The Grafters Part 52

"It's up to you, Danforth," he said, raising his voice to be heard above the pounding roar of the wheels. "You're the youngest and lightest: get down on the 1010's brake-beam and unhook those chains."

The secretary looked once into the trap with the dodging jaws and the backward-flying bottom and declined the honor.

"I can't get down there," he cried. "And I shouldn't know what to do if I could."

Once more the superintendent exhibited his nerve. He had nothing at stake save a desire to defeat Callahan; but he had the persistent courage of the bull-terrier. With Bucks and the secretary to steady him he lowered himself in the gap till he could stand upon the brake-beam of the 1010's tender and grope with one free hand for the hook of the nearest safety-chain. Death nipped at him every time the engine gave or took up the slack of the loose coupling, but he dodged and hung on until he had satisfied himself.

"It's no good," he announced, when they had dragged him by main strength back to a footing in the narrow vestibule. "The hooks are bent into the links. We're due to go wherever that d.a.m.ned Irishman is taking us."

Shovel was firing, and the trailing smoke and cinders quickly made the forward vestibule untenable. When they were driven in, Bucks and the receiver went through to the rear platform, where they were presently joined by Halkett and Danforth.

"I've been trying the air again," said the superintendent, "but it's no go. What's next?"

The governor gave the word.

"Wait," he said; and the four of them clung to the hand-rails, swaying and bending to the bounding lurches of the flying car.

Mile after mile reels from beneath the relentless wheels, and still the speed increases. Station Donerail is pa.s.sed, and now the pace is so furious that the watchers on the railed platform can not make out the signals in the volleying wake of dust. Station Schofield is pa.s.sed, and again the signals, if any there be, are swiftly drowned in the gray dust-smother. From Schofield to Agua Caliente is but a scant ten miles; and as the flying train rushes on toward the State boundary, two faces in the quartet of watchers show tense and drawn under the yellow light of the Pintsch platform lamp.

The governor swings himself unsteadily to the right-hand railing and the long look ahead brings the twinkling arc-star of the tower light on Breezeland Inn into view. He turns to Guilford, who has fallen limp into one of the platform chairs.

"In five minutes more we shall pa.s.s Agua Caliente," he says. "Will you kill the Irishman, or shall I?" Guilford's lips move, but there is no audible reply; and Bucks takes Danforth's weapon and pa.s.ses quickly and alone to the forward vestibule.

The station of Agua Caliente swings into the field of 1010's electric headlight. Callahan's tank has been bone dry for twenty minutes, and he is watching the gla.s.s water-gage where the water shows now only when the engine lurches heavily to the left. He knows that the crown-sheet of the fire-box is bare, and that any moment it may give down and the end will come. Yet his gauntleted hand never falls from the throttle-bar to the air-c.o.c.k, and his eyes never leave the bubble appearing and disappearing at longer intervals in the heel of the water-gla.s.s.

Shovel has stopped firing, and is hanging out of his window for the straining look ahead. Suddenly he drops to the footplate to grip Callahan's arm.

"See!" he says. "They have set the switch to throw us in on the siding!"

In one motion the flutter of the exhaust ceases, and the huge ten-wheeler buckles to the sudden setting of the brakes. The man standing in the forward vestibule of the Naught-seven lowers his weapon. Apparently it is not going to be necessary to kill the engineer, after all.

But Callahan's nerve has failed him only for the moment. There is one chance in ten thousand that the circ.u.mambulating side track is empty; one and one only, and no way to make sure of it. Beyond the station, as Callahan well knows, the siding comes again into the main line, and the switch is a straight-rail "safety." Once again the thought of his motherless child flickers into the engineer's brain; then he releases the air and throws his weight backward upon the throttle-bar. Two gasps and a heart-beat decide it; and before the man in the vestibule can level his weapon and fire, the one-car train has shot around the station, heaving and lurching over the uneven rails of the siding, and grinding shrilly over the points of the safety switch to race on the down grade to Megilp.

At the mining-camp the station is in darkness save for the goggle eyes of an automobile drawn up beside the platform, and deep silence reigns but for the m.u.f.fled, irregular thud of the auto-car's motor. But the beam of the 1010's headlight shows the small station building ma.s.sed by men, a score of them poising for a spring to the platforms of the private car when the slackening speed shall permit. A bullet tears into the woodwork at Callahan's elbow, and another breaks the gla.s.s of the window beside him, but he makes the stop as steadily as if death were not snapping at him from behind and roaring in his ears from the belly of the burned engine.

"Be doomping yer fire lively, now, Jimmy, b'y," he says, dropping from his box to help. And while they wrestle with the dumping-bar, these two, the poising figures have swarmed upon the Naught-seven, and a voice is lifted above the Babel of others in sharp protest.

"Put away that rope, boys! There's law here, and by G.o.d, we're going to maintain it!"

At this a man pushes his way out of the thick of the crowd and climbs to a seat beside the chauffeur in the waiting automobile.

"They've got him," he says shortly. "To the hotel for all you're worth, Hudgins; our part is to get this on the wires before one o'clock. Full speed; and never mind the ruts."

x.x.x

SUBHI SADIK

The dawn of a new day was graying over the capital city, and the newsboys were crying l.u.s.tily in the streets, when David Kent felt his way up the dark staircases of the Kittleton Building to knock at the door of Judge Oliver Marston's rooms on the top floor. He was the bearer of tidings, and he made no more than a formal excuse for the unseemly hour when the door was opened by the lieutenant-governor.

"I am sorry to disturb you, Judge Marston," he began, when he had the closed door at his back and was facing the tall thin figure in flannel dressing gown and slippers, "but I imagine I'm only a few minutes ahead of the crowd. Have you heard the news of the night?"

The judge pressed the b.u.t.ton of the drop-light and waved his visitor to a chair.

"I have heard nothing, Mr. Kent. Have a cigar?"--pa.s.sing the box of unutterable stogies.

"Thank you; not before breakfast," was the hasty reply. Then, without another word of preface: "Judge Marston, for the time being you are the governor of the State, and I have come to----"

"One moment," interrupted his listener. "There are some stories that read better for a foreword, however brief. What has happened?"

"This: last night it was the purpose of Governor Bucks and Receiver Guilford to go to Gaston by special train. In some manner, which has not yet been fully explained, there was a confusion of orders. Instead of proceeding eastward, the special was switched to the tracks of the Western Division; was made the first section of the fast mail, which had orders to run through without stop. You can imagine the result."

Marston got upon his feet slowly and began pacing the length of the long room. Kent waited, and the shrill cries of the newsboys floated up and in through the open windows. When the judge finally came back to his chair the saturnine face was gray and haggard.

"I hope it was an accident that can be clearly proved," he said; and a moment later: "You spoke of Bucks and Guilford; were there others in the private car?"

"Two others; Halkett, and the governor's private secretary."

"And were they all killed?"

A great light broke in upon Kent when he saw how Marston had misapprehended. Also, he saw how much it would simplify matters if he should be happy enough to catch the ball in the reactionary rebound.

"They are all alive and uninjured, to the best of my knowledge and belief; though I understand that one of them narrowly escaped lynching at the hands of an excited mob."

The long lean figure erected itself in the chair, and the weight of years seemed to slip from its shoulders.

"But I understood you to say that the duties of the executive had devolved upon me, Mr. Kent. You also said I could imagine the result of this singular mistaking of train-orders, and I fancied I could. What was the result?"

"A conclusion not quite as sanguinary as that you had in mind, though it is likely to prove serious enough for one member of the party in the private car. The special train was chased all the way across the State by the fast mail. It finally outran the pursuing section and was stopped at Megilp. A sheriff's posse was in waiting, and an arrest was made."

"Go on," said the lieutenant-governor.

"I must first go back a little. Some weeks ago there was a shooting affray in the mining-camp, arising out of a dispute over a 'salted' mine, and a man was killed. The murderer escaped across the State line. Since the authorities of the State in which the crime was committed had every reason to believe that a governor's requisition for this particular criminal would not be honored, two courses were open to them: to publish the facts and let the moral sentiment of the neighboring commonwealth punish the criminal as it could, or would; or, suppressing the facts, to bide their chance of catching their man beyond the boundaries of the State which gave him an asylum. They chose the latter."

A second time Marston left his chair and began to pace the floor. After a little he paused to say:

"This murderer is James Guilford, I take it; and the governor--"

"No," said Kent, gravely. "The murderer is--Jasper G. Bucks." He handed the judge a copy of the _Argus_. "You will find it all in the press despatches; all I have told you, and a great deal more."

The lieutenant-governor read the newspaper story as he walked, lighting the electric chandelier to enable him to do so. When it was finished he sat down again.

"What a hideous cesspool it is!" was his comment. "But we shall clean it, Mr. Kent; we shall clean it if it shall leave the People's Party without a vote in the State. Now what can I do for you? You didn't come here at this hour in the morning merely to bring me the news."