The Last Spike Part 12

As the headlight of the Rockaway engine gleamed along the hotel windows, Nora went back to see that everything was ready.

In the narrow pa.s.sage between the kitchen and the dining-room she met Buckingham. "What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"Now, my beauty," said Buck, laying a cold hand on her arm, "don't be excited."

She turned her honest eyes to him and he almost visibly shrank from them, as she had shuddered at the strange, cold touch of his hand.

"Put that powder in Ca.s.sidy's cup," he said, and in the half-light of the little hallway she saw his cruel smile.

"And kill Ca.s.sidy, the best friend I have on earth?"

"It will not kill him, but it may save his life. I shall be in his car to-night. Sabe? Do as I tell you. He will only fall asleep for a little while, otherwise--well, he may oversleep himself." She would have pa.s.sed on, but he stayed her. "Where is it?" he demanded, with a meaning glance.

She touched her jacket pocket, and he released his hold on her arm.

The shuffle and scuffle of the feet of hungry travellers who were piling into the dining-room had disturbed them. Nora pa.s.sed on to the rear, Buck out to sit down and dine with the pa.s.sengers, who always had a shade the best of the bill.

From his favorite seat, facing the audience, he watched the trainmen tumbling into the alcove off the west wing, in one corner of which a couple of Pullman porters in blue and gold sat at a small table, feeding with their forks and behaving better than some of their white comrades behaved.

Ca.s.sidy came in a moment later, sat down, and looked over to see if his rival was in his accustomed place. The big messenger looked steadily at the other man, who had never guessed the messenger's secret, and the other man looked down.

Already his supper, steaming hot, stood before him, while the table-girl danced attendance for the tip she was always sure of at the finish. She studied his tastes and knew his wants, from rare roast down to the small, black coffee with which he invariably concluded his meal.

When Buck looked up again he saw Nora approach the table, smile at Ca.s.sidy, and put a cup of coffee down by his plate.

The trainmen were soon through with their supper, being notoriously rapid feeders,--which disastrous habit they acquire while on freight, when they are expected to eat dinner and do an hour's switching in twenty minutes.

Unusually early for him, Buck pa.s.sed out. Nora purposely avoided him, but watched him from the unlighted little private office. She saw him light a cigar and stroll down the long platform. At the rear of the last Pullman he threw his cigar away and crossed quickly to the shadow side of the train. She saw him pa.s.s along, for there were no vestibules then, and made no doubt he was climbing into Ca.s.sidy's car. As the messenger reached for his change, the cas.h.i.+er-manager caught his hand, drew it across the counter, leaned toward him, saying excitedly: "Be careful to-night, John; don't fall asleep or nod for a moment. Oh, be careful!" she repeated, with ever-increasing intensity, her hot hand trembling on his great wrist; "be careful, come back safe, and you shall have your answer."

When Ca.s.sidy came back to earth he was surrounded by half a dozen good-natured pa.s.sengers, men and women, who had come out of the dining-room during the ten or fifteen seconds he had spent in Paradise.

A swift glance at the faces about told him that they had seen, another at Nora that she was embarra.s.sed; but in two ticks of the office clock he protected her, as he would his safe; for his work and time had trained him to be ready instantly for any emergency.

"Good-night, sister," he called cheerily, as he hurried toward the door.

"Good-night, John," said Nora, glancing up from the till, radiant with the excitement of her "sweet distress."

"Oh, by Jove!" said a man.

"Huh!" said a woman, and they looked like people who had just missed a boat.

With her face against the window, Nora watched the red lights on the rear of No. 7 swing out to the main line.

Closing the desk, she climbed to her room on the third floor and knelt by the window. Away out on the shrouded vale she saw the dark train creeping, a solid stream of fire flowing from the short stack of the "shotgun"; for Peasley was pounding her for all she was worth in an honest effort to make up the hour that Shanley had lost in the snowdrifts of Marshall Pa.s.s. Presently she heard the m.u.f.fled roar of the train on a trestle, and a moment later saw the Salt Lake Limited swallowed by the Black Canon, in whose sunless gorges many a driver died before the scenery settled after having been disturbed by the builders of the road.

Over ahead in his quiet car Ca.s.sidy sat musing, smoking, and wondering why Nora should seem so anxious about him. Turning, he glanced about.

Everything looked right, but the girl's anxiety bothered him.

Picking up a bundle of way-bills, he began checking up. The engine screamed for Sapinero, and a moment later he felt the list as they rounded Dead Man's Curve.

Unless they were flagged, the next stop would be at Cimarron, at the other end of the canon.

His work done, the messenger lighted his pipe, settled himself in his high-backed canvas camp-chair, and put his feet up on his box for a good smoke. He tried to think of a number of things that had nothing whatever to do with Nora, but somehow she invariably elbowed into his thoughts.

He leaned over and opened his box--not the strong-box, but the wooden, trunk-like box that holds the messenger's street-coat when he's on duty and his jumper when he's off. On the under side of the lifted lid he had fixed a large panel picture of Nora O'Neal.

Buckingham, peering over a piano-box, behind which he had hidden at Gunnison, saw and recognized the photograph; for the messenger's white light stood on the little safe near the picture. For half an hour he had been watching Ca.s.sidy, wondering why he did not fall asleep. He had seen Nora put the cup down with her own hand, to guard, as he thought, against the possibility of a mistake. What will a woman not dare and do for the man she loves? He sighed softly. He recalled now that he had always exercised a powerful influence over women,--that is, the few he had known,--but he was surprised that this consistent Catholic girl should be so "dead easy."

"And now look at this one hundred and ninety-eight pounds of egotism sitting here smiling on the likeness of the lady who has just dropped bug-dust in his coffee. It's positively funny."

Such were the half-whispered musings of the would-be robber.

He actually grew drowsy waiting for Ca.s.sidy to go to sleep. The car lurched on a sharp curve, dislodging some boxes. Buck felt a strange, tingling sensation in his fingers and toes. Presently he nodded.

Ca.s.sidy sat gazing on the pictured face that had hovered over him in all his dreams for months, and as he gazed, seemed to feel her living presence. He rose as if to greet her, but kept his eyes upon the picture.

Suddenly realizing that something was wrong in his end of the car, Buck stood up, gripping the top of the piano-box. The scream of the engine startled him. The car crashed over the switch-frog at Curecanti, and Curecanti's Needle stabbed the starry vault above. The car swayed strangely and the lights grew dim.

Suddenly the awful truth flashed through his bewildered brain.

"O-o-o-oh, the wench!" he hissed, pulling his guns.

Ca.s.sidy, absorbed in the photo, heard a door slam; and it came to him instantly that Nora had boarded the train at Gunnison, and that some one was showing her over to the head end. As he turned to meet her, he saw Buck staggering toward him, holding a murderous gun in each hand.

Instantly he reached for his revolver, but a double flash from the guns of the enemy blinded him and put out the bracket-lamps. As the messenger sprang forward to find his foe, the desperado lunged against him. Ca.s.sidy grabbed him, lifted him bodily, and smashed him to the floor of the car; but with the amazing tenacity and wonderful agility of the trained gun-fighter, Buck managed to fire as he fell. The big bullet grazed the top of Ca.s.sidy's head, and he fell unconscious across the half-dead desperado.

Buck felt about for his gun, which had fallen from his hand; but already the "bug-dust" was getting in its work. Sighing heavily, he joined the messenger in a quiet sleep.

At Cimarron they broke the car open, revived the sleepers, restored the outlaw to the Ohio State Prison, from which he had escaped, and the messenger to Nora O'Neal.

JACK RAMSEY'S REASON

When Bill Ross romped up over the range and blew into Edmonton in the wake of a warm chinook, bought tobacco at the Hudson's Bay store, and began to regale the gang with weird tales of true fissures, paying placers, and rich loads lying "virgin," as he said, in Northern British Columbia, the gang accepted his tobacco and stories for what they were worth; for it is a tradition up there that all men who come in with the Mudjekeewis are liars.

That was thirty years ago.