A NIGHT’S WORK ON THE ALKALI PLAINS
I hurried Miss Cullen into the car,
and, after bolting the rear door, took down my Winchester
from its rack.
“I’m going forward,”
I told her, “and will tell my darkies to bolt
the front door: so you’ll be as safe in
here as in Chicago.”
In another minute I was on my front
platform. Dropping down between the two cars,
I crept along beside indeed, half under Mr.
Cullen’s special. After my previous conclusion,
my surprise can be judged when at the farther end
I found the two Britishers and Albert Cullen, standing
there in the most exposed position possible.
I joined them, muttering to myself something about
Providence and fools.
“Aw,” drawled Cullen,
“here’s Mr. Gordon, just too late for the
sport, by Jove.”
“Well,” bragged Lord Ralles,
“we’ve had a hand in this deal, Mr. Superintendent,
and haven’t been potted. The scoundrels
broke for cover the moment we opened fire.”
By this time there were twenty passengers
about our group, all of them asking questions at once,
making it difficult to learn just what had happened;
but, so far as I could piece the answers together,
the poker-players’ curiosity had been aroused
by the long stop, and, looking out, they had seen
a single man with a rifle, standing by the engine.
Instantly arming themselves, Lord Ralles let fly both
barrels at him, and in turn was the target for the
first four shots I had heard. The shooting had
brought the rest of the robbers tumbling off the cars,
and the captain and Cullen had fired the rest of the
shots at them as they scattered. I didn’t
stop to hear more, but went forward to see what the
road agents had got away with.
I found the express agent tied hand
and foot in the corner of his car, and, telling a
brakeman who had followed me to set him at liberty,
I turned my attention to the safe. That the diversion
had not come a moment too soon was shown by the dynamite
cartridge already in place, and by the fuse that lay
on the floor, as if dropped suddenly. But the
safe was intact.
Passing into the mail-car, I found
the clerk tied to a post, with a mail-sack pulled
over his head, and the utmost confusion among the
pouches and sorting-compartments, while scattered over
the floor were a great many letters. Setting
him at liberty, I asked him if he could tell whether
mail had been taken, and, after a glance at the confusion,
he said he could not know till he had examined.
Having taken stock of the harm done,
I began asking questions. Just after we had left
Sanders, two masked men had entered the mail-car,
and while one covered the clerk with a revolver the
other had tied and “sacked” him. Two
more had gone forward and done the same to the express
agent. Another had climbed over the tender and
ordered the runner to hold up. All this was regular
programme, as I had explained to Miss Cullen, but here
had been a variation which I had never heard of being
done, and of which I couldn’t fathom the object.
When the train had been stopped, the man on the tender
had ordered the fireman to dump his fire, and now
it was lying in the road-bed and threatening to burn
through the ties; so my first order was to extinguish
it, and my second was to start a new fire and get
up steam as quickly as possible. From all I could
learn, there were eight men concerned in the attempt;
and I confess I shook my head in puzzlement why that
number should have allowed themselves to be scared
off so easily.
My wonderment grew when I called on
the conductor for his tickets. These showed nothing
but two from Albuquerque, one from Laguna, and four
from Coolidge. This latter would have looked
hopeful but for the fact that it was a party of three
women and a man. Going back beyond Lamy didn’t
give anything, for the conductor was able to account
for every fare as either still in the train or as
having got off at some point. My only conclusion
was that the robbers had sneaked onto the platforms
at Sanders; and I gave the crew a good dressing down
for their carelessness. Of course they insisted
it was impossible; but they were bound to do that.
Going back to 97, I got my telegraph
instrument, though I thought it a waste of time, the
road agents being always careful to break the lines.
I told a brakeman to climb the pole and cut a wire.
While he was struggling up, Miss Cullen joined me.
“Do you really expect to catch them?”
she asked.
“I shouldn’t like to be one of them,”
I replied.
“But how can you do it?”
“You could understand better,
Miss Cullen, if you knew this country. You see
every bit of water is in use by ranches, and those
fellows can’t go more than fifty miles without
watering. So we shall have word of them, wherever
they go.”
“Line cut, Mr. Gordon,”
came from overhead at this point, making Miss Cullen
jump with surprise.
“What was that?” she asked.
I explained to her, and, after making
connections, I called Sanders. Much to my surprise,
the agent responded. I was so astonished that
for a moment I could not believe the fact.
“This is the queerest hold-up
of which I ever heard,” I remarked to Miss Cullen.
“Aw, in what respect?”
asked Albert Cullen’s voice, and, looking up,
I found that he and quite a number of the passengers
had joined us.
“The road agents make us dump
our fire,” I said, “and yet they haven’t
cut the wires in either direction. I can’t
see how they can escape us.”
“What fun!” cried Miss Cullen.
“I don’t see what difference
either makes in their chance of escaping,” said
Lord Ralles.
While he was speaking, I ticked off
the news of our being held up, and asked the agent
if there had been any men about Sanders, or if he
had seen any one board the train there. His answer
was positive that no one could have done so, and that
settled it as to Sanders. I asked the same questions
of Allantown and Wingate, which were the only places
we had stopped at after leaving Coolidge, getting
the same answers. That eight men could have remained
concealed on any of the platforms from that point was
impossible, and I began to suspect magic. Then
I called Coolidge, and told of the holding up, after
which I telegraphed the agent at Navajo Springs to
notify the commander at Fort Defiance, for I suspected
the road agents would make for the Navajo reservation.
Finally I called Flagstaff as I had Coolidge, directed
that the authorities be notified of the facts, and
ordered an extra to bring out the sheriff and posse.
“I don’t think,”
said Miss Cullen, “that I am a bit more curious
than most people, but it has nearly made me frantic
to have you tick away on that little machine and hear
it tick back, and not understand a word.”
After that I had to tell her what
I had said and learned.
“How clever of you to think
of counting the tickets and finding out where people
got on and off! I never should have thought of
either,” she said.
“It hasn’t helped me much,”
I laughed, rather grimly, “except to eliminate
every possible clue.”
“They probably did steal on
at one of the stops,” suggested a passenger.
I shook my head. “There
isn’t a stick of timber nor a place of concealment
on these alkali plains,” I replied, “and
it was bright moonlight till an hour ago. It
would be hard enough for one man to get within a mile
of the station without being seen, and it would be
impossible for seven or eight.”
“How do you know the number?” asked a
passenger.
“I don’t,” I said.
“That’s the number the crew think there
were; but I myself don’t believe it.”
“Why don’t you believe the men?”
asked Miss Cullen.
“First, because there is always
a tendency to magnify, and next, because the road
agents ran away so quickly.”
“I counted at least seven,” asserted Lord
Ralles.
“Well, Lord Ralles,” I
said, “I don’t want to dispute your eyesight,
but if they had been that strong they would never have
bolted, and if you want to lay a bottle of wine, I’ll
wager that when I catch those chaps we’ll find
there weren’t more than three or four of them.”
“Done!” he snapped.
Leaving the group, I went forward
to get the report of the mail agent. He had put
things to rights, and told me that, though the mail
had been pretty badly mixed up, only one pouch at worst
had been rifled. This the one for
registered mail had been cut open, but,
as if to increase the mystery, the letters had been
scattered, unopened, about the car, only three out
of the whole being missing, and those very probably
had fallen into the pigeon-holes and would be found
on a more careful search.
I confess I breathed easier to think
that the road agents had got away with nothing, and
was so pleased that I went back to the wire to send
the news of it, that the fact might be included in
the press despatches. The moon had set, and it
was so dark that I had some difficulty in finding
the pole. When I found it, Miss Cullen was still
standing there. What was more, a man was close
beside her, and as I came up I heard her say, indignantly,
“I will not allow it. It
is unfair to take such advantage of me. Take
your arm away, or I shall call for help!”
That was enough for me. One step
carried my hundred and sixty pounds over the intervening
ground, and, using the momentum of the stride to help,
I put the flat of my hand against the shoulder of
the man and gave him a shove. There are three
or four Harvard men who can tell what that means,
and they were braced for it, which this fellow wasn’t.
He went staggering back as if struck by a cow-catcher,
and lay down on the ground a good fifteen feet away.
His having his arm around Miss Cullen’s waist
unsteadied her so that she would have fallen too if
I hadn’t put my hand against her shoulder.
I longed to put it about her, but by this time I didn’t
want to please myself, but to do only what I thought
she would wish, and so restrained myself.
Before I had time to finish an apology
to Miss Cullen, the fellow was up on his feet, and
came at me with an exclamation of anger. In my
surprise at recognizing the voice as that of Lord Ralles,
I almost neglected to take care of myself; but, though
he was quick with his fists, I caught him by the wrists
as he closed, and he had no chance after that against
a fellow of my weight.
“Oh, don’t quarrel!” cried Miss
Cullen.
Holding him, I said, “Lord Ralles,
I overheard what Miss Cullen was saying, and, supposing
some man was insulting her, I acted as I did.”
Then I let go of him, and, turning, I continued, “I
am very sorry, Miss Cullen, if I did anything the
circumstances did not warrant,” while cursing
myself for my precipitancy and for not thinking that
Miss Cullen would never have been caught in such a
plight with a man unless she had been half willing;
for a girl does not merely threaten to call for help
if she really wants aid.
Lord Ralles wasn’t much mollified
by my explanation. “You’re too much
in a hurry, my man,” he growled, speaking to
me as if I were a servant. “Be a bit more
careful in the future.”
I think I should have retorted for
his manner was enough to make a saint mad if
Miss Cullen hadn’t spoken.
“You tried to help me, Mr. Gordon,
and I am deeply grateful for that,” she said.
The words look simple enough set down here. But
the tone in which she said them, and the extended hand
and the grateful little squeeze she gave my fingers,
all seemed to express so much that I was more puzzled
over them than I was over the robbery.