The Cattle-Baron's Daughter Part 43

"Hallo!" he called. "Wait there a moment. I guess this place doesn't belong to you."

A man who looked big and shapeless in his whitened furs signed to somebody outside without answering, and four or five other men in fur caps and snow-sprinkled coats came in. They did not seem to consider it necessary to wait for permission, and it dawned upon the agent that something unusual was about to happen.

"We have a little business to put through," said one.

"Well," said the agent brusquely, "I can't attend to you now. You can come back later--when the train comes in."

One of the newcomers smiled sardonically, and the agent recognized two of his companions. They were men of some importance in that country, who had, however joined the homestead movement and were under the ban of the company's chief supporters, the cattle-barons. There was accordingly no inducement to waste civility on them; but he had an unpleasant feeling that unnecessary impertinence would not be advisable.

"It has got to be put through now," said the first of them, with a little ring in his voice. "We want a locomotive and a calaboose to take us to Boynton, and we are quite willing to pay anything reasonable."

"It can't be done. We have only the one loco here, and she is wanted to shove the west-bound train up the long grade to the hills."

"I guess that train will have to get through alone to-night," said another man.

The agent got up with an impatient gesture. "Now," he said, "I don't feel like arguing with you. You can't have the loco."

"No?" said the homesteader, with a little laugh. "Well, I figure you're mistaken. We have taken charge of her already and only want the bill. If you don't believe me, call your engineer."

The agent strode to the door, and there was a momentary silence after he called, "Pete!"

Then, a shout came out of the sliding snow: "I can't come."

It broke off with significant suddenness, and the agent turned to the man who had first spoken. "You are going to be sorry for this, Mr. Grant," he said and then tried to slip away, but one of the others pulled the door to and stood with his back to it while Grant, smiling, said, "I'm quite willing to take my chances. Have the stock-cars pa.s.sed Perry's siding?"

"I don't know," said the agent.

"Then, hadn't you better call them up and see? We are giving you the first chance of doing it out of courtesy, but one of us is a good operator."

"I was on the Baltimore and Ohio road," said one man. "You needn't play any tricks with me."

The agent sat down at the telegraph instrument, and looked up when it rapped out an answer to his message.

"Stock train left Birch Hollow. No sign of her yet."

"That's all right," said the man who had served the B. and O. "Tell them to side-track her for half an hour, anyway, after your loco comes through.

It's necessary. Don't worry 'bout any questions, but tell them to keep us a clear road, now."

The agent, who saw that the other man was prepared to do the work himself, complied, and the latter once more nodded when the instrument clicked out the answer.

"Make out your bill," said Grant, taking a wallet from his pocket.

"No," said the agent; "we're going to have the law of you."

Grant laughed. "It strikes me there is very little law in this country now, and your company would a good deal sooner have the dollars than a letter telling them you had let us take one of their locomotives away from you."

"That," said the agent reflectively, "sounds quite sensible. Well, I'll take the dollars. It doesn't commit us to anything."

The bills were counted over, and as the men went out Grant turned in the doorway. "It would not be advisable for you to wire any of the folks along the line to stop us," he said. "We are going through to Boynton as fast as your engineer can shove his loco along, and if anybody switched us into a side-track it would only mean the smas.h.i.+ng up of a good deal of the company's property."

He had gone out in another moment, and, in a few more, climbed into the locomotive cab, while somebody coupled on a calaboose in the rear. Then, he showed the engineer several bills and the agent's receipt together.

"If you can hold your tongue and get us through to Boynton five minutes under the mail schedule time, the dollars are yours," he said.

The engineer looked doubtful for a moment, then, his eyes twinkling, he took the bills.

"Well," he said, "you've got the agent's receipt, and the rest is not my business. Sit tight, and we'll show you something very like flying to-night."

Another man flung open the furnace door, a sudden stream of brightness flashed out as he hurled in coal, the door shut with a clang, and there was a whirr of slipping wheels as the engineer laid his hand on the lever.

The great locomotive panted, and Grant, staring out through the gla.s.ses, saw a blinking light slide back to them. Then, the plates beneath him trembled, the hammering wheels got hold, and the m.u.f.fled clanging and thudding swelled into a rhythmic din. The light darted past them, the filmy whiteness which had streamed down through the big headlamp's glare now beat in a bewildering rush against the quivering gla.s.s, and the fan-shaped blaze of radiance drove on faster through the snow.

Five minutes pa.s.sed, and Grant, who held a watch in his hand, glanced at the engineer as the blaze whirled like a comet along the clean-cut edge of a dusky bluff.

"You'll have to do better," he said.

"Wait till we have got her warmed up," said the man, who stood quietly intent, his lean hand on the throttle. "Then you'll see something."

Grant sat down on a tool-locker, took out his cigar-case, and pa.s.sed it to Breckenridge who sat opposite him. Breckenridge's face was eager and there was an unusual brightness in his eyes, for he was young and something thrilled within him in unison with the vibration of the great machine.

There was, however, very little to see just then beyond the tense, motionless figure of the man at the throttle and the damp-beaded face of another forced up in the lurid glare from the furnace door. A dim whiteness lashed the gla.s.ses, and when Breckenridge pressed his face to one of them the blaze of radiance against which the smoke-stack was projected blackly only intensified the obscurity they were speeding through.

Still, there was much to feel and hear--the shrill wail of the wind that buffeted their shelter, the bewildering throb and quiver of the locomotive which, with its suggestion of t.i.tanic effort, seemed to find a response in human fibre, pounding and clas.h.i.+ng with their burden of strain, and the roar of the great drivers that rose and fell like a diapason. Perhaps Breckenridge, who was also under a strain that night, was fanciful, but it seemed to him there was hidden in the medley of sound a theme or motive that voiced man's domination over the primeval forces of the universe, and urged him to the endurance of stress, and great endeavour. It was, for the most part, vague and elusive; but there were times when it rang exultingly through the subtly harmonious din, reminding him of Wagnerian music.

Leaning forward, he touched Grant's knee. "Larry, it's bracing. The last few months were making me a little sick of everything--but this gets hold of one." Grant smiled, but Breckenridge saw how weary his bronzed face showed in the dim lantern light. "There was a time, two or three years ago, when I might have felt it as you seem to do," he said. "I don't seem to have any feeling but tiredness left me now."

"You can't let go," said Breckenridge.

"No," and Grant sighed, "not until the State takes hold instead of me, or the trouble's through."

Breckenridge said nothing further, and Grant sat huddled in a corner with the thin blue cigar-smoke curling about him. He knew it was possible he was taking a very heavy risk just then, since the homesteaders might have changed their plans again; and his task was a double one, for he had not only to save the stock train, but prevent an encounter between his misguided followers and the cavalry. So there was silence between them while, lurching, rocking, roaring, the great locomotive sped on through the night, until the engineer, turning half-round, glanced at Grant.

"Is she making good enough time to suit you? Perry's siding is just ahead, and we'll be on the Bitter Creek trestle five minutes after that," he said.

Grant rose and leaned forward close to the gla.s.ses. He could see nothing but the radiance from the headlamp whirling like a meteor through the filmy haze; but the fierce vibration of everything, and the fas.h.i.+on in which the snow smote the gla.s.ses, as in a solid stream, showed the pace at which they were travelling. He looked round and saw that Breckenridge's eyes were fixed upon him. His comrade's voice reached him faint and strained through the hammering of the wheels.

"You feel tolerably sure Harper was right about the bridge?"

Grant nodded. "I do."

"What if he was mistaken, and they meant to try there after all? There are eight of us."

"We have got to take the risk," said Grant very quietly, "and it is a big responsibility; but if the boys got their work in and fell foul of Cheyne, we would have half the State ablaze."

He signed for silence, and Breckenridge stared out through the gla.s.ses, for he feared his face would betray him, and fancied he understood the burden that was upon the man who, because it seemed the lesser evil, was risking eight men's lives.

As he watched, a blink of light crept out of the snow, grew brighter, and swept back to them. Others appeared in a cl.u.s.ter behind it, a big water-tank flashed by, and the roar of wheels and scream of whistle was flung back by a snow-covered building. Then, as Breckenridge glanced to the opposite side, the blaze of another headlamp dazzled his eyes and he had a blurred vision of a waiting locomotive and a long row of snow-smeared cars. In another second cars and station had vanished as suddenly as they had sprung up out of the night, and they were once more alone in the sliding snow. Breckenridge drew a breath of relief.

"There's the stock train, any way. And now for the bridge!" he said.

"That was the easiest half of it. Muller was there--I saw him--and he could have warned the agent at the last minute," Grant answered.