The Taming of Red Butte Western

by Francis Lynde

  XXII

  THE TERROR

  Engineer John Judson, disappearing at the moment when the superintendenthad sent him back to bully Schleisinger into appointing him constable,from the ken of those who were most anxious to hear from him, was latein reporting. But when he finally climbed the stair of the Crow's Nestto tap at Lidgerwood's door, he brought the first authentic news fromthe camp of the enemy.

  When McCloskey had come at a push of the call-button, Lidgerwood snappedthe night-latch on the corridor door.

  "Let us have it, Judson," he said, when the trainmaster had dragged hischair into the circle of light described by the green cone shade of thedesk lamp. "We have been wondering what had become of you."

  Summarized, Judson's story was the report of an intelligent scout. Sincehe was classed with the discharged men, he had been able to find outsome of the enemy's moves in the game of coercion. The strikers hadtransferred their head-quarters from the Celestial to Cat Biggs's place,where the committees, jealously safeguarded, were now sitting "inpermanence" in the back room. Judson had not been admitted to thecommittee-room; but the thronged bar-room was public, and the liquorwhich was flowing freely had loosened many tongues.

  From the bar-room talk Judson had gathered that the strikers knewnothing as yet of McCloskey's plan to keep the trains moving and thewires alive. Hence--unless the free-flowing whiskey should precipitatematters--there would probably be no open outbreak before midnight. As anoffset to this, however, the engineer had overheard enough to convincehim that the Copah wire had been tapped; that Dix, the day operator, hadbeen either bribed or intimidated, and was now under guard at thestrikers' head-quarters, and that some important message had beenintercepted which was, in Judson's phrase, "raising sand" in the camp ofthe disaffected. This recurrence of the mysterious message, of which notrace could be found in the head-quarters record, opened a fresh fieldof discussion, and it was McCloskey who put his finger upon the onlyplausible conclusion.

  "It is Hallock again," he rasped. "He is the only man who could haveused the private code. Dix probably picked out the cipher; he's got aweakness for such things. Hallock's carrying double. He has fixed upsome trouble-making message, or faked one, and signed your name to it,and then schemed to let it leak out through Dix."

  "It's making the trouble, all right," was Judson's comment. "When I leftBiggs's a few minutes ago, Tryon was calling for volunteers to come downhere and steal an engine. From what he said, I took it they were aimin'to go over into the desert to tear up the track and stop somebody orsomething coming this way from Copah--all on account of thatmake-believe message that you didn't send."

  Thus far Judson's report had dealt with facts. But there were otherthings deducible. He insisted that the strength of the insurrection didnot lie in the dissatisfied employees of the Red Butte Western, or evenin the ex-employees; it was rather in the lawless element of the townwhich lived and fattened upon the earnings of the railroad men--thesaloon-keepers, the gamblers, the "tin-horns" of every stripe. Moreover,it was certain that some one high in authority in the railroad servicewas furnishing the brains. There was a chief to whom all the malcontentsdeferred, and who figured in the bar-room talk as the "boss," or "thebig boss."

  "And that same 'big boss' is sitting up yonder in Cat Biggs's back room,right now, givin' his orders and tellin' 'em what to do," was Judson'scrowning guess, and since Hallock had not been visible since the earlyafternoon, for the three men sitting under the superintendent's desklamp, Judson's inference stood as a fact assured. It was Hallock who hadfomented the trouble; it was Hallock who was now directing it.

  "I suppose you didn't see anything of Grady, my stenographer?" inquiredLidgerwood, when Judson had made an end.

  The engineer shook his head. "Reckon they've got him cooped up alongwith Dix?"

  "I hope not. But he has disappeared. I sent him up to Mrs. Dawson's witha message late this afternoon, and he hasn't shown up since."

  "Of course, they've got him," said McCloskey, sourly. "Does he knowanything that he can tell?"

  "Nothing that can make any difference now. They are probably holding himto hamper me. The boy's loyal."

  "Yes," growled McCloskey, "and he's Irish."

  "Well, my old mother is Irish, too, for the matter of that," snappedJudson. "If you don't like the Irish, you'll be finding a chip on myshoulder any day in the week, except to-day, Jim McCloskey!"

  Lidgerwood smiled. It brought a small relaxing of strains to hear thesetwo resurrecting the ancient race feud in the midst of the troublestorm. And when the trainmaster returned to his post in the wire office,and Judson had been sent back to Biggs's to renew his search for thehidden ring-leader, it was the memory of the little race tiff thatcleared the superintendent's brain for the grapple with the newlydefined situation.

  Judson's report was grave enough, but it brought a good hope that thecrucial moment might be postponed until many of the men would be too fargone in liquor to take any active part. Lidgerwood took the precautionsmade advisable by Tryon's threat to steal an engine, sending word toBenson to double his guards on the locomotives in the yard, and toDawson to block the turn-table so that none might be taken from theroundhouse.

  Afterward he went out to look over the field in person. Everything wasquiet; almost suspiciously so. Gridley was found alone in his office atthe shops, smoking a cigar, with his chair tilted to a comfortableangle and his feet on the desk. His guards, he said, were posted in andaround the shops, and he hoped they were not asleep. Thus far, there hadbeen little enough to keep them awake.

  Lidgerwood, passing out through the door opening upon theelectric-lighted yard, surprised a man in the act of turning the knob toenter. It was the merest incident, and he would not have remarked it ifthe door, closing behind Gridley's visitor, had not bisected a violentoutburst of profanity, vocalizing itself in the harsh tones of themaster-mechanic, as thus: "You ---- ---- chuckle-headed fool! Haven'tyou any better sense than to come--" At this point the closing door cutthe sentence of objurgation, and Lidgerwood continued his round ofinspection, trying vainly to recall the identity of the chance-met manwhose face, half hidden under the drooping brim of a worn campaign-hat,was vaguely familiar. The recollection came at length, with the impactof a blow. The "chuckle-headed fool" of Gridley's malediction wasRichard Rufford, the "Killer's" younger brother.

  Lidgerwood said nothing of this incident to Dawson, whom he foundpatrolling the roundhouse. Here, as at the shops and in the yard,everything was quiet and orderly. The crews for the three sections ofthe midnight freight were all out, guarding their trains and engines,and Dawson had only Bradford and the roundhouse night-men for company.

  "Nothing stirring, Fred?" inquired the superintendent.

  "Less than nothing; it's almost too quiet," was the sober reply. Andthen: "I see you haven't sent the _Nadia_ out; wouldn't it be a goodscheme to get a couple of buckboards and have the women and JudgeHolcombe driven up to our place on the mesa? The trouble, when it comes,will come this way."

  Lidgerwood shook his head.

  "My stake in the _Nadia_ is precisely the same size as yours, Fred, andI don't want to risk the buckboard business. We'll do a better thingthan that, if we have to let the president's party make a run for it.Get your smartest passenger flyer out on the table, head it east, andwhen I send for it, rush it over to couple on to the _Nadia_--withWilliams for engineer. Has Benson had any trouble in the yard?"

  "There has been nobody to make any. Tryon came down a few minutes ago,considerably more than half-seas over, and said he was ready to takehis engine and the first section of the east-bound midnight--which wouldhave been his regular run. But he went back uptown peaceably when Bensontold him he was down and out."

  Lidgerwood did not extend his round to include Benson's post at the yardoffice, which was below the coal chutes. Instead, he went over to theNadia, thinking pointedly of the two added mysteries: the fact thatGridley had told a deliberate lie to account for his appearance inAngels, and the oth
er and more recent fact that the master-mechanic wasconferring, even in terms of profanity, with Rufford's brother, who wasnot, and never had been, in his department.

  Under the "umbrella roof" of the _Nadia's_ rear platform the youngpeople of the party were sitting out the early half of the perfectsummer night, the card-tables having been abandoned when Benson hadbrought word of the tacit armistice. There was an unoccupied camp-chair,and Miss Brewster pointed it out to the superintendent.

  "Climb over and sit with us, Howard," she said, hospitably. "You knowyou haven't a thing in the world to do."

  Lidgerwood swung himself over the railing, and took the proffered chair.

  "You are right; I haven't very much to do just now," he admitted.

  "Has your strike materialized yet?" she asked.

  "No; it isn't due until midnight."

  "I don't believe there is going to be any."

  "Don't you? I wish I might share your incredulity--with reason."

  Miss Doty and the others were talking about the curious blending of themoonlight with the masthead electrics, and the two in the shadowedcorner of the deep platform were temporarily ignored. Miss Brewster tookadvantage of the momentary isolation to say, "Confess that you were alittle bit over-wrought this afternoon when you wanted to send us away:weren't you?"

  "I only hope that the outcome will prove that I was," he rejoinedpatiently.

  "You still believe there will be trouble?"

  "Yes."

  "Then I'm afraid you are still overwrought," she countered lightly."Why, the very atmosphere of this beautiful night breathes peace."

  Before he could reply, a man came up to the platform railing, touchedhis cap, and said, "Is Mr. Lidgerwood here?"

  Lidgerwood answered in person, crossing to the railing to hear Judson'slatest report, which was given in hoarse whispers. Miss Brewster coulddistinguish no word of it, but she heard Lidgerwood's reply. "TellBenson and Dawson, and say that the engine I ordered had better be sentup at once."

  When Lidgerwood had resumed his chair he was promptly put upon thequestion rack of Miss Eleanor's curiosity.

  "Was that one of your scouts?" she asked.

  "Yes."

  "Did he come to tell you that there wasn't going to be any strike?"

  "No."

  "How lucidly communicative you are! Can't you see that I am fairlystifling with curiosity?"

  "I'm sorry, but you shall not have the chance to say that I wasoverwrought twice in the same half-day."

  "Howard! Don't be little and spiteful. I'll eat humble pie and callmyself hard names, if you insist; only--gracious goodness! is thatengine going to smash into our car?"

  The anxious query hinged itself upon the approach of a big,eight-wheeled passenger flyer which was thundering down the yard on thetrack occupied by the _Nadia_. Within half a car-length of collision,the air-brake hissed, the siderods clanked and chattered, and theshuddering monster rolled gently backward to a touch coupling with thepresident's car.

  Eleanor's hand was on her cousin's arm. "Howard, what does this mean?"she demanded.

  "Nothing, just at present; it is merely a precaution."

  "You are not going to take us away from Angels?"

  "Not now; not at all, unless your safety demands it." Then he rose andspoke to the others. "I'm sorry to have to shut off your moon-vista withthat noisy beast, but it may be necessary to move the car, later on.Don't get out of touch with the _Nadia_, any of you, please."

  He had vaulted the hand-rail and was saying good-night, when Eleanorleft her chair and entered the car. He was not greatly surprised to findher waiting for him at the steps of the forward vestibule when he hadgone so far on his way to his office.

  "One moment," she pleaded. "I'll be good, Howard; and I know that there_is_ danger. Be very careful of yourself, won't you, for my sake."

  He stopped short, and his arms went out to her. Then his self-controlreturned and his rejoinder was almost bitter.

  "Eleanor, you must not! you tempt me past endurance! Go back to Van--tothe others, and, whatever happens, don't let any one leave the car."

  "I'll do anything you say, only you _must_ tell me where you are going,"she insisted.

  "Certainly; I am going up to my office--where you found me thisafternoon. I shall be there from this on, if you wish to send any word.I'll see that you have a messenger. Good-by."

  He left her before her sympathetic mood should unman him, his soulcrying out at the kindness which cut so much more deeply than hermockery. At the top of the corridor stair McCloskey was waiting for him.

  "Judson has told you what's due to happen?" queried the trainmaster.

  "He told me to look for swift trouble; that somebody had betrayed yourstrike-breaking scheme."

  "He says they'll try to keep the east-bound freights from going out."

  "That would be a small matter. But we mustn't lose the moral effect oftaking the first trick in the game. Are the sections all in line on thelong siding?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. We'll start them a little ahead of time; and let them kill backto schedule after they get out on the road. Send Bogard down with theirclearance orders, and 'phone Benson at the yard office to couple them upinto one train, engine to the caboose in front, and send them out solid.When they have cleared the danger limit, they can split up and take theproper time intervals--ten minutes apart."

  "Call it done," said the trainmaster, and he went to carry out theorder. Two minutes later Bogard, the night-relief operator off duty,darted out of the despatcher's room with the clearance-cards for thethree sections. Lidgerwood stopped him in mid-flight.

  "One second, Robert: when you have done your errand, come back to thepresident's car, ask for Miss Brewster, and say that I sent you. Thenstay within call and be ready to do whatever she wants you to do."

  Bogard did the first part of his errand swiftly, and he was taking theduplicate signatures of the engineer and conductor of the third and lastsection when Benson came up to put the solid-train order into effect.The couplings were made deftly and without unnecessary stir. Then Bensonstepped back and gave the starting signal, twirling his lantern in rapidcircles. Synchronized as perfectly as if a single throttle-levercontrolled them all, the three heavy freight-pullers hissed, strained,belched fire, and the long train began to move out.

  It was Lidgerwood's challenge to the outlaws, and as if the blasts ofthe three tearing exhausts had been the signal it was awaiting, thestrike storm broke with the suddenness and fury of a tropical hurricane.From a hundred hiding-places in the car-strewn yard, men came running,some to swarm thickly upon the moving engines and cabooses, othersswinging by the drawheads to cut the air-brake hose.

  Benson was swept aside and overpowered before he could strike a blow.Bogard, speeding across to take his post beside the _Nadia_, was struckdown before he could get clear of the pouring hornet swarm. Shots werefired; shrill yells arose. Into the midst of the clamor the great sirenwhistle at the shops boomed out the fire alarm, and almost at the thesame instant a red glow, capped by a rolling nimbus of sooty oil smoke,rose to beacon the destruction already begun in the shop yards. Andwhile the roar of the siren was still jarring upon the windless nightair, the electric-light circuits were cut out, leaving the yards and theCrow's Nest in darkness, and the frantic battle for the trains to belighted only by the moon and the lurid glow of destruction spreadingslowly under its black canopy of smoke.

  In the Crow's Nest the sudden coup of the strikers had the effect whichits originator had doubtless counted upon. It was some minutes after thelights were cut off, and the irruption had swept past the captured anddisabled trains to the shops, before Lidgerwood could get his smallgarrison together and send it, with McCloskey for its leader, toreinforce the shop guard, which was presumably fighting desperately forthe control of the power plant and the fire pumps.

  Only McCloskey's protest and his own anxiety for the safety of the_Nadia's_ company, kept Lidgerwood from leading the little relief columnof l
oyal trainmen and head-quarters clerks in person. The lust of battlewas in his blood, and for the time the shrinking palsy of physical fearheld aloof.

  When the sally of the trainmaster and his forlorn-hope squad had leftthe office-story of the head-quarters building almost deserted, it wasthe force of mere mechanical habit that sent Lidgerwood back to his roomto close his desk before going down to order the _Nadia_ out of the zoneof immediate danger. There was a chair in his way, and in the darknessand in his haste he stumbled over it. When he recovered himself, twomen, with handkerchief masks over their faces, were entering from thecorridor, and as he turned at the sound of their footsteps, they sprangupon him.

  For the first rememberable time in his life, Howard Lidgerwood met thechallenge of violence joyfully, with every muscle and nerve singing thebattle-song, and a huge willingness to slay or be slain arming him forthe hand-to-hand struggle. Twice he drove the lighter of the two to thewall with well-planted blows, and once he got a deadly wrestler's holdon the tall man and would have killed him if the free accomplice had nottorn his locked fingers apart by main strength. But it was two againstone; and when it was over, the conflagration light reddening thesouthern windows sufficed for the knotting of the piece of hemp lashingwith which the two masked garroters were binding their victim in hischair.

  Meanwhile, the pandemonium raging at the shops was beginning to surgebackward into the railway yard. Some one had fired a box-car, and theupblaze centred a fresh fury of destruction. Up at the head of thethree-sectioned freight train a mad mob was cutting the leadinglocomotive free.

  Dawson, crouching in the roundhouse door directly opposite, knew allthat Judson could tell him, and he instantly divined the purpose of theengine thieves. They were preparing to send the freight engine eastwardon the Desert Division main line to collide with and wreck whatevercoming thing it was that they feared.

  The threatened deed wrought itself out before the draftsman could evenattempt to prevent it. A man sprang to the footboard of the freedlocomotive, jerked the throttle open, stayed at the levers long enoughto hook up to the most effective cut-off for speed, and jumped for hislife.

  Dawson was deliberate, but not slow-witted. While the abandoned enginewas, as yet, only gathering speed for the eastward dash, he was dodgingthe straggling rioters in the yard, racing purposefully for the onlyavailable locomotive, ready and headed to chase the runaway--namely, thebig eight-wheeler coupled to the president's car. He set the switch tothe main line as he passed it, but there was no time to uncouple theengine from the private car, even if he had been willing to leave thewoman he loved, and those with her, helpless in the midst of therioting.

  So there was no more than a gasped-out word to Williams as he climbed tothe cab before the eight-wheeler, with the _Nadia_ in tow, shot awayfrom the Crow's Nest platform. And it was not until the car wasgrowling angrily over the yard-limit switches that Van Lew burst intothe central compartment like a man demented, to demand excitedly of thethree women who were clinging, terror-stricken, to Judge Holcombe:

  "Who has seen Miss Eleanor? Where is Miss Eleanor?"