The Cattle-Baron's Daughter Part 44

Neither of them said anything further, but Breckenridge felt his heart beat faster as the snow whirled by. The miles were slipping behind them, and he was by no means so sure as Larry was that no attempt would be made upon the bridge. His fancy would persist in picturing the awful leap into the outer darkness through the gap in the trestle, and he felt his lips and forehead grow a trifle colder and his flesh shrink in antic.i.p.ation of the tremendous shock. He looked at Grant; the latter's face was very quiet, and had lost its grimness and weariness--there was almost a suggestion of exaltation in it.

"We are almost on the bridge now," he said.

The engineer nodded, and the next moment Breckenridge, who had been watching the light of the headlamp flash along the snow beside the track, saw it sweep on, as it were, through emptiness. Then, he heard a roar of timber beneath him, and fancied he could look down into a black gulf through the filmy snow. He knew it was a single track they were speeding over, and that the platform of the calaboose behind them overhung the frozen river far below.

He set his lips and held his breath for what seemed a very long time, and then, with a sigh of relief, sank back into his seat as he felt by the lessening vibration, that there was frozen soil under them. But in spite of himself the hands he would have lighted a cigar with shook, and the engineer who looked round glanced at him curiously.

"Feeling kind of sick?" he said. "Well, it's against the regulations, but there's something that might fix you as well as tea in that can."

Breckenridge smiled feebly. "The fact is, I have never travelled on a locomotive before, and when I took on the contract I didn't quite know all I was letting myself in for," he said.

"How far are we off the long down grade with the curve in it?" asked Grant.

"We might get there in 'bout ten minutes," said the engineer.

"Slacken up before you reach the grade and put your headlamp out," said Grant. "I want you to stop just this side of the curve, and wait for me five minutes."

The engineer looked at him steadily. "Now, there's a good deal I don't understand about all this. What do you want me to stop there for?"

"I don't see why you should worry. It does not concern you. Any way, I have hired this special, and I give you my word that nothing I am going to do will cause the least damage to any of the company's property. I want you to stop, lend me a lantern, and sit tight in the cab until I tell you to go on. We will make it two dollars a minute."

The engineer nodded. "I don't know what you are after, but I guess I can take your word," he said. "You seem that kind of a man."

Ten minutes later the fireman vanished into the darkness, and the blaze of the headlamp went out before he returned and the roar of the drivers sank.

The rhythmic din grew slack, and became a jarring of detached sounds again, the snow no longer beat on the gla.s.ses as it had done, and, rocking less, the great locomotive rolled slowly down the incline until it stopped, and Grant, taking the lantern handed him, sprang down from the cab. Four other men were waiting on the calaboose platform, and when Grant hid the lantern under his fur coat they floundered down the side of the graded track which there crossed a hollow. A raw wind whirled the white flakes about them and Breckenridge could scarcely see the men behind him.

He was thankful when, slipping, sliding, stumbling, they gained the level.

From there he could just distinguish the road bed as something solid through the whirling haze, and he felt they were following a bend of it when Grant stopped and a clinking sound came out of the obscurity above them. It might have been made by somebody knocking out key wedges or spikes with a big hammer and in his haste striking the rail or chair.

Then Grant said something Breckenridge could not catch, and they were crawling up the slope, with the clinking and ringing growing a trifle louder. Breckenridge's heart beat faster than usual, but he was tolerably collected now. He had a weapon he was not unskilled with in his pocket, and the chance of a fight with even desperate men was much less disconcerting than that of plunging down into a frozen river with a locomotive. He had also a rea.s.suring conviction that if Larry could contrive it there would be no fight at all.

He crawled on, with the man behind clutching at him, now and then, and the one in front sliding back on him, until his arms were wet to the elbows and his legs to the knees; but the top of the grade seemed strangely difficult to reach, and he could see nothing with the snow that blew over it in his eyes. Suddenly Larry rose up, there was a shout and a flounder, and, though he did not quite know how he got there, Breckenridge found himself standing close behind his comrade, and in the light of the lantern held up saw a man drop his hammer. There were other men close by, but they were apparently too astonished to think of flight.

"It's Larry!" somebody exclaimed.

"Stop where you are," said Grant sharply as one man made a move. "I don't want to shoot any of you, but I most certainly will if you make me. Are there any more of you?"

"No," said one of the men disgustedly.

Grant walked forward swinging his lantern until his eyes rested on one partly loosened rail. "And that is as far as you have got?" he said. "Take up your hammer and drive the wood key in. Get hold of their rifles, Charley. I guess they are under that coat."

There was an angry murmur, and a man started to speak; but Grant stopped him.

"Hammer the wedges in," he said. "It was pure foolishness made me come here to save you from the cavalry who had heard of what you meant to do, because we have no use for men of your kind in this country. You haven't even sense enough to keep your rifles handy, and there will be two or three less of you to worry decent folks if you keep us waiting."

A man took up the hammer, and then waited a moment, looking at those who stood about Larry. He could see the faces of one or two in the lantern light, and recognized that he need expect no support from them. The men were resolute Americans, who had no desire for anything approaching anarchy.

"We are with Larry, and don't feel like fooling. Hadn't you better start in?" one of them said.

The rail was promptly fastened, and Grant, after examining it, came back.

"Go on in front of us, and take your tools along! It will not be nice for the man who tries to get away," he said.

The prisoners plodded dejectedly up the track until they reached the calaboose, into which the others drove them. Then Grant and Breckenridge went back to the locomotive, and the former nodded to the engineer:

"Take us through to Boynton as fast as you can."

"That is a big load off your mind," Breckenridge said as the panting engine got under way.

But Grant, huddled in a corner, neither moved nor spoke until, half an hour later, they rolled into a little wooden town and the men in the calaboose got down. There was n.o.body about the depot to ask them any questions, and they crossed the track to the straggling street apparently on good terms with each other, though four of them knew that unpleasant results would follow any attempt at a dash for liberty. In answer to Grant's knock, a man let them into one of the stores.

"I guess we'll lock them in the back store until morning," he said, after a short conference apart with Grant. "A little cooling down is not going to do them much harm, and I don't think anyone could get out without an axe."

The building looked secure and, when food and hot coffee had been served them, Grant retired to rest. He slept soundly, and it was close on daylight when a pounding on the door awakened him.

"I guess you had better get up at once," their host called.

A few minutes later Grant and Breckenridge went downstairs with him, and the storekeeper, opening a door, lifted the lamp he held and pointed to an open window in the roof. A barrel, with a box or two laid upon it, stood suggestively beneath it.

Breckenridge glanced at Larry, and saw a curious little smile on his face.

"Yes," he said, "it's quite simple. Now, I never saw that window. Where would they be likely to head for?"

"Pacific Slope," said the storekeeper. "Wages are high just now, and they seemed quite afraid of you. The west-bound fast freight stopped here for water about two hours ago, and it was snowing that thick n.o.body would see them getting into a box car. They heave a few dry goods out here occasionally."

Breckenridge turned to Grant. "You seem relieved."

"Yes," said Grant, with a little shake of his shoulders. "If they have lit out of the country it will content me. I have had quite enough hard things to do lately."

A sudden thought struck Breckenridge. "You didn't mean--" he said with a shudder.

"I didn't mean to let them go, but I'm glad they've gone," Grant answered.

"We made a warning of one of the cattle-barons' men, and the man who takes the law into his own hands is doubly bound to do the square thing all round. If he does less, he is piling up a bigger reckoning than I would care to face."

XXV

CHEYNE RELIEVES HIS FEELINGS

A bl.u.s.tering wind moaned outside the lonely building, and the stove snapped and crackled as the chilly draughts swept into the hall at Cedar Range. Jackson Cheyne had arrived on horseback in the creeping dusk an hour or two earlier, after spending most of four nights and days in the slushy snow, and was now resting contentedly in a big hide chair. Indeed, notwithstanding the fact that Hetty sat close by, he was feeling pleasantly drowsy when she turned to him.

"You have only told us that you didn't find the train-wreckers, and you know we are just dying with curiosity," she said.

Cheyne looked up languidly, wondering whether the half-indifferent inquisitiveness was a.s.sumed, as he remembered the anxiety he had seen in Hetty's face when he first came in. Instead of answering directly, he glanced round the little group sitting about the stove--for Miss Schuyler, and Christopher Allonby and his cousin were there, as well as Hetty.

"One would scarcely fancy you were dying of anything," he said. "In fact, it would be difficult to imagine any of you looking better. I wonder if you know that with the way that the light falls that dusky panelling forms a most effective background, Miss Schuyler?"