The Last Spike Part 11

When the sheriff, glancing back, saw that the coach had been cut off, he swung himself down.

"They've gi'n it up," said the deputy.

"I reckon--what's that?" said the sheriff. It was the wild, long whistle of the lone black engine just leaving the yards. The two officers faced each other and stood listening to the flutter of the straight stack of the black racer as she responded to the touch of the erstwhile drowsy driver, who was at that moment laughing at the high sheriff, and who would return to tell of it, and gloat in the streets of Spokane.

The sheriff knew that three of the men for whom he held warrants were at Hillier, seven miles on the way to Canada. This engine, then, had been sent to pick them up and bear them away over the border. An electric line paralleled the steam way to Hillier, and now the sheriff boarded a trolley and set sail to capture the engine, leaving one deputy to guard the special car.

By the time the engineer got the water worked out of his cylinders, the trolley was creeping up beside his tank. He saw the flash from the wire above as the car, nodding and dipping like a light boat in the wake of a ferry, shot beneath the cross-wires, and knew instantly that she was after him.

An electric car would not be ploughing through the gloom at that rate, without a ray of light, merely for the fun of the thing. A smile of contempt curled the lip of the driver as he cut the reverse-lever back to the first notch, put on the injector, and opened the throttle yet a little wider.

The two machines were running almost neck and neck now. The trolley cried, hissed, and spat fire in her mad effort to pa.s.s the locomotive. A few stray sparks went out of the engine-stack, and fell upon the roof of the racing car. At intervals of half a minute the fireman opened the furnace door; and by the flare of light from the white-hot fire-box the engine-driver could see the men on the teetering trolley,--the motor-man, the conductor, the sheriff, and his deputy.

Slowly now the black flier began to slip away from the electric machine.

The driver, smiling across the glare of the furnace door at his silent, sooty companion, touched the throttle again; and the great engine drew away from the trolley, as a jack-rabbit who has been fooling with a yellow dog pa.s.ses swiftly out of reach of his silly yelp.

Now the men on the trolley heard the wild, triumphant scream of the iron horse whistling for Hillier. The three directors of Le Roi had been warned by wire, and were waiting, ready to board the engine.

The big wheels had scarcely stopped revolving when the men began to get on. They had barely begun to turn again when the trolley dashed into Hillier. The sheriff leaped to the ground and came running for the engine. The wheels slipped; and each pa.s.sing second brought the mighty hand of the law, now outstretched, still nearer to the tail of the tank.

She was moving now, but the sheriff was doing better. Ten feet separated the pursued and the pursuer. She slipped again, and the sheriff caught the corner of the engine-tank. By this time the driver had got the sand running; and now, as the wheels held the rail, the big engine bounded forward, almost shaking the sheriff loose. With each turn of the wheels the speed was increasing. The sheriff held on; and in three or four seconds he was taking only about two steps between telegraph poles, and then--he let go.

III

While the locomotive and the trolley were racing across the country the Governor, who was engineering it all, invested another thousand. He ordered another engine, and when she backed onto the coach the deputy sheriff told the driver that he must not leave the station. The engineer held his torch high above his head, looked the deputy over, and then went on oiling his engine. In the meantime the Governor had stored his friends away in the dark coach, including the secretary with the company's great seal. Now the deputy became uneasy.

He dared not leave the train to send a wire to his chief at Hillier, for the sheriff had said, "Keep your eye on the car."

The despatcher, whose only interest in the matter was to run the trains and earn money for his employer, having given written and verbal orders to the engineer, watched his chance and, when the sheriff was pounding on the rear door, dodged in at the front, signalling with the bell-rope to the driver to go. Frantically now the deputy beat upon the rear door of the car, but the men within only laughed as the wheels rattled over the last switch and left the lights of Spokane far behind.

Away they went over a new and crooked track, the sand and cinders sucking in round the tail of the train to torment the luckless deputy.

Away over hills and rills, past Hillier, where the sheriff still stood staring down the darkness after the vanishing engine; over switches and through the Seven Devils, while the unhappy deputy hung to the rear railing with one hand and crossed himself.

Each pa.s.sing moment brought the racing train still nearer the border,--to that invisible line that marks the end of Yankeeland and the beginning of the British possessions. The sheriff knew this and beat loudly upon the car door with an iron gun. The Governor let the sash fall at the top of the door and spoke, or rather yelled, to the deputy.

To the Governor's amazement, the sheriff pushed the bottle aside. Dry and dusty as he was, he would not drink. He was too mad to swallow. He poked his head into the dark coach and ordered the whole party to surrender.

"Just say what you want," said a voice in the gloom, "and we'll pa.s.s it out to you."

The sheriff became busy with some curves and reverse curves now, and made no reply.

Presently the Governor came to the window in the rear door again and called up the sheriff.

"We are now nearing the border," he said to the man on the platform.

"They won't know you over there. Here you stand for law and order, and I respect you, though I don't care to meet you personally; but over the border you'll only stand for your sentence,--two years for carrying a cannon on your hip,--and then they'll take you away to prison."

The sheriff made no answer.

"Now we're going to slow down at the line to about twenty miles an hour, more or less; and if you'll take a little friendly advice, you'll fall off."

The train was still running at a furious pace. The whistle sounded,--one long, wild scream,--and the speed of the train slackened.

"Here you are," the Governor called, and the sheriff stood on the lower step.

The door opened and the Governor stepped out on the platform, followed by his companions.

"I arrest you," the sheriff shouted, "all of you."

"But you can't,--you're in British Columbia," the men laughed.

"Let go, now," said the Governor, and a moment later the deputy picked himself up and limped back over the border.

IN THE BLACK CAnON

One Christmas, at least, will live long in the memory of the men and women who hung up their stockings at La Veta Hotel in Gunnison in 18--.

Ah, those were the best days of Colorado. Then folks were brave and true to the traditions of Red Hoss Mountain, when "money flowed like liquor,"

and coal strikes didn't matter, for the people all had something to burn.

The Yankee proprietor of the dining-stations on this mountain line had made them as famous almost as the Harvey houses on the Santa Fe were; which praise is pardonable, since the Limited train with its cafe car has closed them all.

But the best of the bunch was La Veta, and the presiding genius was Nora O'Neal, the lady manager. Many an R. & W. excursionist reading this story will recall her smile, her great gray eyes, her heaps of dark brown hair, and the mountain trout that her tables held.

It will be remembered that at that time the main lines of the Rio Grande lay by the banks of the Gunnison, through the Black Canon, over Cerro Summit, and down the Uncompaghre and the Grande to Grand Junction, the gate of the Utah Desert.

John Ca.s.sidy was an express messenger whose run was over this route and whose heart and its secret were in the keeping of Nora O'Neal.

From day to day, from week to week, he had waited her answer, which was to come to him "by Christmas."

And now, as only two days remained, he dreaded it, as he had hoped and prayed for it since the aspen leaves began to gather their gold. He knew by the troubled look she wore when off her guard that Nora was thinking.

Most of the men who were gunning in Gunnison in the early 80's were fearless men, who, when a difference of opinion arose, faced each other and fought it out; but there had come to live at La Veta a thin, quiet, handsome fellow, who moved mysteriously in and out of the camp, slept a lot by day, and showed a fondness for faro by night. When a name was needed he signed "Buckingham." His icy hand was soft and white, and his clothes fitted him faultlessly. He was handsome, and when he paid his bill at the end of the fourth week he proposed to Nora O'Neal. He was so fairer, physically, than Ca.s.sidy and so darker, morally, that Nora could not make up her mind at all, at all.

In the shadow time, between sunset and gas-light, on the afternoon of the last day but one before Christmas, Buck, as he came to be called, leaned over the office counter and put a folded bit of white paper in Nora's hand, saying, as he closed her fingers over it: "Put this powder in Ca.s.sidy's cup." He knew Ca.s.sidy merely as the messenger whose freight he coveted, and not as a contestant for Nora's heart and hand,--a hand he prized, however, as he would a bob-tailed flush, but no more.

As for Ca.s.sidy, he would be glad, waking, to find himself alive; and if this plan miscarried, Buck should be able to side-step the gallows.

Anyway, dope was preferable to death.

Nora opened her hand, and in utter amazement looked at the paper. Some one interrupted them. Buck turned away, and Nora shoved the powder down deep into her jacket pocket, feeling vaguely guilty.

No. 7, the Salt Lake Limited, was an hour late that night. The regular dinner (we called it supper then) was over when Shanley whistled in.