The Night Operator Part 11

Sammy Durgan waited. The train came nearer and nearer--and then Sammy Durgan c.o.c.ked his head in a puzzled way and stared through the cut. He couldn't see anything, of course, for the curve, but from the sound she had stopped just beyond the cut.

"Now, what the devil is she stopping there for?" inquired Sammy Durgan of the universe in an injured tone.

He started along through the cut. And then Sammy Durgan stopped himself--as though he were rooted to the earth--and a sort of grayish white began to creep over his face. Came echoing through the cut a shout, a yell, another, a chorus of them--then a shot, another shot, a fusilade of them--and then a din mingling the oaths, the yells, and the shots into a hideous babel that rang terror in Sammy Durgan's ears.

Sammy Durgan promptly sidled in and hugged up against the rock wall that towered above him. Here he hesitated an instant, then he crept cautiously forward. Where he could not see, it was axiomatic that he could not be seen; and where he could not be seen, it was equally logical that he would be safe.

Sammy Durgan's face, quite white now, was puckered as it had never been puckered before, and his lips moved in a kind of twitching, jerky way as he crept along. Then suddenly, a voice, that seemed nearer than the others, but which from the acoustic properties of the cut he could not quite locate, bawled out fiercely over the confusion, prefaced with an oath:

"Get that express car door open, and be d.a.m.ned quick about it! Go on, shoot along the side of the train every time you see a head in a window!"

Sammy Durgan's mouth went dry, and his heart lost a beat, then went to pounding like a trip-hammer. Labatt and the Big Cloud _Daily Sentinel_ hadn't drawn any exaggerated picture. A hold-up--in broad daylight!

"Holy Mither!" whispered Sammy Durgan.

He crept farther forward, very cautiously--still farther--and then he lay full length, crouched against the rock wall at the end of the cut.

He could see now, and the red hair of Sammy Durgan kind of straggled down damp over his forehead, and his little black eyes lost their pupils.

It was a pa.s.senger train; one side of it quite hidden by the sharp curve of the track, the other side presented almost full on to Sammy Durgan's view--the whole length of it. And Sammy Durgan, gasping, stared. Not ten yards away from the mouth of the cut a huge pile of ties were laid across the rails, with the pilot of the stalled engine almost nosing them. Down the embankment, a very steep embankment where the Dam River swirled along, marched there evidently at the revolver's point, the engine crew stood with their hands up in the air--at the revolver's point with a masked man behind it. Along the length of the train, two or three more masked men were shooting past the windows in curt intimation to the pa.s.sengers that the safest thing they could do was to stay where they were; and farther down, by the rear coach, the conductor and two brakemen, like their mates of the engine crew, held their hands steadfastly above their heads as another bandit covered them with his weapon. And through the open door of the express car Sammy Durgan could see bobbing heads and straining backs, and the express company's safe being worked across the floor preparatory to heaving it out on the ground.

It takes long to tell it--Sammy Durgan got it all as a second flies.

And something, a bitter something, seemed to be gnawing at Sammy Durgan's vitals.

"Holy Mither!" he mumbled miserably. "'Tis an emergency, all right--but 'tis not the right kind of an emergency. What could any one man do against a lot of bloodthirsty, desperate devils like that, that'd sooner cut your throat than look at you!"

Sammy Durgan's hand inadvertently rubbed against his right-hand coat pocket--and his revolver. He drew it out mechanically, and it seemed to put new life into Sammy Durgan, for, as he stared again at the scene before him, Sammy Durgan quivered with a sudden, fierce elation.

"I was wrong," said Sammy Durgan grimly. "'Tis the right kind of an emergency, after all--and 'tis the man that uses his head and rises to one that counts. I'll show 'em, Maria, and Regan, and the rest of 'em!

Begorra, it can be done! 'Tis no one 'll notice me while I'm getting to the engine and climbing in on the other side, and, by glory, if I back her out quick enough them thieving h.e.l.lions in the express car can either jump for it or ride back to the arms of authority at the next station--but the safe 'll be there, and 'twill be Sammy Durgan that kept it there!"

But Sammy Durgan still lay on the ground and stared--while the safe was being pushed to the express car door, and one edge of it already protruded out from the car.

"Go on, Sammy Durgan!" urged Sammy Durgan anxiously to himself. "Don't you be skeered, Sammy, you got a revolver. 'Tis yourself, and not Maria, that'll do the locking of the doors hereafter, and 'tis Regan you can pa.s.s with fine contempt. Think of that, Sammy Durgan! And all for a bit of a run that'll not take the time of a batting of an eyelash, and with no one to notice you doing it. 'Tis a clever plan you've devised, Sammy Durgan--it is that. Go on, Sammy; go on!"

Sammy Durgan wriggled a little on the ground, c.o.c.ked his revolver--and wriggled a little more.

"I will!" said Sammy Durgan with a sudden pinnacling of determination--and he sprang to his feet.

Some loosened shale rattled down behind him. Sammy Durgan dashed through the mouth of the cut--and then for a moment all was a sort of chaos to Sammy Durgan. From the narrow edge of the embankment, just clear of the cut, a man stepped suddenly out. Sammy Durgan collided with him, his c.o.c.ked revolver went off, and, jerked from his grasp by the shock, sailed riverwards through the air, while, echoing its report from the express car door, a man screamed wildly and grabbed at a bullet-shattered wrist; and the man with whom Sammy Durgan had collided, having but precarious footing at best, reeled back from the impact, smashed into another man behind him, and with a crash both rolled down the almost perpendicular embankment. Followed a splash and a spout of water as they struck the river--and from every side a tornado of yells and curses.

"'Tis my finish!" moaned Sammy Durgan--but his feet were flying.

"I--I've done it now! If I ran back up the cut they'd chase me and finish me--'tis my finish, anyway, but the engine 'll be the only chance I got."

Sammy Durgan streaked across the track, hurdled, tumbled, fell, and sprawled over the pile of ties, recovered himself, regained his feet, and made a frantic spring through the gangway and into the cab.

With a sweep Sammy Durgan shot the reversing lever over into the back notch, and with a single yank he wrenched the throttle wide. There was nothing of the craftsman in engine-handling about Sammy Durgan at that instant--only hurry. The engine, from a pa.s.sive, indolent and inanimate thing, seemed to rise straight up in the air like an aroused and infuriated beast that had been stung. With one mad plunge it backed crashing into the buffer plates of the express car behind it, backed again, and once again, and the tinkle of breaking gla.s.s sort of ricochetted along the train as one car after another added its quota of shattered window panes, while the drivers, slipping on the rails, roared around like gigantic and insensate pinwheels.

Sammy Durgan s.n.a.t.c.hed at the cab frame for support--and then with a yell he s.n.a.t.c.hed at a shovel. A masked face showed in the gangway.

Sammy Durgan brought the flat of the shovel down on the top of the man's head.

The gangway was clear again. There was life for it yet! The train was backing quickly now under the urgent, prodding bucks of the engine.

Sammy Durgan mopped at his face, his eyes warily on the gangways.

Another man made a running jump for it--again Sammy Durgan's shovel swung--and again the gangway was clear.

Shovel poised, lurching with the lurch of the cab, red hair flaming, half terrified and half defiant, eyes shooting first to one gangway and then the other, Sammy Durgan held the cab. A minute pa.s.sed with no renewal of attack. Sammy Durgan stole a quick glance over his shoulder through the cab gla.s.s up the track--and, with a triumphant shout, he flung the shovel clanging to the iron floor-plates, and, leaning far out of the gangway, shook his fist. Strewn out along the right of way masked men yelled and shouted and cursed, but Sammy Durgan was beyond their reach--and so was the express company's safe.

"Yah!" screamed Sammy Durgan, wildly derisive and also belligerent in the knowledge of his own safety. "Yah! Yah! Yah! 'Twas me, ye b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.lions, that turned the trick on ye! 'Twas me, Sammy Durgan, and I'll have you know it! 'Twas----"

Sammy Durgan turned, as the express car opened, and Macy, the conductor, hatless and wild-eyed, appeared on the platform.

"'S'all right, Macy!" Sammy Durgan screeched rea.s.suringly. "'S'all right--it's me, Sammy Durgan."

Macy jumped from the platform to the tender, jumped over the water tank, and came down into the cab with an avalanche of coal. His mouth was twitching and jerking, but for a moment he could not speak--and then the words came like an explosion, and he shook his fist under Sammy Durgan's nose.

"You--you d.a.m.ned fathead!" he roared. "What in the double-blanked, blankety-blanked son of blazes are you doing!"

"Fathead, yourself!" retorted Sammy Durgan promptly--and there was spice in the way Sammy Durgan said it. "I'm doing what you hadn't the nerve or the head to do, Macy--unless mabbe you're in the gang yourself! I'm saving that safe back there in the express car, that's what I'm doing."

"Saving nothing!" bellowed Macy crazily, as he slammed the throttle shut. "There! Look there!" He reached for Sammy Durgan's head, and with both hands twisted it around, and fairly flattened Sammy Durgan's nose against the cab gla.s.s.

"What--what is it?" faltered Sammy Durgan, a little less a.s.sertively.

Macy was excitable. He danced upon the cab floor as though it were a hornets' nest.

"What is it!" he echoed in a scream. "What is it! It's moving pictures, you tangle-brained, rusty-headed idiot! That's what it is!"

A sort of dull gray film seemed to spread itself over Sammy Durgan's face. Sammy Durgan stared through the cab gla.s.s. The track ahead was just disappearing from view as the engine backed around a curve, but what Sammy Durgan saw was enough--two dripping figures were salvaging a wrecked and bedragged photographic outfit on the river bank, close to the entrance of the cut where he had been in collision with them; an excited group of train bandits, without any masks now, were gesticulating around the marooned engineer and fireman; and in the middle distance, squatting on a rail, a man, coatless, his shirt sleeve rolled up, was making horrible grimaces as a companion bandaged his wrist.

Macy's laugh rang hollow--it wasn't exactly a laugh.

"I don't know how much it costs," stuttered the conductor demoniacally, "but there's about four million dollars' worth of film they're fishing out of the river there, and they paid a thousand dollars for the train and thirty-five minutes between stations to clear Number Forty, and there's about eight thousand car windows gone, and one vestibule and two platforms in splinters, and a man shot through the wrist, and if that crowd up there ever get their hands on you they'll----"

"I think," said Sammy Durgan hurriedly, "that I'll get off."

He edged back to the gangway and peered out. The friendly bend of the road hid the "outlaws." The train was almost at a standstill--and Sammy Durgan jumped. Not on the river side--on the other side. Sammy Durgan's destination was somewhere deep in the wooded growth that clothed the towering mountain before him.

There is an official record for cross-country mileage registered in the name of some one whose name is not Sammy Durgan--but it is not accurate. Sammy Durgan holds it. And it was far up on the mountain side that he finally crossed the tape and collapsed, breathless and gasping, on a tree stump. He sat there for quite a while, jabbing at his streaming face with the sleeve of his jumper; and there was trouble in Sammy Durgan's eyes, and plaint in his voice when at last he spoke.

"Twenty-five dollars reward," said Sammy Durgan wistfully. "And 'twas as good as in my pocket, and now 'tis gone. 'Tis hard luck, cruel hard luck. It is that!"

Sammy Durgan's eyes roved around the woods about him and grew thoughtful.

"I was minded at the time," said Sammy Durgan, "that 'twas not the right kind of an emergency, and when he hears of it Regan will be displeased. And now what'll I do? 'Twill do no good to return to the section shanty, for they'll be telegraphing Donovan to fire Sammy Durgan. That's me--fire Sammy Durgan. 'Tis trouble dogs me and cruel hard luck--and all I'm asking for is a steady job and a chance."

Sammy Durgan relapsed into mournful silence and contemplation for a spell--and then his face began to clear. Sammy Durgan's optimism was like the bobbing cork.

"'Tis another streak of cruel hard luck, of bitter, cruel hard luck I've had this day, but am I down and out for the likes of that?"

inquired Sammy Durgan defiantly of himself.