"Looks as if the Cactus House might be rebuilt," remarked Ashby, burning with curiosity.
"No," said Tom briefly.
"Carter is going to change the name?" inquired Ashby.
"No. Carter doesn't own this land any more."
"He doesn't own the land?" Ashby asked. "What's going to be put up here, then? A business block?"
For a moment Ashby thrilled with joy. Of late the Cactus House had seriously cut in on the profits of the Mansion House. Ashby had, in fact, been running behind. Now, if the Mansion House were to be henceforth the only hotel in town, Ashby saw a chance to prosper on a more than comfortable scale.
"Ashby," Tom went on, rather frigidly, "I won't waste many words, for I'm afraid I don't like you well enough to talk very much to you. The A., G. & N. M. has bought this land from Mr. Carter. The railroad is going to erect here one of the finest hotels in this part of Arizona. It will have every modern convenience, and will make your hotel look like a mill boarding house by contrast. When the new hotel is completed it will be leased to Mr. Carter. With his insurance money, and the price of the land in bank, Carter will have capital for embarking in the hotel business on a scale that will make this end of Arizona sit up and do some hard looking."
As he listened Proprietor Ashby's jaw dropped. His color came and went. He swallowed hard, while his hands worked convulsively. With the fine new hotel that was coming to Paloma the owner of the Mansion House saw himself driven hopelessly into the background. "Reade, this new hotel game is some of your doings," growled the hotel man.
"I'm proud to say that it is partly my doing," Tom admitted, with a smile. "Harry, let's go along to the restaurant. I'm hungry."
As the two young engineers stepped into the car and were driven away, Ashby dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands.
"So I'm to be beaten out of the hotel game here, am I!" the hotel man asked himself, gritting his teeth. "I'm to be driven out by Reade, the fellow whom I once kicked out of my hotel! Oh—well, all right!"
CHAPTER XVIII. TRAGEDY CAPS THE TEST
"Pass the signal!" directed Tom.
A railroad man with a flag made several swift moves. Down the track an engineman, in his cab, answered with a short blast of, the whistle. Then he threw over the lever, and a train of ten flat cars started along in the engine's wake.
It was the first test—the "small test," Tom called it—of the track that now extended across the surface of the Man-killer.
On each flat car were piled ten tons of steel rails, to be used further along in the construction work. With engine, cars and all, the load amounted to one hundred and fifty tons, the pressure of which would be exerted over a comparatively short strip of the new track that now glistened over the Man-killer.
Mounted on his pony, Harry Hazelton had galloped a considerable distance down the track. Now, halted, he had turned his pony's head about, watching eagerly the on-coming train.
For two weeks the laborers had been working on the roadbed now running over the Man-killer. Ties had been laid and rails fastened down. Apparently the Man-killer had done its worst and had been balked, a seemingly secure roadbed now resting on the once treacherous quicksand.
Construction trains, short and lightly laden, had been moving out over the newly filled in soil for many days, but the train now starting at the edge of the terrible Man-killer was heavier than any equipment that had before been run over the ground.
The president of the A., G. & N. M. R. R. was there, flanked by half a dozen of the leading directors of the road. There were other officials there, including General Manager Ellsworth.
"I see Hazelton out yonder," murmured the president of the road. "But where's that young man Reade, now at the moment when the success of his work is being tested?"
"Goodness knows," rejoined Mr. Ellsworth. "As likely as not he's back in the office, taking a nap after having given the engineman his signal."
"Asleep!" repeated the president. "Can he be so indolent or so indifferent as that?"
"You may always depend upon Tom Reade to do something that wouldn't be expected of him," laughed Mr. Ellsworth. "It isn't that he slights big duties, or even pretends to do. If he has vanished, and has gone to sleep, then it is because he feels so sure of his work that he takes no further interest in the test that is being made."
"But if an accident should happen?" asked the president of the A. G. & N. M. R. R.
"Then I can promise you that you'd see Reade, on his pony, shooting ahead as fast as he could go to the scene of the trouble."
These more important railroad officials had come out to camp in automobiles. Now they followed on foot as the train rolled on to the land reclaimed from the Man-killer.
Superintendent Hawkins and his foremen also went along on foot to observe whether the track sank ever so little at any point.
It was none of Harry Hazelton's particular business to watch whether the tracks sank slightly. That duty could be better performed by the foremen who had had charge of the track laying. Yet Hazelton, as he watched, found himself growing impatient.
"Here!" Harry called to a near-by laborer. "Take my horse, please."
In another instant the young assistant engineer was on foot, following the slowly moving train as it rolled along over the ground where, months before, not even a man could have strolled with safety.
"Do you see any sagging of the track, Mr. Rivers?" Harry called.
"No, sir. Not as much as a sixteenth of an inch at any point," responded the foreman. "The job has been a big success."
"We can tell that better after the track has held loads of from five to eight hundred tons," Harry rejoined. "I believe, however, that we have the tricks of the savage old Man-killer nailed."
Exultation throbbed in Harry's heart. Outwardly, he did not trust himself to reveal his great delight. He still followed, watching anxiously, until the train had passed safely over the Man-killer.
Then a great cheer went up from more than a thousand throats, for many people had come out from Paloma to watch the test.
The train had gone a quarter of a mile past the western edge of the huge and once treacherous quicksand. Now the engine was on a temporary turn-table, waiting to be turned and switched back to bring the train back over the Man-killer at a swift gait.
"Where's Mr. Reade?" called the president of the road, gazing backward. "Someone go for him. I wish him to be here to see the test made with the train under fast speed."
"I'll get Reade, sir," answered Harry, motioning to have his pony brought to him.
Hazelton vanished in a cloud of desert dust.
When he next appeared there was another pony, and Reade astride it.
"You sent for me, sir," said Tom, riding close to the president, then dismounting.
"Yes," Mr. Reade. "I believed that you should be here to see the test train return."
"Very good, sir," was Tom's quiet reply. He signaled for a workman to come and take charge of his pony.
In a few minutes the short but heavy train started, gaining headway rapidly. By the time it struck the edge of the possibly conquered quicksand it was moving at the rate of forty miles an hour.
Across the Man-killer the train continued for a mile in the direction of Paloma.
"Now, let us all inspect the track," suggested the president of the railroad company. "Call up the autos."
"Will you let me make a suggestion, sir!" queried Tom.
"Go ahead, Mr. Reade."
"Then, sir, let Mr. Hazelton and myself ride out along the track first, that we may see if the whole course is safe."
"That heavy train just went over at fast speed and nothing disastrous happened," protested the president.
"Probably the entire course is still safe, sir?" Tom assented. "Yet, on the other hand, it is possible that the fast moving train may have started the quicksand at some point. The next object that passes over, even if no heavier than an automobile, may meet with disaster. Mr. Hazelton and I can soon satis
fy ourselves as to whether the roadbed has sagged at any point along the way. We shall ride nothing heavier than mustangs."
"There is something in what you say, Mr. Reade. Go ahead. We will wait until we have your report."
Tom and Harry accordingly mounted, riding off at a trot. Yet at some sections of the line they rode so slowly, studying the ground attentively, that it was fully half an hour before they had crossed the further edge of the Man-killer.
"The engineers are signaling us, Mr. President," reported General Manager Ellsworth. "They are motioning us to go forward."
Accordingly the party of railway officials entered their automobiles and started slowly off over the Man-killer.
"Ride back and meet them, Harry," Tom suggested. "Show them that one point that we noticed."
Hazelton accordingly dug his heels into the flank of his pony, starting off at a gallop.
Two or three minutes passed. Then Mr. Ellsworth leaped from his seat in the foremost automobile, standing erect in the car and pointing excitedly.
"Look there!" he shouted lustily. "What's happening?"
Away off, at the further side of the Man-killer, a horseman had suddenly ridden into sight from behind a sand pile. His swiftly moving pony had gotten within three hundred yards of the chief engineer before Tom looked up to behold the newcomer.
From where the railroad officials watched they could hear nothing, though they saw a succession of indistinct spittings from something in the right hand of the horseman.
"It's a revolver the fellow's shooting at Mr. Reade!" gasped Superintendent Hawkins, leaping into the car beside the general manager. "Turn your speed on, man—make a lightning lash across the Man-killer!"
Away shot the automobile, not wholly to the liking of two eastern men who sat in the directors' car.
Tom Reade had realized his danger. Having nothing with which to fight, Reade had sprung his horse eastward and was racing for life.
The unknown had emptied his weapon, but that did not deter him, for, continuing his wild pursuit, the stranger could be seen to draw another automatic revolver.
The bullets striking all about Tom's pony ploughed up the sand.
Within a minute the men in the speeding automobile were close enough to hear the sputtering crackle of the pistol shots.
"There goes Hazelton right into the face of death!" gasped Mr. Ellsworth, who remained in a standing position. "Foolish of the boy, but magnificent!"
Harry had turned some time before, but now those in the automobile saw that Hazelton was riding squarely to Tom's side, despite the constant fusillade of bullets.
Both pistols were now emptied, but the pursuer, letting his reins fall on the neck of his madly galloping pony, was inserting fresh cartridges in the magazine chambers of his pistols.
CHAPTER XIX. THE SECRET OF ASHBY'S CUNNING
At a considerable distance behind the automobile came another rescue party. This was made up of about two score of Arizona horsemen. Many of these men were armed. At the saddle bows of some of the hung raw-hide lariats that the owners unwound as they sped forward.
Tom Reade, with the pursuer slowly, but steadily gaining upon him, had discovered the identity of the man who seemed bent on his destruction.
As Hazelton drew nearer Tom waved his left hand frantically at his chum.
"Turn about, Harry! Ride back like the wind!" shouted Tom. "It's Ashby, and he's shooting to kill. About face—you young idiot!"
Harry took no notice of the warning, reining in only slightly, then wheeling and riding in a line with Reade, though about forty feet to one side of him.
Ashby, a wild light in his eyes, heavily armed, and riding madly, kept up a continuous fire in his effort to destroy the young chief engineer.
Honk! Honk! honk! came the warning from the automobile horn. The car dashed at full speed toward the vengeful rider, as though about to run him down.
George Ashby, however, was not easily intimidated. One swift glance had assured him that the automobile bore no armed men. He therefore merely swung his horse out of the path of the on-coming car and continued to aim at Reade, though he now took more time between shots. On Hazelton he did not waste a shot.
Helplessly and vainly the automobile whizzed by pursuer and pursued.
"Ashby, stop this madness!" cried Mr. Ellsworth hoarsely.
The pursuing rider never faltered. Now the party of Arizona horsemen were riding nearer. Two or three of the leaders drew revolvers, opening fire on the mad hotel man, though the range was as yet too great for effective work.
In another thirty seconds George Ashby would doubtless have dropped to the dust of the dessert, riddled with lead. Suddenly, however, he gave his horse's head a sharp turn to the right. In an instant he was riding back, shooting no more, and Tom Reade had passed safely out of range.
With wild whoops the Paloma horsemen dashed on. Their mounts were not spent as was that of the hotel man.
"Don't shoot the fellow, if you can help it!" Tom Reade had called, as the horsemen swept by him. "Rope Ashby if you can."
Suddenly the hotel man's mount was seen to stagger slightly. It was sufficient to pitch Ashby, who was not on his guard.
With wilder whoops the Arizona men spurred their ponies on. There was a whirring of lariats and no less than three nooses had fallen over the hotel man's head.
There came a brief interval in which the men, swooping down on the captive, concealed him from the view of others.
Out of this crush soon came order. Then it was seen that Ashby had been roped securely and was being led back to the railroad camp.
"We've got the scoundrel, with four ropes hitched to him," called one of the captors.
"One rope will be enough as soon as we can find a tree."
The party was riding into the railroad camp now, and a dense crowd pressed forward to see the face of the keeper of the Mansion House.
Ashby was chuckling gleefully. If any fear of the consequences of his lawless behavior oppressed him, he was far from betraying the fact.
"Be gentle with him, friends," Tom urged, riding forward.
"Yes; we ought to be gentle with every rattlesnake," came an answer from the crowd.
Ashby laughed harshly.
"You can't hurt me, neighbors," declared the hotel man. "I'm bullet proof. Any man who fires at me will find that the bullet will rebound and bit him. Tie me up to a tree, if you like. You'll find that I won't choke. I'll just slide back to earth as often as you tie me up."
"Just what I thought," murmured Tom.
"What do you think?" demanded Mr. Ellsworth from the car.
"The man's as mad as a March hare," replied Reade.
"Humph! He's merely shamming," retorted the general manager.
"Stow the funny business, Ashby!" came the advice from the crowd. "You can't fool us into believing that you're crazy."
"Crazy?" repeated the hotel man, a look of amazement creeping into his face. "Of course I'm not crazy. I'm the only sane man in this crowd."
Men began to look wonderingly at the hotel man, though many still believed that Ashby was cleverly shamming insanity in order to save his neck from being stretched.
"Doe Furniss! Come over here!" called Reade. "Gentlemen, this is a question for Doe Furniss. Don't think of doing anything to the fellow until you've heard from Doc. Make way for the doctor, gentlemen."
At a sign from Dr. Furniss the captors led Ashby's horse onward until the office shack was reached. Here two men freed the captive from his horse and led him inside. Dr. Furniss followed them and the door was closed.
"Let's get away from here," urged Tom Reade. "A big crowd hanging about is sure to excite the poor fellow."
"Reade, you're too soft and easy," grunted a Paloma man in the crowd. "The only thing that makes Ashby crazy is that he didn't get you."
"He did 'get' me, however," laughed Tom, displaying four bullet holes through his shirtsleeves, and two more that pierced his hat. "Ashby got as much of me as I'd wan
t any marksman to get."
Having withdrawn to a distance, the crowd waited.
It was nearly half an hour before Dr. Furniss stepped outside. Now he walked swiftly over to the edge of the crowd.
"Gentlemen," remarked the physician, "you are justified in feeling very well pleased that you didn't lynch Ashby. The poor fellow is as insane as a man could well be. He imagines Mr. Reade has hurt his business and is determined to kill him. I'll send for a straightjacket and then we'll hustle him away to the asylum."
At this moment a wild yell sounded from the shack, to be echoed from the crowd. George Ashby, seemingly possessed of the strength of half a dozen men, had wrenched himself free of his captors, felling both like a flash. Then the hotel man leaped to his horse, freeing it and starting off at a mad gallop.
Instantly a score of men set off after the fugitive, swinging their lariats as they rode.
Crack! Crack! Bang!
Snatching still another automatic revolver from one of his saddle bags, Ashby was now firing at those riding behind him.
The line of horsemen wavered somewhat. They might have fired in return, and have brought down their quarry, but no brave man likes to think of shooting a lunatic.
So, still firing as he went, Ashby once more reached the edge of the quicksand.
Now, riding as fast as he could urge his pony, the hotel man dashed out on the Man-killer.
Nor was he riding over the part that had been rendered safe by the young engineers.
Instead, he was riding to the southward of the railroad property—straight out where he was likely to find a speedy death in the engulfing sands.
"Stop, Ashby! Come back!" shouted a dozen voices. "You'll be swallowed up in the quick-sands."
Brave as they were, the pursuers now rein up sharply. It seemed to them sheer madness to ride out thus to their certain deaths.
"Ashby is crazy, all right," remarked bronzed man. "None but an insane man would ride out there."
Somewhat tardily automobile parties started in pursuit. These vehicles were halted at the edge of the quicksand. Tom and Harry had also come this far.
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