It was impossible to cross the river to seek shelter on the other bank; an unusually violent current precipitated the water towards falls situated 200 meters further on, in a place where the Colorado, narrowing between rocky slopes covered with pines, fell from a great height with a frightful noise.
Farandoul weighed up the situation in an instant. One of the trees had fallen across the river, forming a sort of bridge, beneath the arch of which the foaming waters were engulfed. If they could reach the tree they would almost be saved, the passage being easily defensible.
“Let’s land,” said Farandoul, “and let the grizzly loose on them!”
Within two minutes the plan was executed. The Indians, gathered around the wounded man, suddenly saw the grizzly coming at them, while the two fugitives ran towards the waterfall.
As a few rifle-shots rang out as their grizzly ally battled the Apaches. Farandoul and Rising Moon had scarcely reached the waterfall when they saw the Apaches coming after them at the gallop. The grizzly was dead! There was not a moment to lose. They had to get to the other bank, and to do that, they had to venture on to the tree, an old pine that was only held in place very precariously.
War-cries resounded behind them; without worrying about the balance of the tree, the eddying spray and the noise of the waterfall, the fugitives crossed the fragile bridge over the cataract. As soon as they were on the other bank, sheltered by a slab of rock, they awaited the enemy, rifles in hand.
While the Apaches got down from their horses and gathered together, Farandoul perceived, to his great joy, that the rock behind which they were sheltering, the tree’s sole point of support, was insecure and shaky, ready to crumble at the least shock.
“This time we’re saved,” he said. “Let them come!”
You have guessed Farandoul’s plan; it only remains for us to see it executed.
The Apaches had reached a decision. No longer able to see the fugitives, they thought that they had continued their flight through the rocks on the left bank. The furious Red Bison had taken the lead and had set off across the aerial footbridge. Behind him, 15 Apaches were advancing carefully, rifles in hand.
“It’s time!” said Farandoul, when he saw that they were two-thirds of the way across. Combining their forces, the two fugitives gave a vigorous shove to the rock that was sustaining the tree. The rock trembled and swayed, then rolled into the river. The Apaches screamed loudly—a single scream! With a frightful noise, the tree collapsed into the spray of the waterfall, with all of its passengers.
No further incidents troubled the remainder of our fugitives’ journey. One morning, a few more bullets whistled over their heads, but they had been fired by white men—trappers who, in the hope of obtaining their furs, had followed the tracks of the two fake grizzlies. Farandoul, realizing their mistake, had made hurried signals to them. At the sight of a flag of truce raised aloft by bears speaking English and Spanish, the amazed trappers had ceased fire. They soon understood.
The woodsmen told the fugitives that they were in the middle of the Sierra Verde in the state of New Mexico. One of them offered to get them to Santa Fe, the state capital, within two days. The offer was accepted, and two days later, to its amazement, the city of Santa Fe saw two bears with rifles slung over their shoulders entering within its walls. When the truth was revealed, the two bears were lionized. Bankers rushed to put their vaults at Farandoul’s disposal while he waited for the Bank of New York to send him funds.
Farandoul’s first thought was to telegraph Mandibul in Salt Lake City. The response was unexpected. On hearing the news of their leader’s disappearance, Mandibul and his companions had left, abandoning their wives. Even Trabadec had left his house and his black women.
IV.
Farandoul went back to the telegraph; a dispatch was sent to Brigham Young which read:
Rascal, what have you done with my 17 wives?
Saturnin Farandoul (Reply Paid).
Brigham Young replied with a telegram shot through with shrewd hypocrisy:
Sir,
After the incomprehensible flight that made us see that you were not a sincere Mormon, your wives, embarrassed at having been united even for a single instant to a man devoid of conviction, demanded a divorce. An honorable Mormon, Matheus Bikelow, appointed as bishop in your place, opened his hearth to them; he has married them and will not abandon them!
Once again, sir, your conduct has been unworthy, and I urge you never to come back to the city of Saints.
Brigham Young.
The fee being paid, Brigham Young, as you see, had not been parsimonious with his words. Farandoul turned his attention to Bikelow and demanded his 17 wives from him. An exchange of correspondence, at first mock-polite and then threatening, took place between the two rivals. Bikelow, pushing irony to the point of sarcasm, offered to surrender one of the wives—probably the 17th, whom Farandoul had received as a bonus.
Farandoul was appalled by this outrage. The employees of the telegraph company must have trembled as they transmitted this laconic response to the insulter:
It’s your life that I must have, wretch. Make your will.
Saturnin Farandoul.
For a week the telegraph was monopolized by the two adversaries. Bikelow accepted the challenge, but could not make a decision as to the weapons to be employed. Farandoul proposed, successively, tomahawks, carbines, cannons, ballistas, catapults, ironclad ships, balloons, and so on.
The newspapers got mixed up in the affair; soon enough, in every city of the United States, no one was talking about anything but the duel. As people were beginning to make fun of Bikelow’s difficulty in the choice of weapons, the latter ended up proposing a classic American duel, demanding that the two adversaries, armed with rifles, should depart at the same time, one from New York and the other from San Francisco, and hunt one another down across the entire Yankee territory.
This was Farandoul’s response:
Idea accepted in principle, with only one small modification. Each adversary will board a locomotive. The two trains will depart at the same hour from New York and San Francisco, to crash into one another at the half-way point of the Central Pacific Railroad.
Saturnin Farandoul.
Bikelow was trapped. He could not refuse again; his committees would not permit it. We have forgotten to mention that, because of the stir the affair had created throughout the land, committees had been formed in every city. There was no one in the United States now but Farandoulists and Bikelowists, everyone having sided with one or other of the two adversaries.
What was Rising Moon doing during the course of these negotiations? While Farandoul divided his time between his committees and the telegraph office, the young brunette spent her time being photographed by the artists of Santa Fe in all her costumes: as a bear, in full Indian costume, and in the splendid outfit of a civilized lady that Santa Fe’s high society had offered her by subscription. Rising Moon loved the arts; an American painter, leader of the Sensationalist school, made a portrait of her in oils; in the course of the sittings, this artist, moved by inter-school jealousy, took pleasure in criticizing the paintings by which Farandoul had declared his love to the young Apache, thus sowing the first seeds of discontent in her heart—which would germinate later.
Meanwhile, one result of the excitement generated in the United States by the quarrel between Farandoul and Bikelow had been to inform Mandibul and his crew of their captain’s fate. For three months, the brave mariners, having gone in search of Farandoul, had been fruitlessly combing the Rocky Mountains; the only clue they had been able to find was an encounter with an Indian who had a portrait of General Mandibul tattooed on his breast. Unfortunately, as he only spoke Apache, it had been impossible to get any information out of him.
The seamen were beginning to despair when, one day, arriving in a little town in the state of Nevada, their gaze fell upon large posters bearing these words:
GIGANTIC DUEL
FARANDOULIST COMMI
TTEE
Hurrah for Farandoul! Farandoul forever!
The president of the Farandoulist committee announces that a great meeting of Farandoulist committees has obtained permission from its champion to add a set of wagons for his adherents to the locomotive that will carrying him to meet his enemy Bikelow. Hurrah! The day of the gigantic duel is approaching!
It is set for the 15th of this month.
Farandoul is already in New York. Tremble, Bikelowists!
“To the railroad!” cried Mandibul. “A train to New York, quickly!”
This was how, six days later, Farandoul and Mandibul fell into one another’s arms. The newspapers had brought the mariners up to date with the situation during the journey.
“We claim the first wagon!” cried Mandibul.
“I’ll reserve it for you,” Farandoul replied.
An hour was devoted to explanations; they all recounted their adventures. Farandoul teased Mandibul, calling him a Mormon in absentia; Mandibul, on learning that Brigham Young had tried to get rid of Farandoul, offered to go put Salt Lake City to fire and the sword. Farandoul calmed him down.
“Let’s leave that,” he said, “and get back to Bikelow, the infamous ravisher of my 17 wives. This is how things stand. All the preparations are made; the departure is set for June 15—which is to say, in a week’s time, and we should meet one another, if the calculations of the engineers are correct, on June 17 at about 7 p.m. I’ve appointed the delegate from my committees, the expert engineer Horatius Bixby, as my second, along with my old friend Mandibul!
No greater excitement had ever stirred the population of the United States. One might have thought that it was the middle of a presidential election: meetings everywhere, of committees, sub-committees, counter-committees, or simple gatherings of adherents of one or other of the parties. In New York, some districts were entirely populated by Farandoulists, while others supported Bikelow; there were tumultuous manifestations, processions that generally concluded with clashes between the two parties. In the streets, streamers and flags in the colors of each party hung from windows, lit up every evening. Amid the street-lamps the name of the preferred individual was inscribed in gigantic letters by fireworks or in immense display-windows.
The committees were working furiously. A team of engineers had been attached to each of the adversaries, and a meeting of the two teams had, after 15 days and 15 nights of deliberation, determined the conditions of the combat: the hour of departure, the quantity and quality of coal, the speed to be attained, and so on. All these calculations had been made with such precision that the exact point of the encounter could be determined. The collision would take place on the Devil’s Bridge on the Nebraska River. Each locomotive, manned by a first-rate mechanic and stoker, was armed with a huge howitzer mounted on a pivoting chassis, invented for the occasion by Farandoul’s second, Horatius Bixby. The adversaries would open fire the moment they saw one another; the howitzers being breech-loaders, it was anticipated that there would time for 20 rounds to be exchanged.
A determined number of wagons having been put at the disposal of the committees, each of the adversaries would go into combat with his supporters.
Pleasure trips had, of course, been organized in every large city to the meeting-place. Grandstands had been set up under the Devil’s Bridge on both banks of the Nebraska. The best places cost $20 and the poorest, half a league from the bridge, 50 cents. Bets were being laid in great quantity, and the pools agencies were promising large payouts.
At first Rising Moon had been slightly offended by Farandoul’s attempts to reclaim his 17 wives, but she had ended up by yielding to his reasoning. Understanding that it was, above all, on principle, and not to allow such an insult to go unpunished, that Farandoul was claiming these ladies, she now prayed for his success and asked to accompany him on his locomotive. Farandoul refused, but gave orders that a place of honor should be reserved for her at Devil’s Bridge.
The great day drew nearer. It was time. The breathless population thought about nothing else. The sessions of Congress were suspended, and the world of business was subject to what it dubbed the Farandoulist crisis.
June 13 came, then 14; in New York, crowds stationed themselves all night long around the platform. Finally, on June 15, at 7 a.m., a carriage brought Saturnin Farandoul and his seconds, Mandibul and Horatius Bixby, to the railhead, where they were greeted by an immense acclamation. Other carriages followed, containing the delegates of 500 Farandoulist committees, supplementary witnesses. Reporters from all the newspapers laid siege to the station to obtain places. It was a trifle crowded in all the wagons. An old acquaintance was waiting for Farandoul: our friend Dick Broken, who had arrived from Australia that very morning, and had been commissioned by Mr. Bennett, the proprietor of the New York Herald, to follow all the vicissitudes of the affair. In the capacity of a friend, the New York Herald’s reporter obtained a place on the locomotive.
At exactly 8 a.m., a blast of a whistle announced the departure; in the midst of a storm of acclamation, the train departed, at full steam.
Farandoul and his seconds, standing next to the howitzer on the little platform of the locomotive, waved to the delirious crowd. The smoke of the locomotive had no sooner disappeared over the horizon than special trains, chartered by punters, set off along the rails in pursuit.
For two nights and three days the train ran without stopping for more than a few minutes at three or four stations. Behind it filed the punters’ trains, struggling to keep up with the speed of Farandoul’s. Only five out of 11 that had left New York were following close behind, the others having suffered various mishaps; one had been derailed, two others had collided in the course of the pursuit and remained in distress, broken down on the track, blocking the passage of the last three.
Two hundred people had gathered at Devil’s Bridge. The grandstands were heaving with spectators who had been flocking all through the morning of June 17. Interested Bikelowists and Farandoulists pointed out to one another, in a place of honor on the grandstand on the right bank, Rising Moon in full Indian costume—and, directly facing her, on the other side of the Nebraska, on a platform guarded by devoted Bikelowists, Farandoul’s 17 divorcées, the causes of all the trouble.
At 6 a.m., the excitement peaked. The telegraph had signaled the approach of the two trains from the nearest stations. Everything was going to plan; their progress had been calculated perfectly, and the impact was predicted at 6:48 a.m. During the final half-hour, the telegraph never ceased functioning, signaling the approach of the trains from one office to the next.
Finally, at 6:41 a.m., an immense cry went up, followed b a fearful silence. From the right and the left, the strident notes of prolonged whistle-blasts cut through the air.
A cannon-shot followed, then two, then four; the adversaries had caught sight of one another and the combat commenced. The two trains were now in sight for the eager spectators established on the banks of the Nebraska and in the trees on the neighboring slopes. The two trains were arriving at lightning speed, leaving wakes of eddying smoke behind them. At ten-second intervals a lightning-flash sprang from each of the locomotives, while a little cloud of white smoke went up, a detonation resounded, and a shell whistled through the air.
Opera-glasses followed the vicissitudes of the duel feverishly. Farandoul’s locomotive had already lost a piece of its chimney-stack, a result that the Bikelowists welcomed with a resounding cheer. At 6:46 a.m., with only a few kilometers separating the two trains, Farandoul launched one final shell, which, it later transpired, knocked Bikelow’s hat off. The latter replied with a last sequence of four shells, whose explosions blasted two of the Farandoulist wagons to smithereens.
Farandoul’s stoker had been killed; the engineer, an energetic man, was adequate to the task. At 6:47 a.m., the New York Herald’s correspondent released yet another carrier pigeon; the poor bird, avoiding Bikelow’s last shell by a miracle, bore the following brief dispatch to Omaha City:
6:47 a.m. All right! Farandoul is fine. Received seven shells, one on the locomotive and six on the punters’ wagons. Much smoke from wagons, casualties as yet unknown. One minute to impact!
Dick Broken.
Another 30 seconds went by.
The two trains, now separated by a very short distance, hurled themselves at one another like two fiery monsters.
The Devil’s Bridge remained to be crossed; Bikelow’s train was the first to move on to it. A frightful crack was heard; the decking of the bridge was giving way beneath the weight of the overloaded wagons!
At the moment when Bikelow’s locomotive, having reached the topmost point of the bridge, found itself almost face to face with Farandoul’s, the steel cables, horribly taut, broke noisily and the bridge, suddenly collapsing, tipped its load into the abyss.
A clamor such as the echoes of the mountains had never heard before rose into the air. Farandoul’s train, moving like lightning, had crossed the gulf! The Bikelowist train, as it fell, had served it, so to speak, as an apron—or rather, by virtue of the speed it had built up, Farandoul’s train had jumped to the other bank. Its last wagons were already disappearing over the horizon!49
As for the Bikelowists, their 60 wagons had fallen from a height of 500 feet into the Nebraska.
Ten kilometers beyond the bridge, Farandoul’s locomotive, finally brought under control, slowly ground to a halt. Everyone got down and congratulated one another. The Farandoulists’ victory was complete! Farandoul and Horatius Bixby threw themselves into one another’s arms. Dick Broken, sitting on the howitzer, wrote a dispatch that he sent by pigeon to the New York Herald. When that was done, he came down to join in the warm congratulations and general acclamation.
“Now that honor is satisfied,” Farandoul said, “I renounce the 17 ingrates. Someone telegraph Brigham Young.”
The Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul Page 18