistols and thrusting it into his belt, the tramp reached forward and secured the clerk’s revolver, dropping it to the ground beneath his feet.
“Now, Mr. Superintendent,” he ordered gruffly, “hand over your roll!”
“Why, I’m not the superintendent,” quavered Elder hopefully. “I am—only a clerk.”
“Clerk nothing! Don’t you think I know a superintendent when I see one? Out with those yellowbacks you drew yesterday, or by gum—” The pistol was again thrust under his nose, and Elder blanched.
“But I’m not the superintendent! Honestly I’m not!” he protested. “I’m only a clerk. And I only get—only get—”
“Yes, come on! You only get?” thundered the tramp.
“I only get thirty-five dollars a month,” whispered the clerk.
“Only thirty-five bones a month? Well, by gum!” The tramp looked the shrinking clerk over with unspeakable contempt. “Why, there ain’t a Dago shoveler in the outfit doesn’t get more than that!
“Very well, then,” he conceded loftily. “You can keep your coppers. I never let it be said I rob the poor.
“But I tell you what I will have,” he went on suddenly. “Them clothes are sure too good for any man not getting as much money as a Dago. These,” indicating his own tattered and grimy garments, “are more in your line. Come on! Peel off!”
The trimly-dressed clerk stared aghast.
“You surely—don’t mean—”
“I surely DO mean!Shell off!” roared the tramp.
And utterly beyond belief as it was, ten minutes later Elder was surveying himself in the unspeakable rags of the hobo, and the latter, before him, was ridiculously attired in his own natty, smaller garments.
Having then removed Elder’s fancy Stetson and clamped his own greasy and battered christy down to the clerk’s ears, the tramp had one further humiliation. Pointing to a clump of black, oily waste hanging from a nearby axle-box, he ordered, “Pull out a bunch of that!”
Slowly, wondering, Elder did so.
“No one would believe you were a genuine hobo with such a scandalously clean face as that. Rub the waste over it,” commanded the tramp.
This was too much. Blindly Elder turned to escape. Instantly both pistols were once more at his head. And in final abject surrender he slowly rubbed the black car-grease upon his cheeks.
“Very good. A little on the forehead now,” directed the relentless tramp. “Now the ears.
“Go on!... Very good.
“Now you may go.”
Frantically Elder spun about and dove between the cars. As he did so, behind him roared out six quick pistol shots.
Blindly he scrambled under the next train. Shouts rose ahead of him. “Help, help!” he cried. “Tramps! Tramps! Help!”
From the boarding-cars broke out a hubbub of excitement. “Tramps! Tramps!” he shrilled, scuttling beneath the third train.
On the other side he suddenly pulled up. He had forgotten his outlandish appearance! What if—
Men sprang into view from between the cars farther down. “Here he is!” they shouted, instantly heading for him.
“It’s me! Elder!” cried the apparent tramp.
More men appeared. “The tramp who burned the car!” rose the cry. “Lynch him! Lynch him!”
Elder dove back the way he had come. The trackmen raced for the nearest openings, and dove after.
As Elder dashed for the next train several of his pursuers sprang into view but a car-length away. “Head him off! Don’t let him get away!” they shouted.
Madly Elder rushed on, darted beneath the last string of flats, and on out into the open.
A figure was approaching on horseback. He recognized Superintendent Finnan. Uttering a cry of hope, he headed for him. At sight of the desperately running figure, with its grimy face and flapping rags, the superintendent pulled up in sheer amazement. When the stream of men broke through the train and poured after, yelping like a pack of hounds, he urged his horse forward.
“Catch him! Stop him!” shouted the pursuers.
“It’s me! Elder!” screamed the clerk. “Elder! Elder!”
A big Irishman, a pick-handle in his hand, was gaining on the supposed tramp at every bound, roaring, “I’ll fix ye! I’ll fix ye, ye vermin!”
With a last desperate sprint the flying clerk reached the horse and threw himself at the superintendent’s stirrups. “It’s Elder, Mr. Finnan!” he gasped. “Elder! Elder!”
The superintendent gazed down into the blackened face an instant, then suddenly doubled up over his horse’s head, rocking and shaking in a convulsion of laughter. The action saved the clerk from the Irishman. The descending pick-handle halted in mid-air, the wielder gazed open-mouthed at the convulsedofficial, then suddenly grasping the clerk’s head, twisted it about, and staggered back, roaring and shouting at the top of his lungs. As fast as the others arrived the riot of merriment increased; and when presently the superintendent moved on toward the train, the crestfallen clerk still at his stirrup, they were the center of a hilariously howling mob.
The final blow came when Elder entered the telegraph-car. Carefully laid out in his bunk were the garments he had surrendered to the “tramp.”
The incident had its final good result, however. The mangling of Elder’s vanity disclosed an unsuspected streak of common-sense and manliness, and a day or so after he frankly thanked Ryan, the perpetrator of the joke, for “having put him right.” And finally he became one of the most popular men on the train.
XIXTHE ENEMY’S HAND AGAIN, AND A CAPTURE
“Good morning, Ward. Any word of the progress made by the K. & Z.?” inquired Construction Superintendent Finnan the following morning, Sunday, looking into the telegraph-car.
Alex threw down his towel and stepped to the instrument table. “Yes, sir; here’s one that came late last night.
“It says they started from Red Deer yesterday morning, and made nearly three and a half miles.”
The superintendent looked somewhat glum as he read the message. “That beats us by half a mile,” he remarked. “If the news is reliable, that is. They may plan to give out inflated distances, in order to discourage us. That would be a small matter to them, after trying to burn us out.”
“There has been no sign of Little Hawk yet, sir?” Alex inquired.
“No. I am beginning to think the rascal has gone over to the K. & Z.,” said the superintendent, turning away. At the door he paused. “By the way, Ward, remind me to give you a message to-morrow morning asking for two more operators. We will have made six or seven miles by Monday night, and willbe running the train down the branch. And the temporary station is almost completed,” he added, glancing from the window toward a box-car which had been lifted from its trucks and placed on a foundation of ties beside the main-line tracks.
Alex promised gladly. It meant the coming of Jack Orr and Wilson Jennings.
Following breakfast, the morning being a beautiful one, Alex determined on a walk, and set off along the main-line to the west. Two miles distant he struck a small bridge and a deep, dry creek-bed, and turning south along its border, headed for the distant rail-head of the new branch.
At a bend in the creek some two hundred yards from the track-machine and its string of flat-cars, Alex sharply paused. Two saddled ponies were hobbled together in the creek-bottom. Casting a glance toward the construction-train, Alex leaped into the gully, out of sight.
He had not a doubt that the horses belonged to men in the service of the K. & Z., and that something was on foot similar to the attempted burning of the bridge-car.
What should he do? Return the three miles to the junction? or continue on to the track-machine? For undoubtedly the owners of the horses were there; and the machine, he knew, was in the sole charge of an oiler.
Alex decided on the latter course, and making his way along the bed of the stream, passed the hobbledponies, and on to the new bridge fifty feet in rear of the construction-train.
As he there halted, low voices reached Alex’s ears. Peering cautiously out, and seeing no one, he crept forth, and made his way along the side of the embankment toward the train. A few feet from the rear car Alex came upon a three-wheeled track velocipede, used by Elder, the superintendent’s clerk in running backwards and forwards between the rail-head and the junction. Pausing, he debated whether he should not put it on the rails, and make a run for the junction immediately. Finally Alex concluded first to learn something further of what was going on, and to count on the velocipede as a means of making his escape in case of emergency. To this end he proceeded cautiously to place the little jigger in a position from which he could quickly swing it onto the irons. Then continuing forward under the edge of the train, he reached the pilot-car.
“Yes; it’s a first class machine—the best on the market.”
The voice was that of the oiler. Apparently he had been showing the strangers over the track-machine. For a brief space Alex wondered whether after all his suspicions were justified. But at once came the thought, “Why had the strangers hidden their horses in the creek-bottom if they were genuine visitors?” and he remained quiet.
“Where is the boiler?” inquired a new voice, evidently one of the owners of the horses.
“There is none. The steam comes from the engine, behind,” the oiler responded. “Here—it comes in here.”
“So! And does the machine get out of order very easily?” asked a second voice.
There was something in the tone that caused Alex to prick up his ears.
“Almost never. It’s all simple. Nothing intricate,” the man in charge replied.
“I suppose it could be put out of order, though—say, you fellows were to go on strike, and wanted to disable things? Eh?”
“Huh! That’s rather a funny question. But I suppose it could. Anything could, for that matter.”
“What do they pay you, as oiler?”
“Say, what are you two fellows driving at?” the oiler demanded sharply.
There was a momentary silence, during which Alex imagined the two strangers looking questioningly at one another. Then one of them spoke.
“Look here, whatever you get, we will give you a hundred dollars a month extra to put this machine out of order two or three times a week. Nothing very bad, but just enough to lose two or three hours’ work each time. We are—well, never mind who we are. The thing stands this way: We have a big bet on that the K. & Z. will win in this building race for Yellow Creek, and—well, you see the point, I guess. What do you say?”
During the pause that followed Alex waited breathlessly,and with growing disappointment. Was the oiler considering the bribe?
“Well,” said the oiler at length, “is that your best offer? Couldn’t you make it a thousand?”
“A thousand! Nonsense—”
“Two thousand, then.”
“What do you mean—”
“Just this!” cried the oiler, and simultaneously there was a rush of feet and a sound of blows. Exultingly Alex was scrambling forth to go to the oiler’s assistance, when just above him was a crash of falling bodies, and a figure bounded over the side of the car and rolled sprawling down the embankment.
It was the plucky oiler, and Alex shrank back in horror as the man came to a stop flat on his back, and lay immovable, blood trickling from a wound over his eyes.
Overhead was the sound of someone getting to their feet. “He nearly got you,” said a voice.
“Nearly. But I guess I ‘got him’ one better.”
“Is he safe for awhile, do you think?”
As the two men moved to the edge of the car and apparently gazed down at the prostrate figure in the ditch, Alex shrank back with apprehension on his own account.
“Perhaps we’d better make sure of him.”
“All right. Here is a bit of rope.”
Hurriedly Alex crawled beneath the nearby truck, behind the wheels, and a tall figure in the garb of a cowboy dropped to the ground before him and randown to the still unconscious oiler. Binding the prostrate man’s feet together at the ankles, the cowman turned the oiler on his face, and secured his hands behind his back. Turning him again face up, he studied his eyes a moment, and announcing, “Good job. Only stunned,” he returned to the car and drew himself up on it.
“Now what’ll we do?” inquired his companion. “That idiot has knocked our plans to pieces. We can’t go back and say we neither made the deal, nor did anything else for our money.”
“We’ll have to tear things up ourselves,” said the first man decisively. “Let us see what we can do in the engine-room here.”
The footsteps passed into the engine-house, and Alex at once crawled forth, to make his way back to the velocipede.
As he emerged from beneath the car he paused to glance down at the prostrate oiler. Should he leave him lying there? It did not seem right, despite the obvious necessity of heading for the junction without a moment’s delay.
As he hesitated, the eyes of the prostrate man flickered, and opened. Alex dodged back, lest the oiler should betray his presence to the men on the car. As he dropped down there came the recollection that there were two seats on the velocipede. Why not take the man with him, if he sufficiently recovered? Good!
Anxiously Alex watched as the stunned man blinked about him. Finally comprehension, then a hot flush ofrage appeared in the oiler’s face, and with a violent kick he twisted about toward the car.
Springing into view, Alex caught the oiler’s startled eye, and made a warning gesture. The man stared dully for a moment, then nodded, and on Alex’s further urgent signalling, dropped back and again closed his eyes. Alex produced and opened his jack-knife.
The men above were busily fumbling about in the engine-room. Only pausing to make sure they were entirely occupied, Alex slipped forth, cautiously crept down the embankment, reached the bound man, and with a slash of the knife freed his feet and hands.
“Let us slip back to the velocipede—it’s ready to throw on the rails—and make a dash of it for the junction,” Alex whispered. The oiler arose, and with one eye on the engine-room door they crept up under the edge of the car, and on toward the rear of the train.
They reached the little track-car, and cautiously lifted it onto the rails.
“Better push it a ways,” the oiler advised in a low voice. “They might hear the rumble, with our weight on it.”
Gently they set the velocipede in motion. With the first move one of the wheels gave forth a shrill screech. The two paused as the sounds on the pilot-car immediately ceased.
“If we hear one of them going to the edge to look for me, we’ll make a run of it,” said the oiler.
“They may go on tiptoe,” Alex pointed out.
The suggestion was followed by a sharp exclamation from the head of the train. “The oiler’s gone!” cried a voice. Simultaneously there was the sound of someone springing to the ground, and Alex and the oiler scrambled into the velocipede seats, Alex facing the rear, and threw themselves against the handles. The oilless wheel again screeched, and from the pilot-car rose the cry, “Around at the end! Quick!”
Alex and the oiler wrenched the handles backwards and forwards with all their might, and the little car leaped ahead. Before they had gained full headway, however, one of the machine-wreckers appeared about the end of the train, and with a cry to his companion, dashed after. He ran like a deer, and despite the increasing speed of the velocipede, quickly gained upon them.
“He’ll get us!” Alex exclaimed.
“The creek bridge is just ahead. That’ll stop him,” said the oiler.
The second man appeared, and joined in the chase.
The first runner saw the bridge, and redoubled his efforts. In spite of their best endeavors, he drew rapidly nearer. A hand shot out to clutch the oiler’s shoulder.
It reached him—and with a rumble they were on and over the bridge, and their pursuer had sprawled forward flat on his face.
He was on his feet again like a wildcat, however, and crossing the bridge three ties at a time, leaped tothe flat ground beside the track, and was again after the velocipede like a race-horse.
Try as they would, Alex and the oiler could get no more speed out of the low-geared machine, and with alarm Alex saw the runner once more drawing near. The second man they had outdistanced.
Closer the cowman came. “Stop!” he shouted. “Stop! You may as well! I’ve got you!”
Determinedly they held on, working the handles desperately, Alex watching the grim, clean-shaven face and the fluttering dotted handkerchief about the pursuing man’s neck with a curious fascination.
At last he was parallel with them. Still running, he drew his revolver. “Stop!” he ordered. “Stop, or I’ll put one through you!”
“Keep it up, boy,” the oiler directed sharply. “He daresn’t fire. He daresn’t add murder to it. And he’d be heard at the junction.”
The runner snapped his gun back into its holster, and putting on an extra spurt, rushed slanting up the embankment, and threw himself bodily upon the oiler. They tumbled off backwards in a struggling heap. Throwing his weight against the handles, Alex stopped the velocipede, sprang off, and dashed to the oiler’s assistance.
The cowman’s revolver had fallen from his belt. Alex caught it up and pressed it against the back of the man’s head. “Stop it! Let go!” he cried. “I’ll certainly shoot!”
The man half relaxed, and glared up sideways.Alex brought the muzzle to his eyes, and slowly he freed his hold on the oiler. “Oh, very well,” he muttered with a curse. “You win.”
“No—don’t!” said Alex, as the enraged oiler spun about to strike the half-prostrate man. “He’s down, and has given up.”
At that moment interruption came from another quarter. It was a shrill cry from the direction of the creek-bed, and turning, all three saw a round-shouldered figure on horseback scrambling from the creek-bottom, leading the ponies of the two would-be wreckers, and the second cowman running toward him.
“It’s Little Hawk!” Alex exclaimed.
The cowboy reached the Indian, sprang at him, there was a terrific scrimmage, and the white man sprang from the melee with the bridle of one of the ponies, leaped into the saddle, and was off across the prairie in a whirl of dust.
So interested had Alex been in the second conflict that momentarily he had forgotten the man on the ground before him. He was reminded by suddenly finding himself sprawling upon his back, and regaining his feet, found their prisoner also racing off at top speed. The oiler darted after, but quickly gave it up. He was no match for the light-footed cowman.
Seeing the pistol still in Alex’s hand, he cried, “Shoot! Shoot him!”
Alex raised the revolver, faltered, and lowered it. “No. I can’t,” he said.
“I can!” The oiler darted back and wrested itfrom Alex’s hand. As he whirled about to fire, Alex grasped his arm. “No! Wait! Look!” he exclaimed. “The Indian is after him!”
Turning, the oiler saw the Indian, with his own and one of the other ponies, storming across the ground in pursuit of the runner. Silently they watched.
As he heard the pounding hoofs behind him, the fleeing cowboy glanced about, and set on at greater speed than ever. Quickly, however, the horses cut down the distance between them.
The Indian leaned toward the second pony, took something from the saddle-horn, and began to adjust it on his arm.
“He’s going to lassoo him!” said Alex breathlessly.
Nearer drew the Indian to the fleeing man, and hand and lassoo went into the air and began to weave circles. Tensely the two on the embankment watched.
Closer the horses drew. Wider the circle of the lassoo extended.
Suddenly it leaped through the air like a great snake. The runner saw the shadow of it, and with a cry that they heard, half turned and threw out his arms to ward it off. The loop was too large, the cowman missed it, and as the Indian pulled up in a cloud of dust, he whipped in the slack, and the noose tightened fairly about the renegade’s waist. An instant after, however, the second pony, plunging ahead of the Indian’s, threw the rider forward, slackening the lariat. In a twinkle the cowman had loosened the noose, andwas wriggling out of it. He had freed one foot before the Indian had recovered himself. Then with a terrific yank the horseman snapped in the slack, the cowman’s feet flew from under him, and with one foot taut in the air, caught at the ankle, he lay cursing and shaking an impotent fist.
As Alex and the oiler ran forward the Indian sat on his horse like a statue, holding the lariat taut.
The oiler reached the prisoner first, revolver in hand.
“Get up, you!” he ordered. Sullenly the man obeyed. Removing a handkerchief from about his neck, the oiler gave it to Alex, who securely bound the man’s hands behind him. Throwing off the lassoo, they turned toward the Indian. With some wonder, they saw he was carefully examining the hoofs of the pony he was leading. Concluding the inspection with a grunt, he came forward, winding up the rope, and halted before them.
“You hoss?” he asked of the prisoner, pointing over his shoulder.
The cowboy looked at him contemptuously, and responded, “Well, what if it is, Old Ugly-Mug?”
The oiler brought up the pistol. “I don’t know why he wants to know, but you go ahead and tell him!” he ordered threateningly. “He’s twice the man you are. Is it your horse?”
“Yes.”
Little Hawk turned away with a grunt of satisfaction, and mounting his pony, rode off towards the junction.
What the Indian meant Alex learned when, with their prisoner between them, he and the oiler approached the boarding-train, and met Little Hawk returning with Superintendent Finnan.
“That him!” said the Indian briefly as they drew near. “Him burn cars!”
From the prisoner came a hissing gasp. As Alex turned upon him with a sharp ejaculation of understanding, however, the man assumed an indifferent air, and strode on nonchalantly.
“What do you want?” he demanded insolently of the superintendent. “Can’t a man pull off a—a little joke without these idiots of yours going out of their heads? It was nothing more than a bit of fun me and my mate was having,” he affirmed boldly.
Superintendent Finnan smiled sardonically. “That is what the K. & Z. call it, eh?”
Alex, still with a hand on the prisoner’s arm, felt him start. But brazenly the man replied, “K. & Z.? What’s the K. & Z.? A ranch brand? I never heard of it.”
On a thought Alex stepped forward and whispered a word in the official’s ear.
“Go ahead,” said the superintendent.
“I’m going to search your pockets,” Alex announced, stepping back to the side of the renegade cowman. “No objection, I suppose, since you don’t know what K. & Z. means?”
“Search ahead,” agreed the prisoner, half smiling. “And good luck to you if you find anything toconnect me—if you find anything,” he corrected quickly.
From a trouser pocket Alex drew out a large jack-knife. With a suspicion of trembling he opened one of the blades and examined it, while the owner regarded him curiously. With a shake of the head the young operator opened the second blade. A quick smile of triumph lit up his face, and delving into a vest pocket, he brought forth a scrap of paper, unfolded it, and took out a fragment of charred pine shaving.
Turning his back on the now anxiously watching, though still puzzled, owner of the knife, he held the shaving against the edge of the blade. The superintendent bent over it, and uttered a delighted “Exactly!”
Triumphantly Alex turned toward the prisoner, and held the hand with the knife and shaving before him. “Does this help you to recall what K. & Z. means?” he asked.
“Recall? I don’t—”
“See these two little ridges on the shaving? See these two little nicks in the blade?”
With a hoarse cry the man flung himself backward, and bound as he was, began struggling like a madman. Alex, the superintendent and the Indian were to the oiler’s assistance in a twinkle, however, and a few minutes later saw the renegade in their midst on the way to the boarding-train—and, as it finally proved, to the jail at Exeter.
“I don’t know who to thank most,” said Superintendent Finnan later—“you, Ward, or the oiler, or Little Hawk. Nor what appreciation to suggest higher up.”
“You might make it a blanket and Winchester for the Indian, and a purse for the oiler, for the knocks he got and the bribe he refused,” Alex suggested.
“And yourself?”
“Oh, just let me keep the rascal’s knife, as a memento,” responded Alex modestly.
“Very well; we’ll agree on that—for the present,” said the superintendent.