Vpi Damhead Creek

[Kum Dana]

CreditsD A Alexander, with thanks to the University of Colorado, Boulder, for providing a scan of the cover, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at (This file was made using scans of public domain works put online by Harvard University Library's Open Collections Program.)

Apache Limited in ditch at Lobo Cut four mileswest. Both engines crumpled up. Two enginemen,one route agent, under wreck. Everythingoff but rear Pullman. Train on fire and lot ofpassengers pinned down. Hurry help quick.

The interruption came in the shape of a one-armedman with a lantern, sprinting like a base-runneracross from the railroad building to thehotel. It was the night watchman summoned bythe despatcher, and ten seconds later he had deliveredhis message.

While the whistle echoes were still yelling in thesurrounding hills the climax came. Out of thestation door darted a man with a red lantern. Cargillpounced upon the throttle, and in the samesecond the brakes went into the emergency notchwith a jerk that flung the superintendent and thefireman against the boiler-head and slammed theguest unceremoniously into the cab corner.

At the shriek of the brakes, the man with the red[Pg 18]lantern turned and ran in the opposite direction,waving his signal light frantically; and the wreckingspecial was still only shrilling and skidding toits stop when a long passenger-train drawn by twoengines slid smoothly out of the canyon portal andcame grinding down the grade with fire spurtingfrom every suddenly clipped wheel-rim.

In the drawing-room of the rear sleeper of thelimited, Maxwell closed the door on his guest andhimself, passed his cigar-case, lighted a fresh cigarin his own behalf, and said nothing until after theshort shifting stunt had been worked out and theApache Limited was once more racing on its waywestward. Then he opened up.

It was a half-hour after the arrival of the unwreckedLimited, and the story of the curious falsealarm was just getting itself passed from lip toear among the loungers in the Hotel Topaz lobby,when the Government man came down from hisroom to file a rather lengthy New York messagewith the hotel telegraph operator.

For what remained of the afternoon after Tarbellwent away, Sprague sat in the writing-roomand wrote letters, sealing and addressing the lastone just as Maxwell came over to go to dinner withhim. At table there were plenty of uncut back-numbers[Pg 38]in the way of college reminiscences to bethreshed over, and Sprague carefully kept the talkin this innocuous field until after they had left thedining-room to go for a smoke on the loggia porch.When the cigars were alight, Maxwell would nolonger be choked off.

Fully two hours beyond the time when the superintendenthad crossed the railroad plaza to climbthe stair of the head-quarters building, Tarbell,strolling along the plaza-fronting street, swunghimself over the railing of the loggia porch andtook the chair next to the man from Washington,who was still sitting as Maxwell had left him andstill smoking.

Behind the railing Connolly was sitting at hisglass-topped wire-table with the train-sheet underhis hand and the superintendent at his elbow.Over in the corner under his green-shaded electricbulb, Bolton, the sallow-faced car-record man, wasfingering the keys of his type-writer.

Maxwell fought his way stubbornly through thecrowd, with the newspaper man, Sprague, Tarbell,and Connolly following in his wake. When thefive were once more behind the closed door of theprivate office across the hall, the superintendentturned morosely upon the night despatcher, andhe was so full of the thing he was about to do thathe did not notice that his guest had taken Tarbellaside for a whispered conference.

While the young people were debating amongthemselves as to whether or no there might not bean apology due, the big man who had dined alonepassed quite through the string of vestibuled Pullmansand went to light his cigar on the rear platformof the combination buffet and observationcar.

Shortly after he had seated himself in one of theplatform camp-chairs, the train, which had beenrocketing down a wide valley with an isolatedridge on one hand and a huge mountain range onthe other, came to a stand at one of the few-and-far-betweenstations. The pause, one would say,should have been only momentary; but after ithad lasted for a full minute or more the solitarysmoker on the rear platform left his chair and wentto lean over the platform railing for a forwardglance.

Looking down the length of the long train, he[Pg 60]saw the lights of the small station, with other lightsbeyond it which seemed to mark a railroad crossingor junction. On the station platform therewere a number of lanterns held high to light agroup of men who were struggling to lift a long,ominous-looking box into the express-car.

A little later the wheels of the train began totrundle again, and as his car-end passed the stationthe smoker on the observation platform had a fleetingglimpse of the funeral party, and of the heavyfour-mule mountain-wagon which had apparentlyserved as its single equipage. Also, he remarkedwhat a less observant person might have missed:that the lantern-bearers were roughly clothed, andthat they were armed.

Shortly afterward came the bump of a coupling[Pg 69]touch, and the office-car, in the grip of a switching-engine,raced backward through the yards; backwardand forward again, and when it came to restit was standing on the short station spur at the endof the railroad head-quarters building. From theopen windows Sprague could see the long throughtrain, with its two big mountain-pulling locomotivescoupled on, drawn up for its farther flight.It was after it had steamed away into the nightthat Maxwell returned to his side-tracked car tofind his guest, half-asleep, as it seemed, in thedepths of the big wicker easy-chair.

When the superintendent, accompanied by his[Pg 72]broad-shouldered guest, climbed the stair andentered the despatched office, fat, round-facedDaniel Connolly was rattling the key at the train-sheettable. He glanced up at the door opening.

Five minutes farther along the two-car specialtrain had been made up and was clanking out overthe switches in the eastern yard. As the last ofthe switch-lights were flicking past the windows,a big bearded man came in from the car ahead andMaxwell introduced him.

A few minutes later the two-car train slowed[Pg 78]down and came to a stand on a sharp curve at thehead of a densely wooded ravine in the foot-hills.Harding ran forward to get his posse out, and bythe time Maxwell and Sprague had debarked theground at the track-side was black with men.Sprague laughed softly.

The chase, with the dogs running upon a comparatively[Pg 79]fresh scent, led up through the pinewood at the head of the gulch. Beyond the woodwas a bare, high-lying mesa table-land, with itssummer-baked soil dried out to almost rockyhardness. A hundred yards from the gulch headan indistinct road skirted the mesa edge, and herethe dogs began to run in circles.

During the short run around the hills to thesmall mining-town station, Sprague sat quietly in[Pg 81]his chair, puffing steadily at his cigar, and sayingnothing. When Maxwell announced their arrivalhe got up and followed the superintendentinto the Corona office.

Once more Sprague peered into the silk-linedinterior, stooping to send the light ray to the footof the casket, which was still hidden under the undestroyedhalf of the outer case. Then, snappingthe switch of the flash-light and carefully replacingthe broken box cover, he nodded briskly to Maxwell.

The big-bodied Government man stood asidewhile the Corona operator called the despatcherand obtained the order for the return of the two-carspecial to Brewster. But after the bit of routinewas finished he made another suggestion.

Again the despatcher nodded, and it was onlyhis respect for the big man that kept him fromasking how the incident could possibly be knownto one who had been thirty miles away at the momentof its happening.

Tarbell waited when he saw the boss and hisguest coming across the plaza, and when his twofares were stowed in the roomy tonneau of the bigcar he let the clutch in for the short run to thewestern suburb. The night was clear and starlit,but there was no moon. Since the hour waswell past midnight, the streets were practically[Pg 99]deserted. Beyond the last of the street-crossingarc-lamps the western road led away through aforest of dwarf pine, a broad white pathway windingamong the trees and roughly paralleling therailroad.

At one of the shorter turns in the pike they cameupon the brilliantly lighted road-house. In appearanceit was a modern roadside tavern, one ofthe many which owe their sudden recrudescence tothe automobile. It was withdrawn a little fromthe highway, and was surrounded by ample stablesand shelter sheds opening upon a great squareyard with wide carriage gates. Tarbell backedthe auto to a stand among a number of others inthe yard, and a man with a lantern came, ostensiblyto offer help, but probably to make sure thatthe new-comers were harmless.

The first-floor rooms, where a pair of roulettewheels were spinning and a faro game was running,were well filled. Brewster had lately passed ananti-gambling ordinance, and the vice had beentemporarily driven beyond the corporation limits.Maxwell saw a few men whom he knew, and manywho were well known to the Brewster police. Underthe archway dividing the red-and-black wheelsfrom the faro table Sprague whispered in his ear.

The simple programme was carried out preciselyand to the letter. When the rush came the roomwas in darkness, and Sprague stepped lightlyaside. Thereupon a dozen charging men, findingno resistance in the suddenly released door,piled themselves in cursing confusion over thebarricading cot.

Quite naturally, the din of the battle had precipitateda panic in the unlicensed road-house, andthe building was disgorging, through doors andwindows, and even over the roofs of the sheltersheds. Tarbell drove his two prisoners into thetonneau of the hired car, while Maxwell promptlycranked the motor and Sprague lifted Calmainebodily to the front seat. Ten seconds beyond this,while the panic was still at its height, the hired car,leading all others in the townward rush, was leavinga dense dust trail to befog its followers, andthe capture and rescue were facts accomplished.

3a8082e126