The Night Operator Part 18

place, saw steel bracelets replace the cords around the captive's wrists, saw the captive's legs securely bound together, and the captive chucked into Carruthers' back shed--this was in the early days, and Big Cloud hadn't yet risen to the dignity of a jail--with about as much formality as would be used in handling a sack of meal. After that, Carruthers barred the door by slamming the long, two-inch-thick piece of timber, that worked on a pivot in the center, home into its iron rests with a flourish of finality, as though to indicate that the show was over--and the crowd dispersed--the men heading for the swinging doors of the Blazing Star; and the women for their own back fences.

P. Walton, with a kind of grim smile on his lips, retraced his steps to the station, climbed the stairs, and started through the super's room to reach his own desk.

Carleton removed his pipe from his mouth, and stared angrily as the other came in.

"You blamed idiot!" he exploded. "I thought I told you to go home!"

"I'm feeling better," said P. Walton. "I haven't got those night orders out yet for the roundhouse. There's three specials from the East to-night."

"Well, Halstead can attend to them," said Carleton, a kindliness creeping into the tones that he tried to make gruff. "What are you trying to do--commit suicide?"

"No," said P. Walton, with a steady smile, "just my work. It was a little too violent exercise trying to hold the crowd, that was all.

But I'm all right now."

"You blamed idiot!" grunted Carleton again. "Why didn't you say so? I never thought of it, or I wouldn't have let----"

"It doesn't matter," said P. Walton brightly. "I'm all right now"--and he pa.s.sed on into his own room.

When he left his desk again it was ten minutes of six, and Carleton had already gone. P. Walton, with his neatly written order sheets, walked across the tracks to the roundhouse, handed them over to Clarihue, the night turner, who had just come in, and then hung around, toying in an apparently aimless fas.h.i.+on with the various tools on the workbenches till the whistle blew, while the fitters, wipers and day gang generally washed up. After that he plodded across the fields to the Polack quarters on the other side of the tracks from the town proper, stumbled into the filthy, garlic smelling interior of one of the shacks, and flung himself down on the bunk that was his bedroom.

"Lord!" he muttered. "I'm pretty bad to-night. Guess I'll have to postpone it. Might be as well, anyway."

He lay there for an hour, his bright eyes fastened now on the dirty, squalling brood of children upon the floor, now on the heavy, slatternly figure of their mother, and now on the tin bowl of boiled sheep's head that awaited the arrival of Ivan Peloff, the master of the house--and then, with abhorrent disgust, he turned his eyes to the wall.

"Thank G.o.d, I get into a decent place soon!" he mumbled once. "It's the roughest month I ever spent. I'd rather be back where"--he smiled sort of cryptically to himself--"where I came from." A moment later he spoke again in a queer, kind of argumentative, kind of self-extenuating way--in broken sentences. "Maybe I put it on a little too thick boarding here so's to stand in with Carleton and pay that ten back quick--but, my G.o.d, I was scared--I've got to stand in with somebody, or go to the wall."

It was after seven when Ivan Peloff came--smelling strong of drink, and excitement heightening the flush upon his cheek.

"h.e.l.lo, Meester Walton!" he bubbled out with earnest inebriety. "We rise h.e.l.l to-night--by an' by. Get him goods by midnight." Ivan Peloff drew his fingers around his throat, and, in lieu of English that came hard to him at any time, jerked his thumb dramatically up and down in the air.

"Who?" inquired P. Walton, without much enthusiasm.

"Dam' robber--him by train come in," explained Ivan Peloff laboriously.

"Oh," said P. Walton, "talking of stringing him up--is that it?"

Ivan Peloff nodded his head delightedly.

P. Walton swung himself lazily from his bunk.

"Eat?" invited Ivan Peloff, moving toward the table.

"No," said P. Walton, moving toward the door. "I'm not hungry; I'm going out for some air."

Ivan Peloff pulled two bottles of a deadly brand from under his coat, and set them on the table.

"Me eat," he grinned. "By an' by have drinks all 'round"--he waved his hands as though to embrace the whole Polack quarter--"den we comes--rise h.e.l.l--do him goods by midnight."

P. Walton halted in the doorway.

"Who put you up to this, Peloff?" he inquired casually.

"Cowboys," grinned Peloff, lunging at the sheep's head. "Plenty drink.

Say have fun."

"The cowboys, eh?" observed P. Walton. "So they're in town, are they--and looking for fun?"

"We fix him goods by midnight," repeated Ivan Peloff, wagging his head; then, with a sudden scowl: "You not tell--eh, Meester Walton?"

P. Walton smiled disinterestedly--but there wasn't any doubt in P.

Walton's mind that devilment was in the wind--Big Cloud, in the early days, knew its full share of that.

"I?" said P. Walton quietly, as he went out. "No; I won't tell. It's no business of mine, is it?"

It was fall, and already dark. P. Walton made his way out of the Polack quarters, reached the tracks, crossed them--and then headed out through the fields to circle around the town to the upper end again, where it dwindled away from cross streets to the houses flanking on Main Street alone.

"I guess," he coughed--and smiled, "I won't postpone it till to-morrow night, after all."

It was a long walk for a man in P. Walton's condition, and it was a good half hour before he finally stopped in the rear of Sheriff Carruthers' back shed and listened--there were no fences here, just a procession of b.u.t.tes and knolls merging the prairie country into the foothills proper of the Rockies--neither was there any sound. P.

Walton stifled a cough, and slipped like a shadow through the darkness around to the front of the shed, s.h.i.+fted the wooden bar noiselessly on its pivot, opened the door, and, as he stepped inside, closed it softly behind him.

"Butch!" he whispered.

A startled e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, and a quick movement as of a man suddenly s.h.i.+fting his position on the floor, answered him.

"Keep quiet, Butcher--it's all right," said P. Walton calmly--and, stooping, guiding his knife blade by the sense of touch, cut away the rope from the other's ankles. He caught at the steel-linked wrists and helped the man to his feet. "Come on," he said. "Slip around to the back of the shed--talk later."

P. Walton pushed the door open, and the man he called the Butcher, lurching a little unsteadily from cramped ankles, pa.s.sed out. P.

Walton carefully closed the door, coolly replaced the bar in position, and joined the other.

"Now, run for it!" he said--and led the way straight out from the town.

For two hundred yards, perhaps a little more, they raced--and then P.

Walton stumbled and went down.

"I'm--I'm not very well to-night," he gasped. "This will do--it's far enough."

The Butcher, halted, gazed at the prostrate form.

"Say, cull, what's yer name?" he demanded. "I owe you something for this, an' don't you forget it."

P. Walton made no answer. His head was swimming, lights were dancing before his eyes, and there was a premonitory weakness upon him whose issue he knew too well--unless he could fight it off.

The Butcher bent down until his face was within an inch of P. Walton's.

"So help me!" he informed the universe in unbounded amazement. "It's de Dook!"

"Sit down there opposite me, and hold out your hands," directed P.

Walton, with an effort. "We haven't got any time to waste."