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Title: The Denver Express
       From "Belgravia" for January, 1884

Author: A. A. Hayes

Release Date: October 24, 2007 [EBook #23180]
Last Updated: March 15, 2018

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DENVER EXPRESS ***




Produced by David Widger
 









THE DENVER EXPRESS  

By A. A. Hayes 

 From “Belgravia” for January, 1884  









Contents  

I

II

III














I


Any one who has seen an outward-bound clipper ship getting under way, and  heard the “shanty-songs” sung by the sailors as they toiled at capstan and  halliards, will probably remember that rhymeless but melodious refrain—  
 
     “I'm bound to see its muddy waters,
        Yeo ho! that rolling river;
     Bound to see its muddy waters,
        Yeo ho! the wild Missouri.”

Only a happy inspiration could have impelled Jack to apply the adjective  “wild” to that ill-behaved and disreputable river which, tipsily bearing  its enormous burden of mud from the far Northwest, totters, reels, runs  its tortuous course for hundreds on hundreds of miles and which,  encountering the lordly and thus far well-behaved Mississippi at Alton,  and forcing its company upon this splendid river (as if some drunken  fellow should lock arms with a dignified pedestrian), contaminates it all  the way to the Gulf of Mexico.  
At a certain point on the banks of this river, or rather—as it has  the habit of abandoning and destroying said banks—at a safe distance  therefrom, there is a town from which a railroad takes its departure, for  its long climb up the natural incline of the Great Plains, to the base of  the mountains; hence the importance to this town of the large but somewhat  shabby building serving as terminal station. In its smoky interior, late  in the evening and not very long ago, a train was nearly ready to start.  It was a train possessing a certain consideration. For the benefit of a  public easily gulled and enamored of grandiloquent terms, it was  advertised as the “Denver Fast Express”; sometimes, with strange  unfitness, as the “Lightning Express”; “elegant” and “palatial” cars were  declared to be included therein; and its departure was one of the great  events of the twenty-four hours in the country round about. A local poet  described it in the “live” paper of the town, cribbing from an old Eastern  magazine and passing off as original the lines—  
 
     “Again we stepped into the street,
        A train came thundering by
     Drawn by the snorting iron steed
        Swifter than eagles fly.
     Rumbled the wheels, the whistle shrieked,
        Far rolled the smoky cloud,
     Echoed the hills, the valleys shook,
        The flying forests bowed.”

The trainmen, on the other hand, used no fine phrases. They called it  simply “Number Seventeen”; and, when it started, said it had “pulled out.”  
On the evening in question, there it stood, nearly ready. Just behind the  great hissing locomotive, with its parabolic headlight and its coal-laden  tender, came the baggage, mail, and express cars; then the passenger  coaches, in which the social condition of the occupants seemed to be in  inverse ratio to their distance from the engine. First came emigrants,  “honest miners,” “cowboys,” and laborers; Irishmen, Germans, Welshmen,  Mennonites from Russia, quaint of garb and speech, and Chinamen. Then came  along cars full of people of better station, and last the great Pullman  “sleepers,” in which the busy black porters were making up the berths for  well-to-do travelers of diverse nationalities and occupations.  
It was a curious study for a thoughful observer, this motley crowd of  human beings sinking all differences of race, creed, and habits in the  common purpose to move westward—to the mountain fastnesses, the  sage-brush deserts and the Golden Gate.  
The warning bell had sounded, and the fireman leaned far out for the  signal. The gong struck sharply, the conductor shouted, “All aboard,” and  raised his hand; the tired ticket-seller shut his window, and the train  moved out of the station, gathered way as it cleared the outskirts of the  town, rounded a curve, entered on an absolutely straight line, and, with  one long whistle from the engine, settled down to its work. Through the  night hours it sped on, past lonely ranches and infrequent stations, by  and across shallow streams fringed with cottonwood trees, over the  greenish-yellow buffalo grass near the old trail where many a poor  emigrant, many a bold frontiersman, many a brave soldier, had laid his  bones but a short time before.  
Familiar as they may be, there is something strangely impressive about  all-night journeys by rail, and those forming part of an American  transcontinental trip are almost weird. From the windows of a night  express in Europe or the older portions of the United States, one looks on  houses and lights, cultivated fields, fences, and hedges; and, hurled as  he may be through the darkness, he has a sense of companionship and  semi-security. Far different is it when the long train is running over  those two rails which, seen before night sets in, seem to meet on the  horizon. Within all is as if between two great seaboard cities; the neatly  dressed people, the uniformed officials, the handsome fittings, the  various appliances for comfort. Without are now long dreary levels, now  deep and wild canyons, now an environment of strange and grotesque  rock-formations, castles, battlements, churches, statues. The antelope  fleetly runs, and the coyote skulks away from the track, and the gray wolf  howls afar off. It is for all the world, to one's fancy, as if a bit of  civilization, a family or community, its belongings and surroundings  complete, were flying through regions barbarous and inhospitable.  
From the cab of Engine No. 32; the driver of the Denver Express saw,  showing faintly in the early morning, the buildings grouped about the  little station ten miles ahead, where breakfast awaited his passengers. He  looked at his watch; he had just twenty minutes in which to run the  distance, as he had run it often before. Something, however, traveled  faster than he. From the smoky station out of which the train passed the  night before, along the slender wire stretched on rough poles at the side  of the track, a spark of that mysterious something which we call  electricity flashed at the moment he returned the watch to his pocket; and  in five minutes' time the station-master came out on the platform, a  little more thoughtful than his wont, and looked eastward for the smoke of  the train. With but three of the passengers in that train has this tale  especially to do, and they were all in the new and comfortable Pullman  “City of Cheyenne.” One was a tall, well-made man of about thirty—blond,  blue-eyed, bearded, straight, sinewy, alert. Of all in the train he seemed  the most thoroughly at home, and the respectful greeting of the conductor,  as he passed through the car, marked him as an officer of the road. Such  was he—Henry Sinclair, assistant engineer, quite famed on the line,  high in favor with the directors, and a rising man in all ways. It was  known on the road that he was expected in Denver, and there were rumors  that he was to organize the parties for the survey of an important  “extension.” Beside him sat his pretty young wife. She was a New Yorker—one  could tell at first glance—from the feather of her little bonnet,  matching the gray traveling dress, to the tips of her dainty boots; and  one, too, at whom old Fifth Avenue promenaders would have turned to look.  She had a charming figure, brown hair, hazel eyes, and an expression at  once kind, intelligent, and spirited. She had cheerfully left a luxurious  home to follow the young engineer's fortunes; and it was well known that  those fortunes had been materially advanced by her tact and cleverness.  
The third passenger in question had just been in conversation with  Sinclair and the latter was telling his wife of their curious meeting.  Entering the toilet-room at the rear of the car, he said, he had begun his  ablutions by the side of another man, and it was as they were sluicing  their faces with water that he heard the cry:  
“Why, Major, is that you? Just to think of meeting you here!”  
A man of about twenty-eight years of age, slight, muscular, wiry, had  seized his wet hand and was wringing it. He had black eyes, keen and  bright, swarthy complexion, black hair and mustache. A keen observer might  have seen about him some signs of a jeunesse orageuse, but his  manner was frank and pleasing. Sinclair looked him in the face, puzzled  for a moment.  
“Don't you remember Foster?” asked the man.  
“Of course I do,” replied Sinclair. “For a moment I could not place you.  Where have you been and what have you been doing?”  
“Oh,” replied Foster, laughing, “I've braced up and turned over a new  leaf. I'm a respectable member of society, have a place in the express  company, and am going to Denver to take charge.”  
“I am very glad to hear it, and you must tell me your story when we have  had our breakfast.”  
The pretty young woman was just about to ask who Foster was, when the  speed of the train slackened, and the brakeman opened the door of the car  and cried out in stentorian tones:  
“Pawnee Junction; twenty minutes for refreshments!”  






II


When the celebrated Rocky Mountain gold excitement broke out, more than  twenty years ago, and people painted “Pike's Peak or Bust” on the canvas  covers of their wagons and started for the diggings, they established a  “trail” or “trace” leading in a southwesterly direction from the old one  to California.  
At a certain point on this trail a frontiersman named Barker built a  forlorn ranch-house and corral, and offered what is conventionally  called “entertainment for man and beast.”  
For years he lived there, dividing his time between fighting the Indians  and feeding the passing emigrants and their stock. Then the first railroad  to Denver was built, taking another route from the Missouri, and Barker's  occupation was gone. He retired with his gains to St. Louis and lived in  comfort.  
Years passed on, and the “extension” over which our train is to pass was  planned. The old pioneers were excellent natural engineers and their  successors could find no better route than they had chosen. Thus it was  that “Barker's” became, during the construction period, an important  point, and the frontiersman's name came to figure on time-tables.  Meanwhile the place passed through a process of evolution which would have  delighted Darwin. In the party of engineers which first camped there was  Sinclair, and it was by his advice that the contractors selected it for  division headquarters. Then came drinking “saloons” and gambling houses—alike  the inevitable concomitant and the bane of Western settlements; then  scattered houses and shops and a shabby so-called hotel, in which the  letting of miserable rooms (divided from each other by canvas partitions)  was wholly subordinated to the business of the bar. Before long, Barker's  had acquired a worse reputation than even other towns of its type, the  abnormal and uncanny aggregations of squalor and vice which dotted the  plains in those days; and it was at its worst when Sinclair returned  thither and took up his quarters in the engineers' building. The passion  for gambling was raging, and to pander thereto were collected as choice a  lot of desperadoes as ever “stacked” cards or loaded dice. It came to be  noticed that they were on excellent terms with a man called “Jeff”  Johnson, who was lessee of the hotel; and to be suspected that said  Johnson, in local parlance, “stood in with” them. With this man had come  to Barker's his daughter Sarah, commonly known as “Sally,” a handsome  girl, with a straight, lithe figure, fine features, reddish auburn hair,  and dark-blue eyes. It is but fair to say that even the “toughs” of a  place like Barker's show some respect for the other sex, and Miss Sally's  case was no exception to the rule. The male population admired her; they  said she “put on heaps of style”; but none of them had seemed to make any  progress in her good graces.  
On a pleasant afternoon just after the track had been laid some miles west  of Barker's, and construction trains were running with some regularity to  and from the end thereof, Sinclair sat on the rude veranda of the  engineers' quarters, smoking his well-colored meerschaum and looking at  the sunset. The atmosphere had been so clear during the day that glimpses  were had of Long's and Pike's peaks, and as the young engineer gazed at  the gorgeous cloud display he was thinking of the miners' quaint and  pathetic idea that the dead “go over the Range.”  
“Nice-looking, ain't it, Major?” asked a voice at his elbow, and he turned  to see one of the contractors' officials taking a seat near him.  
“More than nice-looking to my mind, Sam,” he replied. “What is the news  to-day?”  
“Nothin' much. There's a sight of talk about the doin's of them faro an'  keno sharps. The boys is gettin' kind o' riled, fur they allow the game  ain't on the square wuth a cent. Some of 'em down to the tie-camp wuz  a-talkin' about a vigilance committee, an' I wouldn't be surprised ef they  meant business. Hev yer heard about the young feller that come in a week  ago from Laramie an' set up a new faro-bank?”  
“No. What about him?”  
“Wa'al, yer see he's a feller thet's got a lot of sand an' ain't afeard of  nobody, an' he's allowed to hev the deal to his place on the square every  time. Accordin' to my idee, gamblin's about the wust racket a feller kin  work, but it takes all sorts of men to make a world, an' ef the boys is  bound to hev a game, I calkilate they'd like to patronize his bank. Thet's  made the old crowd mighty mad an' they're a-talkin' about puttin' up a job  of cheatin' on him an' then stringin' him up. Besides, I kind o' think  there's some cussed jealousy on another lay as comes in. Yer see the young  feller—Cyrus Foster's his name—is sweet on thet gal of Jeff  Johnson's. Jeff was to Laramie before he come here, an' Foster knowed  Sally up thar. I allow he moved here to see her. Hello! Ef thar they ain't  a-coming now.”  
Down a path leading from the town past the railroad buildings, and well on  the prairie, Sinclair saw the girl walking with the “young feller.” He was  talking earnestly to her and her eyes were cast down. She looked pretty  and, in a way, graceful; and there was in her attire a noticeable attempt  at neatness, and a faint reminiscence of bygone fashions. A smile came to  Sinclair's lips as he thought of a couple walking up Fifth Avenue during  his leave of absence not many months before, and of a letter many times  read, lying at that moment in his breast-pocket.  
“Papa's bark is worse than his bite,” ran one of its sentences. “Of course  he does not like the idea of my leaving him and going away to such  dreadful and remote places as Denver and Omaha and I don't know what else;  but he will not oppose me in the end, and when you come on again—”  
“By thunder!” exclaimed Sam; “ef thar ain't one of them cussed sharps  a-watchin' 'em.”  
Sure enough a rough-looking fellow, his hat pulled over his eyes, half  concealed behind a pile of lumber, was casting a sinister glance toward  the pair.  
“The gal's well enough,” continued Sam; “but I don't take a cent's wuth of  stock in thet thar father of her'n. He's in with them sharps, sure pop,  an' it don't suit his book to hev Foster hangin' round. It's ten to one he  sent that cuss to watch 'em, Wa'al, they're a queer lot, an' I'm afeared  thar's plenty of trouble ahead among 'em. Good luck to you, Major,” and,  he pushed back his chair and walked away.  
After breakfast next morning, when Sinclair was sitting at the table in  his office, busy with maps and plans, the door was thrown open, and  Foster, panting for breath, ran in.  
“Major Sinclair,” he said, speaking with difficulty, “I've no claim on  you, but I ask you to protect me. The other gamblers are going to hang me.  They are more than ten to one. They will track me here; unless you harbor  me, I'm a dead man.”  
Sinclair rose from his chair in a second and walked to the window. A party  of men were approaching the building. He turned to Foster:  
“I do not like your trade,” said he; “but I will not see you murdered if I  can help it. You are welcome here.” Foster said “Thank you,” stood still a  moment, and then began to pace the room, rapidly clinching his hands, his  whole frame quivering, his eyes flashing fire—“for all the world,”  Sinclair said, in telling the story afterward, “like a fierce caged  tiger.”  
“My God!” he muttered, with concentrated intensity, “to be trapped,  trapped like this!”  
Sinclair stepped quickly to the door of his bedroom and motioned Foster to  enter. Then there came a knock at the outer door, and he opened it and  stood on the threshold erect and firm. Half a dozen “toughs” faced him.  
“Major,” said their spokesman, “we want that man.  
“You can not have him, boys.”  
“Major, we're a-goin' to take him.”  
“You had better not try,” said Sinclair, with perfect ease and  self-possession, and in a pleasant voice. “I have given him shelter, and  you can only get him over my dead body. Of course you can kill me, but you  won't do even that without one or two of you going down; and then you know  perfectly well, boys, what will happen. You know that if you lay  your finger on a railroad man it's all up with you. There are five hundred  men in the tie-camp, not five miles away, and you don't need to be told  that in less than one hour after they get word there won't be a piece of  one of you big enough to bury.”  
The men made no reply. They looked him straight in the eyes for a moment.  Had they seen a sign of flinching they might have risked the issue, but  there was none. With muttered curses, they slunk away. Sinclair shut and  bolted the door, then opened the one leading to the bedroom.  
“Foster,” he said, “the train will pass here in half an hour. Have you  money enough?”  
“Plenty, Major.”  
“Very well; keep perfectly quiet and I will try to get you safely off.” He  went to an adjoining room and called Sam, the contractor's man. He took in  the situation at a glance.  
“Wa'al Foster,” said he, “kind o' 'close call' for yer, warn't it? Guess  yer'd better be gittin' up an' gittin' pretty lively. The train boys will  take yer through an' yer kin come back when this racket's worked out.”  
Sinclair glanced at his watch, then he walked to the window and looked  out. On a small mesa, or elevated plateau, commanding the path to  the railroad, he saw a number of men with rifles.  
“Just as I expected,” said he. “Sam, ask one of the boys to go down to the  track and, when the train arrives, tell the conductor to come here.”  
In a few minutes the whistle was heard and the conductor entered the  building. Receiving his instructions, he returned, and immediately on  engine, tender, and platform appeared the trainmen, with their  rifles covering the group on the bluff. Sinclair put on his hat.  
“Now, Foster,” said he, “we have no time to lose. Take Sam's arm and mine,  and walk between us.”  
The trio left the building and walked deliberately to the railroad. Not a  word was spoken. Besides the men in sight on the train, two behind the  window-blinds of the one passenger coach, and imseen, kept their fingers  on the triggers of their repeating carbines. It seemed a long time,  counted by anxious seconds, until Foster was safe in the coach.  
“All ready, conductor,” said Sinclair. “Now, Foster, good-by. I am not  good at lecturing, but if I were you, I would make this the turning-point  in my life.”  
Foster was much moved.  
“I will do it, Major,” said he; “and I shall never forget what you have  done for me to-day. I am sure we shall meet again.”  
With another shriek from the whistle the train started. Sinclair and Sam  saw the men quietly returning the firearms to their places as it gathered  way. Then they walked back to their quarters. The men on the mesa,  balked of their purpose, had withdrawn.  
Sam accompanied Sinclair to his door, and then sententiously remarked:  “Major, I think I'll light out and find some of the boys. You ain't got no  call to know anything about it, but I allow it's about time them cusses  was bounced.”  
Three nights after this, a powerful party of Vigilantes, stern and  inexorable, made a raid on all the gambling dens, broke the tables and  apparatus, and conducted the men to a distance from the town, where they  left them with an emphatic and concise warning as to the consequences of  any attempt to return. An exception was made in Jeff Johnson's cases—but  only for the sake of his daughter—for it was found that many a  “little game” had been carried on in his house.  
Ere long he found it convenient to sell his business and retire to a town  some miles to the eastward, where the railroad influence was not as strong  as at Barker's. At about this time, Sinclair made his arrangements to go  to New York, with the pleasant prospect of marrying the young lady in  Fifth Avenue. In due time he arrived at Barker's with his young and  charming wife and remained for some days. The changes were astounding.  Commonplace respectability had replaced abnormal lawlessness. A neat  station stood where had been the rough contractor's buildings. At a new  “Windsor” (or was it “Brunswick”?) the performance of the kitchen  contrasted sadly (alas! how common is such contrast in these regions) with  the promise of the menu. There was a tawdry theatre yclept “Academy  of Music,” and there was not much to choose in the way of ugliness between  two “meeting-houses.”  
“Upon my word, my dear,” said Sinclair to his wife, “I ought to be ashamed  to say it, but I prefer Barker's au naturel.”  
One evening, just before the young people left the town, and as Mrs.  Sinclair sat alone in her room, the frowsy waitress announced “a lady,”  and was requested to bid her enter. A woman came with timid mien into the  room, sat down, as invited, and removed her veil. Of course the young  bride had never known Sally Johnson, the whilom belle of Barker's, but her  husband would have noticed at a glance how greatly she was changed from  the girl who walked with Foster past the engineers' quarters. It would be  hard to find a more striking contrast than was presented by the two women  as they sat facing each other: the one in the flush of health and beauty,  calm, sweet, self-possessed; the other still retaining some of the shabby  finery of old days, but pale and haggard, with black rings under her eyes,  and a pathetic air of humiliation.  
“Mrs. Sinclair,” she hurriedly began, “you do not know me, nor the like of  me. I've got no right to speak to you, but I couldn't help it. Oh! please  believe me, I am not real downright bad. I'm Sally Johnson, daughter of a  man whom they drove out of the town. My mother died when I was little, and  I never had a show; and folks think because I live with my father,  and he makes me know the crowd he travels with, that I must be in with  them, and be of their sort. I never had a woman speak a kind word to me,  and I've had so much trouble that I'm just drove wild, and like to kill  myself; and then I was at the station when you came in, and I saw your  sweet face and the kind look in your eyes, and it came in my heart that  I'd speak to you if I died for it.” She leaned eagerly forward, her hands  nervously closing on the back of a chair. “I suppose your husband never  told you of me; like enough he never knew me; but I'll never forget him as  long as I live. When he was here before, there was a young man”—here  a faint color came in the wan cheeks—“who was fond of me, and I  thought the world of him, and my father was down on him, and the men that  father was in with wanted to kill him; and Mr. Sinclair saved his life.  He's gone away, and I've waited and waited for him to come back—and  perhaps I'll never see him again. But oh! dear lady, I'll never forget  what your husband did. He's a good man, and he deserves the love of a dear  good woman like you, and if I dared I'd pray for you both, night and day.”  
She stopped suddenly and sank back in her seat, pale as before, and as if  frightened by her own emotion. Mrs. Sinclair had listened with sympathy  and increasing interest.  
“My poor girl,” she said, speaking tenderly (she had a lovely, soft voice)  and with slightly heightened color, “I am delighted that you came to see  me, and that my husband was able to help you. Tell me, can we not do more  for you? I do not for one moment believe you can be happy with your  present surroundings. Can we not assist you to leave them?”  
The girl rose, sadly shaking her head. “I thank you for your words,” she  said. “I don't suppose I'll ever see you again, but I'll say, God bless  you!”  
She caught Mrs. Sinclair's hand, pressed it to her lips, and was gone.  
Sinclair found his wife very thoughtful when he came home, and he listened  with much interest to her story.  
“Poor girl!” said he; “Foster is the man to help her. I wonder where he  is? I must inquire about him.”  
The next day they proceeded on their way to San Francisco, and matters  drifted on at Barker's much as before. Johnson had, after an absence of  some months, come back and lived without molestation amid the shifting  population. Now and then, too, some of the older residents fancied they  recognized, under slouched sombreros, the faces of some of his former  “crowd” about the “Ranchman's Home,” as his gaudy saloon was called.  
Late on the very evening on which this story opens, and they had been  “making up” the Denver Express in the train-house on the Missouri, “Jim”  Watkins, agent and telegrapher at Barker's, was sitting in his little  office, communicating with the station rooms by the ticket window. Jim was  a cool, silent, efficient man, and not much given to talk about such  episodes in his past life as the “wiping out” by Indians of the  construction party to which he belonged, and his own rescue by the scouts.  He was smoking an old and favorite pipe, and talking with one of “the  boys” whose head appeared at the wicket. On a seat in the station sat a  woman in a black dress and veil, apparently waiting for a train.  
“Got a heap of letters and telegrams there, ain't yer, Jim?” remarked the  man at the window.  
“Yes,” replied Jim; “they're for Engineer Sinclair, to be delivered to him  when he passes through here. He left on No. 17, to-night.” The inquirer  did not notice the sharp start of the woman near him.  
“Is that good-lookin' wife of his'n a-comin' with him?” asked he.  
“Yes, there's letters for her, too.”  
“Well, good-night, Jim. See yer later,” and he went out. The woman  suddenly rose and ran to the window.  
“Mr. Watkins,” cried she, “can I see you for a few moments where no one  can interrupt us? It's a matter of life and death.” She clutched the sill  with her thin hands, and her voice trembled. Watkins recognized Sally  Johnson in a moment. He unbolted a door, motioned her to enter, closed and  again bolted it, and also closed the ticket window. Then he pointed to a  chair, and the girl sat down and leaned eagerly forward.  
“If they knew I was here,” she said in a hoarse whisper, “my life wouldn't  be safe five minutes. I was waiting to tell you a terrible story, and then  I heard who was on the train due here tomorrow night. Mr. Watkins, don't,  for God's sake, ask me how I found out, but I hope to die if I ain't  telling you the living truth! They're going to wreck that train—No.  17—at Dead Man's Crossing, fifteen miles east, and rob the  passengers and the express car. It's the worst gang in the country, Perry's.  They're going to throw the train off the track, the passengers will be  maimed and killed—and Mr. Sinclair and his wife on the cars! Oh! my  God! Mr. Watkins, send them warning!”  
She stood upright, her face deadly pale, her hands clasped. Watkins walked  deliberately to the railroad map which hung on the wall and scanned it.  Then he resumed his seat, laid his pipe down, fixed his eyes on the girl's  face, and began to question her. At the same time his right hand, with  which he had held the pipe, found its way to the telegraph key. None but  an expert could have distinguished any change in the clicking of  the instrument, which had been almost incessant; but Watkins had “called”  the head office on the Missouri. In two minutes the “sounder” rattled out  “All right! What is it?”  
Watkins went on with his questions, his eyes still fixed on the poor  girl's face, and all the time his fingers, as it were, playing with the  key. If he were imperturbable, so was not a man sitting at a  receiving instrument nearly five hundred miles away. He had “taken” but a  few words when he jumped from his chair and cried:  
“Shut that door, and call the superintendent and be quick! Charley, brace  up—lively—and come and write this out!” With his wonderful  electric pen, the handle several hundreds of miles long, Watkins, unknown  to his interlocutor, was printing in the Morse alphabet this startling  message:  
 
     “Inform'n rec'd. Perry gang going to throw No. 17 off track
     near —xth mile-post, this division, about nine to-morrow
     (Thursday) night, kill passengers, and rob express and mail.
     Am alone here. No chance to verify story, but believe it to
     be on square. Better make arrangements from your end to
     block game. No Sheriff here now.   Answer.”

The superintendent, responding to the hasty summons, heard the message  before the clerk had time to write it out. His lips were closely  compressed as he put his own hand on the key and sent these laconic  sentences: “O. K. Keep perfectly dark. Will manage from this end.”  
Watkins, at Barker's, rose from his seat, opened the door a little way,  saw that the station was empty, and then said to the girl, brusquely, but  kindly:  
“Sally, you've done the square thing, and saved that train. I'll take care  that you don't suffer and that you get well paid. Now come home with me,  and my wife will look out for you.”  
“Oh! no,” cried the girl, shrinking back, “I must run away. You're mighty  kind, but I daren't go with you.” Detecting a shade of doubt in his eye,  she added: “Don't be afeared; I'll die before they'll know I've given them  away to you!” and she disappeared in the darkness.  
At the other end of the wire, the superintendent had quietly impressed  secrecy on his operator and clerk, ordered his fast mare harnessed, and  gone to his private office.  
“Read that!” said he to his secretary. “It was about time for some trouble  of this kind, and now I'm going to let Uncle Sam take care of his mails.  If I don't get to the reservation before the General's turned in, I shall  have to wake him up. Wait for me, please.”  
The gray mare made the six miles to the military reservation in just half  an hour. The General was smoking his last cigar, and was alert in an  instant; and before the superintendent had finished the jorum of “hot  Scotch” hospitably tendered, the orders had gone by wire to the commanding  officer at Fort ———, some distance east of Barker's, and  been duly acknowledged.  
Returning to the station, the superintendent remarked to the waiting  secretary:  
“The General's all right. Of course we can't tell that this is not a sell;  but if those Perry hounds mean business they'll get all the fight they  want—and if they've got any souls—which I doubt—may the  Lord have mercy on them!”  
He prepared several despatches, two of which were as follows:  
 
     Mr. Henry Sinclair: “On No. 17, Pawnee Junction: This
     telegram your authority to take charge of train on which you
     are, and demand obedience of all officials and trainmen on
     road.   Please do so, and act in accordance with information
     wired station agent at Pawnee Junction.”

     To the Station Agent: “Reported Perry gang will try wreck
     and rob No. 17 near —xth mile-post, Denver Division, about
     nine Thursday night.    Troops will await train at Fort ——.
     Car ordered ready for them.   Keep everything secret,
     and act in accordance with orders of Mr. Sinclair.”

“It's worth about ten thousand dollars,” sententiously remarked he, “that  Sinclair's on that train. He's got both sand and brains. Goodnight,” and  he went to bed and slept the sleep of the just.  






III  


The sun never shone more brightly and the air was never more clear and  bracing than when Sinclair helped his wife off the train at Pawnee  Junction. The station-master's face fell as he saw the lady, but he  saluted the engineer with as easy an air as he could assume, and watched  for an opportunity to speak to him alone. Sinclair read the despatches  with an unmoved countenance, and after a few minutes' reflection simply  said: “All right. Be sure to keep the matter perfectly quiet.” At  breakfast he was distrait—so much so that his wife asked him  what was the matter. Taking her aside, he at once showed her the  telegrams.  
“You see my duty,” he said. “My only thought is about you, my dear child.  Will you stay here?”  
She simply replied, looking into his face without a tremor:  
“My place is with you.” Then the conductor called “All aboard,” and the  train once more started.  
Sinclair asked Foster to join him in the smoking compartment and tell him  the promised story, which the latter did. His rescue at Barker's, he  frankly and gratefully said, had been the turning point in his  life. In brief, he had “sworn off” from gambling and drinking, had found  honest employment, and was doing well.  
“I've two things to do now, Major,” he added; “first, I must show my  gratitude to you; and next”—he hesitated a little—“I want to  find that poor girl that I left behind at Barker's. She was engaged to  marry me, and when I came to think of it, and what a life I'd have made  her lead, I hadn't the heart till now to look for her; but, seeing I'm on  the right track, I'm going to find her, and get her to come with me. Her  father's an—old scoundrel, but that ain't her fault, and I ain't  going to marry him.”  
“Foster,” quietly asked Sinclair, “do you know the Perry gang?”  
The man's brow darkened.  
“Know them?” said he. “I know them much too well. Perry is as ungodly a  cutthroat as ever killed an emigrant in cold blood, and he's got in his  gang nearly all those hounds that tried to hang me. Why do you ask,  Major?”  
Sinclair handed him the despatches. “You are the only man on the train to  whom I have shown them,” said he.  
Foster read them slowly, his eyes lighting up as he did so. “Looks as if  it was true,” said he.  
“Let me see! Fort ———. Yes, that's the —th  infantry. Two of their boys were killed at Sidney last summer by some of  the same gang, and the regiment's sworn vengeance. Major, if this story's  on the square, that crowd's goose is cooked, and don't you forget it!  I say, you must give me a hand in.”  
“Foster,” said Sinclair, “I am going to put responsibility on your  shoulders. I have no doubt that, if we be attacked, the soldiers will  dispose of the gang; but I must take all possible precautions for the  safety of the passengers. We must not alarm them. They can be made to  think that the troops are going on a scout, and only a certain number of  resolute men need be told of what we expect. Can you, late this afternoon,  go through the cars, and pick them out? I will then put you in charge of  the passenger cars, and you can post your men on the platforms to act in  case of need. My place will be ahead.''  
“Major, you can depend on me,” was Foster's reply. “I'll go through the  train and have my eye on some boys of the right sort, and that's got their  shooting-irons with them.”  
Through the hours of that day on rolled the train, still over the crisp  buffalo grass, across the well-worn buffalo trails, past the prairie-dog  villages. The passengers chatted, dozed, played cards, read, all  unconscious, with the exception of three, of the coming conflict between  the good and the evil forces bearing on their fate; of the fell  preparations making for their disaster; of the grim preparations making to  avert such disaster; of all of which the little wires alongside of them  had been talking back and forth. Watkins had telegraphed that he still saw  no reason to doubt the good faith of his warning, and Sinclair had  reported his receipt of authority and his acceptance thereof. Meanwhile,  also, there had been set in motion a measure of that power to which appeal  is so reluctantly made in time of peace.  
At Fort ———, a lonely post on the plains, the orders had  that morning been issued for twenty men under Lieutenant Halsey to parade  at 4 p. m., with overcoats, two days' rations, and ball cartridges; also  for Assistant Surgeon Kesler to report for duty with the party. Orders as  to destination were communicated direct to the lieutenant from the post  commander, and on the minute the little column moved, taking the road to  the station. The regiment from which it came had been in active service  among the Indians on the frontier for a long time, and the officers and  men were tried and seasoned fighters. Lieutenant Halsey had been well  known at the West Point balls as the “leader of the german.” From the last  of these balls he had gone straight to the field, and three years had  given him an enviable reputation for sang-froid and determined  bravery. He looked every inch the soldier as he walked along the trail,  his cloak thrown back and his sword tucked under his arm. The doctor, who  carried a Modoc bullet in some inaccessible part of his scarred body,  growled good-naturedly at the need of walking, and the men, enveloped in  their army-blue overcoats, marched easily by fours. Reaching the station,  the lieutenant called the agent aside, and with him inspected, on a  siding, a long platform car on which benches had been placed and secured.  Then he took his seat in the station and quietly waited, occasionally  twisting his long blond mustache. The doctor took a cigar with the agent,  and the men walked about or sat on the edge of the platform. One of them,  who obtained a surreptitious glance at his silent commander, told his  companions that there was trouble ahead for somebody.  
“That's just the way the leftenant looked, boys,” said he, “when we was  laying for them Apaches that raided Jones's Ranch and killed the women and  little children.”  
In a short time the officer looked at his watch, formed his men, and  directed them to take their places on the seats of the car. They had  hardly done so when the whistle of the approaching train was heard. When  it came up, the conductor, who had his instructions from Sinclair, had the  engine detached and backed on the siding for the soldiers' car, which thus  came between it and the foremost baggage car when the train was again made  up. As arranged, it was announced that the troops were to be taken a  certain distance to join a scouting party, and the curiosity of the  passengers was but slightly excited. The soldiers sat quietly in their  seats, their repeating rifles held between their knees, and the officer in  front. Sinclair joined the latter, and had a few words with him as the  train moved on. A little later, when the stars were shining brightly  overhead, they passed into the express car, and sent for the conductor and  other trainmen, and for Foster. In a few words Sinclair explained the  position of affairs. His statement was received with perfect coolness, and  the men only asked what they were to do.  
“I hope, boys,” said Sinclair, “that we are going to put this gang  to-night where they will make no more trouble. Lieutenant Halsey will bear  the brunt of the fight, and it only remains for you to stand by the  interests committed to your care. Mr. Express Agent, what help do you  want?” The person addressed, a good-natured giant, girded with a cartridge  belt, smiled as he replied:  
“Well, sir, I'm wearing a watch which the company gave me for standing off  the James gang in Missouri for half an hour, when we hadn't the ghost of a  soldier about. I'll take the contract, and welcome, to hold this  fort alone.”  
“Very well,” said Sinclair. “Foster, what progress have you made?”  
“Major, I've got ten or fifteen as good men as ever drew a bead, and just  red-hot for a fight.”  
“That will do very well. Conductor, give the trainmen the rifles from the  baggage car and let them act under Mr. Foster. Now, boys, I am sure you  will do your duty. That is all.”  
From the next station Sinclair telegraphed “All ready” to the  superintendent, who was pacing his office in much suspense. Then he said a  few words to his brave but anxious wife, and walked to the rear platform.  On it were several armed men, who bade him good-evening, and asked “when  the fun was going to begin.” Walking through the train, he found each  platform similarly occupied, and Foster going from one to the other. The  latter whispered as he passed him:  
“Major, I found Arizona Joe, the scout, in the smokin' car, and he's on  the front platform. That lets me out, and although I know as well as you  that there ain't any danger about that rear sleeper where the madam is, I  ain't a-going to be far off from her.” Sinclair shook him by the hand;  then he looked at his watch. It was half-past eight. He passed through the  baggage and express cars, finding in the latter the agent sitting behind  his safe, on which lay two large revolvers. On the platform car he found  the soldiers and their commander sitting silent and imconcerned as before.  When Sinclair reached the latter and nodded, he rose and faced the men,  and his fine voice was clearly heard above the rattle of the train.  
“Company, 'tention!” The soldiers straightened themselves in a  second.  
“With ball cartridge, load!” It was done with the precision of a  machine. Then the lieutenant spoke, in the same clear, crisp, tones that  the troops had heard in more than one fierce battle.  
“Men,” said he, “in a few minutes the Perry gang, which you will remember,  are going to try to run this train off the track, wound and kill the  passengers, and rob the cars and the United States mail. It is our  business to prevent them. Sergeant Wilson” (a gray-bearded  non-commissioned officer stood up and saluted), “I am going on the engine.  See that my orders are repeated. Now, men, aim low, and don't waste any  shots.” He and Sinclair climbed over the tender and spoke to the  engine-driver.  
“How are the air-brakes working?” asked Sinclair.  
“First-rate.”  
“Then, if you slowed down now, you could stop the train in a third of her  length, couldn't you?”  
“Easy, if you don't mind being shaken up a bit.”  
“That is good. How is the country about the —xth mile-post?”  
“Dead level, and smooth.”  
“Good again. Now, Lieutenant Halsey, this is a splendid head-light, and we  can see a long way with my night glass. I will have a——”  
“—2d mile-pole just past,” interrupted the engine-driver.  
“Only one more to pass, then, before we ought to strike them. Now,  lieutenant, I undertake to stop the train within a very short distance of  the gang. They will be on both sides of the track, no doubt; and the  ground, as you hear, is quite level. You will best know what to do.”  
The officer stepped back. “Sergeant,” called he, “do you hear me plainly?”  
“Yes, sir.”  
“Have the men fix bayonets. When the train stops, and I wave my sword, let  half jump off each side, run up quickly, and form line abreast of the  engine—not ahead.”  
“Jack,” said Sinclair to the engine-driver, “is your hand steady?” The man  held it up with a smile. “Good. Now stand by your throttle and your  air-brake. Lieutenant, better warn the men to hold on tight, and tell the  sergeant to pass the word to the boys on the platforms, or they will be  knocked off by the sudden stop. Now for a look ahead!” and he brought the  binocular to his eyes.  
The great parabolic head-light illuminated the track a long way in  advance, all behind it being of course in darkness. Suddenly Sinclair  cried out:  
“The fools have a light there, as I am a living man; and there is a little  red one near us. What can that be? All ready, Jack! By heaven! they have  taken up two rails. Now hold on, all! Stop her!!”  
The engine-driver shut his throttle-valve with a jerk. Then, holding hard  by it, he sharply turned a brass handle. There was a fearful jolt—a  grating—and the train's way was checked. The lieutenant, standing  sidewise, had drawn his sword. He waved it, and almost before he could get  off the engine the soldiers were up and forming, still in shadow, while  the bright light was thrown on a body of men ahead.  
“Surrender, or you are dead men!” roared the officer. Curses and several  shots were the reply. Then came the orders, quick and sharp:  
“Forward! Close up! Double-quick! Halt! Fire!”... It was speedily  over. Left on the car with the men, the old sergeant had said:  
“Boys, you hear. It's that ——— Perry gang. Now, don't  forget Larry and Charley that they murdered last year,” and there had come  from the soldiers a sort of fierce, subdued growl. The volley was  followed by a bayonet charge, and it required all the officer's authority  to save the lives even of those who “threw up their hands.” Large as the  gang was (outnumbering the troops), well armed and desperate as they were,  every one was dead, wounded, or a prisoner when the men who guarded the  train platforms ran up. The surgeon, with professional coolness, walked up  to the robbers, his instrument case under his arm.  
“Not much for me to do here, Lieutenant,” said he. “That practice for  Creedmoor is telling on the shooting. Good thing for the gang, too.  Bullets are better than rope, and a Colorado jury will give them plenty of  that.”  
Sinclair had sent a man to tell his wife that all was over. Then he  ordered a fire lighted, and the rails relaid. The flames lit a strange  scene as the passengers flocked up. The lieutenant posted men to keep them  back.  
“Is there a telegraph station not far ahead, Sinclair?” asked he. “Yes?  All right.” He drew a small pad from his pocket, and wrote a despatch to  the post commander.  
“Be good enough to send that for me,” said he, “and leave orders at  Barker's for the night express eastward to stop for us, and bring a posse  to take care of the wounded and prisoners. And now, my dear Sinclair, I  suggest that you get the passengers into the cars, and go on as soon as  those rails are spiked. When they realize the situation, some of them will  feel precious ugly, and you know we can't have any lynching.”  
Sinclair glanced at the rails and gave the word at once to the conductor  and brakemen, who began vociferating, “All aboard!” Just then Foster  appeared, an expression of intense satisfaction showing clearly on his  face, in the firelight.  
“Major,” said he, “I didn't use to take much stock in special Providence,  or things being ordered; but I'm darned if I don't believe in them from  this day. I was bound to stay where you put me, but I was uneasy, and wild  to be in the scrimmage; and, if I had been there, I wouldn't have taken  notice of a little red light that wasn't much behind the rear platform  when we stopped. When I saw there was no danger there I ran back, and what  do you think I found? There was a woman in a dead faint, and just  clutching a lantern that she had tied up in a red scarf, poor little  thing! And, Major, it was Sally! It was the little girl that loved me out  at Barker's, and has loved me and waited for me ever since! And when she  came to, and knew me, she was so glad she 'most fainted away again; and  she let on as it was her that gave away the job. And I took her into the  sleeper, and the madam, God bless her!—she knew Sally before and was  good to her—she took care of her and is cheering her up. And now,  Major, I'm going to take her straight to Denver, and send for a parson,  and get her married to me, and she'll brace up, sure pop.”  
The whistle sounded, and the train started. From the window of the  “sleeper” Sinclair and his wife took their last look at the weird scene.  The lieutenant, standing at the side of the track, wrapped in his cloak,  caught a glimpse of Mrs. Sinclair's pretty face, and returned her bow.  Then, as the car passed out of sight, he tugged at his mustache and  hummed:  
 
     “Why, boys, why,
        Should we be melancholy, boys
     Whose business 'tis to die?”

In less than an hour, telegrams having in the meantime been sent in both  directions, the train ran alongside the platform at Barker's; and Watkins,  imperturbable as usual, met Sinclair, and gave him his letters.  
“Perry gang wiped out, I hear, Major,” said he. “Good thing for the  country. That's a lesson the 'toughs' in these parts won't forget for a  long time. Plucky girl that give 'em away, wasn't she? Hope she's all  right.”  
“She is all right,” said Sinclair with a smile.  
“Glad of that. By the way, that father of her'n passed in his checks  to-night. He'd got one warning from the Vigilantes, and yesterday they  found out he was in with this gang, and they was a-going for him; but when  the telegram come, he put a pistol to his head and saved them all trouble.  Good riddance to everybody, I say. The sheriff's here now, and is going  east on the next train to get them fellows. He's got a big posse together,  and I wouldn't wonder if they was hard to hold in, after the 'boys in  blue' is gone.”  
In a few minutes the train was off, and its living freight—the just  and the unjust, the reformed and the rescued, the happy and the anxious.  With many of the passengers the episode of the night was already a thing  of the past. Sinclair sat by the side of his wife, to whose cheeks the  color had all come back; and Sally Johnson lay in her berth, faint still,  but able to give an occasional smile to Foster. In the station on the  Missouri the reporters were gathered about the happy superintendent,  smoking his cigars, and filling their note-books with items. In Denver,  their brethren would gladly have done the same, but Watkins failed to  gratify them. He was a man of few words. When the train had gone, and a  friend remarked: “Hope they'll get through all right, now,” he simply  said: “Yes, likely. Two shots don't most always go in the same hole.” Then  he went to the telegraph instrument. In a few minutes he could have told a  story as wild as a Norse saga, but what he said, when Denver had  responded, was only—“No. 17, fifty-five minutes late!”  
 












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