XXVII
BY ORDER OF THE COURT
Between the hours of eight-thirty and ten P.M. the Union Passenger Station at the capital presents a moving and spirited spectacle. Within the hour and a half, four through and three local trains are due to leave, and the space within the iron grille that fences off the track platforms from the public part of the station is filled with hurrying throngs of train-takers.
Down at the outer end of the train-shed the stuttering pop-valves of the locomotives, the thunderous trundling of the heavy baggage trucks, and the shrill, monotonous chant of the express messengers checking in their cargoes, lift a din harmonious to the seasoned traveler; a medley softened and distance-diminished for those that crowd upon the gate-keepers at the iron grille.
It was the evening of the last day in the month; the day when the Federative Council of Railway Workers had sent its ultimatum to Receiver Guilford. The reduction in wages was to go into effect at midnight: if, by midnight, the order had not been rescinded, and the way opened for a joint conference touching the removal of certain obnoxious officials, a general strike and tie-up would be ordered. Trains in transit carrying passengers or United States mail would be run to their respective destinations; trains carrying perishable freight would be run to division stations: with these exceptions all labor would cease promptly on the stroke of twelve.
Such was the text of the ultimatum, a certified copy of which Engineer Scott had delivered in person into the hands of the receiver at noon.
It was now eight forty-five P.M. The east-bound night express was ready for the run to A. & T. Junction; the fast mail, one hour and thirty-five minutes late from the east, was backing in on track nine to take on the city mail. On track eight, pulled down so that the smoke from the engine should not foul the air of the train-shed, the receiver's private car, with the 1010 for motive power and "Red" Callahan in the cab, had been waiting since seven o'clock for the order to run special to Gaston. And as yet the headquarters office had made no sign; sent no word of reply to the strike notice.
Griggs was on for the night run eastward with the express; and "Dutch" Tischer had found himself slated to take the fast mail west. The change of engines on the mail had been effected at the shops; and when Tischer backed his train in on track nine his berth was beside the 1010. Callahan swung down from his cab and climbed quickly to that of the mail engine.
"Annything new at the shops, Dutchy?" he inquired.
"I was not somet'ings gehearing, nein. You was dot Arkoos newsbaper dis evening schen? He says nodings too, alretty, about dot strike."
"Divil a worrd. Ye might think Scotty'd handed the major a bit av blank paper f'r all the notice he's taking. More thin that, he's lavin' town, wid me to pull him. The Naught-seven's to run special to Gaston—bad cess to ut!"
"Vell, I can'd hellup id," said the phlegmatic Bavarian. "I haf the mail and egspress got, and I go mit dem t'rough to Pighorn. You haf der brivate car got, and you go mit dem t'rough to Gaston. Den ve qvits, ain'd it?"
Callahan nodded and dropped to the platform. But before he could mount to the foot-board of the 1010, M'Tosh collared him.
"Patsy, I have your orders, at last. Your passengers will be down in a few minutes, and you are to pull out ahead of the express."
"Is it to Gaston I'm goin', Misther M'Tosh?"
The fireman was standing by with the oil can and torch, ready to Callahan's hand, and the train-master drew the engineer aside.
"Shovel needn't hear," he said in explanation. And then: "Are you willing to stand with us, Patsy? You've had time enough to think it over."
Callahan stood with his arms folded and his cap drawn down over his eyes.
"'Tis not f'r meself I'm thinkin', Misther M'Tosh, as ye well know. But I'm a widdy man; an' there's the bit colleen in the convint."
"She'll be well cared for, whatever happens to you," was the quick reply.
"Thin I'm yer man," said Callahan; and when the train-master was gone, he ordered Shovel to oil around while he did two or three things which, to an initiated onlooker, might have seemed fairly inexplicable. First he disconnected the air-hose between the car and the engine, tying the ends up with a stout cord so that the connection would not seem to be broken. Next he crawled under the Naught-seven and deliberately bled the air-tank, setting the cock open a mere hair's-breadth so that it would leak slowly but surely until the pressure was entirely gone.
Then he got a hammer and sledge out of the engine tool-box, and after hooking up the safety-chain couplings between the private car and the 1010, he crippled the points of the hooks with the hammer so that they could not be disengaged without the use of force and the proper tools.
"There ye are, ye ould divil's band-wagon," he said, apostrophizing the private car when his work was done. "Ye'll ride this night where Patsy Callahan dhrives, an' be dommed to ye."
Meanwhile the train-master had reached the iron grille at the other end of the long track platform. At a small wicket used by the station employees and trainmen, Kent was waiting for him.
"Is it all right, M'Tosh? Will he do it?" he asked anxiously.
"Yes, Patsy's game for it; I knew he would be. He'd put his neck in a rope to spite the major. But it's a crazy thing, Mr. Kent."
"I know it; but if it will give me twenty-four hours—"
"It won't. They can't get home on our line because we'll be tied up. But they can get the Naught-seven put on the Overland's Limited at A. & T. Junction, and that will put them back here before you've had time to turn around twice. Have they come down yet?"
"No," said Kent; and just then he saw Loring coming in from the street entrance and went to meet him.
"I have the final word from Boston," said the ex-manager, when he had walked Kent out of earshot of the train-takers. "Your terms are accepted—with all sorts of safeguards thrown about the 'no cure, no pay' proviso; also with a distinct repudiation of you and your scheme if there is anything unlawful afoot. Do you still think it best to keep me in the dark as to what you are doing?"
"Yes; there are enough of us involved, as it stands. You couldn't help; and you might hinder. Besides, if the mine should happen to explode in our direction it'll be a comfort to have a foot-loose friend or two on the outside to pick up the pieces of us."
Loring was polishing his eye-glasses with uncommon vigor.
"I wish you'd drop it, David, if it isn't too late. I can't help feeling as if I had prodded you into it, whatever it is."
Kent linked arms with him and led him back to the street entrance.
"Go away, Grantham, and don't come back again," he commanded. "Then you can swear truthfully that you didn't know anything about it. It is too late to interfere, and you are not responsible for me. Go up to see Portia; she'll keep you interested while you wait."
When Loring was gone, Kent went back to the wicket in the grille; but M'Tosh, who was always a busy man at train-time, had disappeared again.
It was a standing mystery to the train-master, and to the rank and file, why Receiver Guilford had elected to ignore the fact that he was within three hours of a strike which promised to include at least four-fifths of his operatives; had taken no steps for defense, and had not confided, as it appeared, in the members of his own official staff.
But Kent was at no loss to account for the official silence. If the secret could be kept for a few hours longer, the junto would unload the Trans-Western, strike, tie-up and general demoralization, upon an unsuspecting Overland management.
None the less, there were other things unexplainable even to Kent; for one, this night flitting to Gaston to put the finishing touch on an edifice of fraud which had been builded shamelessly in the light of day.
Kent had not the key to unlock this door of mystery; but here the master spirit of the junto was doing, not what he would, but what he could. The negotiations for the lease had consumed much time at a crisis when time was precious. Judge MacFarlane had to be recalled and once more bullied into subjection; and Falkland, acting for the Plantagould interest, had insisted upon some formal compliance with the letter of the law.
Bucks had striven masterfully to drive and not be driven; but the delays were inexorable, and the impending strike threatened to turn the orderly charge into a rout. The governor had postponed the coup from day to day, waiting upon the leisurely movements of Falkland; and at the end of the ends there remained but three hours of the final day of grace when the telegram came from Falkland with the welcome news that the Overland officials were on their way from Midland City to keep the appointment in Gaston.
Of all this Kent knew nothing, and was anxious in just proportion as the minutes elapsed and the time for the departure of the east-bound express drew near. For the success of the desperate venture turned upon this: that the receiver's special must leave ahead of the passenger train. With the express blocking the way the difficulties became insurmountable.
Kent was still standing at the trainmen's wicket when Callahan sent the private car gently up to the trackhead of track eight. M'Tosh had been telephoning again, and the receiver and his party were on the way to the station.
"I was afraid you'd have to let the express go first," said Kent, when the train-master came his way again. "How much time have we?"
"Five minutes more; and they are on the way down—there they come."
Kent looked and saw a group of six men making for the nearest exit in the grille. Then he smote his fist into his palm.
"Damn!" he muttered; "they've got the vice-president of the Overland with them! That's bad."
"It's bad for Mr. Callafield," growled M'Tosh. "We're in too deep now to back down on his account."
Kent moved nearer and stood in the shadow of the gate-keeper's box, leaving M'Tosh, who was on the track platform, free to show himself. From his new point of espial Kent checked off the members of the party. When Major Guilford left it to come back for a word with M'Tosh, there were five others: the governor, his private secretary, Hawk, Halkett, the general superintendent, and the Overland's vice-president.
"All ready, M'Tosh?" said the receiver.
"Ready and waiting, Major," was the bland reply.
"Who is our engineer?"
"Patrick Callahan."
"That wild Irishman? The governor says he'd as soon ride behind the devil."
"Callahan will get you there," said the train-master, with deliberate emphasis. Then he asked a question of his own. "Is Mr. Callafield going with you?"
"No. He came down to see us off. How is the fast mail to-night?"
"She's just in—an hour and thirty-five minutes late."
The major swore pathetically. He was of the generation of railway officials, happily fast passing, which cursed and swore itself into authority.
"That's another five hundred dollars' forfeit to the Post-office Department! Who's taking it west?"
"Tischer."
"Give him orders to cut out all the stops. If he is more than fifty-five minutes late at Bighorn, he can come in and get his time."
Tischer had just got the word to go, and was pulling out on the yard main line.
"I'll catch him with the wire at yard limits," said M'Tosh. Then: "Would you mind hurrying your people a little, Major? The express is due to leave."
Guilford was a heavy man for his weight, and he waddled back to the others, waving his arms as a signal for them to board the car.
Kent saw the vice-president of the Overland Short Line shake hands with Bucks and take his leave, and was so intent upon watching the tableau of departure that he failed to notice the small boy in Western Union blue who was trying to thrust a telegram, damp from the copying rolls, into his hand.
"It's a rush, sir," said the boy, panting from his quick dash across the track platforms.
It was Ormsby's message from Breezeland; and while Kent was trying to grasp the tremendous import of it, M'Tosh was giving Callahan the signal to go. Kent sprang past the gate-keeper and gave the square of damp paper to the train-master.
"My God! read that!" he gasped, with a dry sob of excitement. "It was our chance—one chance in a million—and we've lost it!"
M'Tosh was a man for a crisis. The red tail-lights of the private-car special were yet within a sprinter's dash of the trackhead, but the train-master lost no time chasing a ten-wheel flyer with "Red" Callahan at the throttle.
"Up to my office!" he shouted; and ten seconds later Kent was leaning breathless over the desk in the despatcher's room while M'Tosh called Durgan over the yard limits telephone.
"Is that you, Durgan?" he asked, when the reply came. Then: "Drop the board on the mail, quick! and send somebody to tell Tischer to side-track, leaving the main line Western Division clear. Got that?"
The answer was evidently prompt and satisfactory, since he began again almost in the same breath.
"Now go out yourself and flag Callahan before he reaches the limits. Tell him the time-card's changed and he is to run west with the special to Megilp as first section of the mail—no stops, or Tischer will run him down. Leg it! He's half-way down the yard, now!"
The train-master dropped the ear-piece of the telephone and crossed quickly to the despatcher's table.
"Orders for the Western Division, Donohue," he said curtly, "and don't let the grass grow. 'Receiver's car, Callahan, engineer, runs to Megilp as first section of fast mail. Fast mail, Hunt, conductor; Tischer, engineer; runs to the end of the division without stop, making up all time possible.' Add to that last, 'By order of the receiver.'"
The orders were sent as swiftly as the despatcher could rattle them off on his key; and then followed an interval of waiting more terrible than a battle. Kent tried to speak, but his lips were parched and his tongue was like a dry stick between his teeth. What was doing in the lower yard? Would Durgan fail at the pinch and mismanage it so as to give the alarm? The minutes dragged leaden-winged, and even the sounders on the despatcher's table were silent.
Suddenly the clicking began again. The operator at "yard limits" was sending the O.K. to the two train orders. So far, so good. Now if Callahan could get safely out on the Western Division...
But there was a hitch in the lower yard. Durgan had obeyed his orders promptly and precisely, and had succeeded in stopping Callahan at the street-crossing where Engineer Dixon had killed the farmer. Durgan climbed to the cab of the 1010, and the changed plan was explained in a dozen words. But now came the crux.
"If I stand here till you'd be bringin' me my orders, I'll have the whole kit av thim buzzin' round to know fwhat's the matther," said Callahan; but there was no other thing to do, and Durgan hurried back to the telegraph office to play the messenger.
He was too long about it. Before he got back, Halkett was under the cab window of the 1010, demanding to know—with many objurgations—why Callahan had stopped in the middle of the yards.
"Get a move on you!" he shouted. "The express is right behind us, and it'll run us down, you damned bog-trotter!"
Callahan's gauntleted hand shot up to the throttle-bar.
"I'm l'avin', Misther Halkett," he said mildly. "Will yez go back to the car, or ride wit' me?"
The general superintendent took no chance of catching the Naught-seven's hand-rails in the darkness, and he whipped up into the cab at the first sharp cough of the exhaust.
"I'll go back when you stop for your orders," he said; but a shadowy figure had leaped upon the engine-step a scant half-second behind him, and Callahan was stuffing the crumpled copy of the order into the sweat-band of his cap. The next instant the big 1010 leaped forward like a blooded horse under an unmerited cut of the whip, slid past the yard limits telegraph office and shot out upon the main line of the Western Division.
"Sit down, Misther Halkett, an' make yerself aisy!" yelled Callahan across the cab. "'Tis small use Jimmy Shovel'll have for his box this night."
"Shut off, you Irish madman!" was the shouted command. "Don't you see you're on the wrong division?"
Callahan gave the throttle-bar another outward hitch, tipped his seat and took a hammer from the tool-box.
"I know where I'm goin', an' that's more thin you know, ye blandhanderin' divil! Up on that box wit' you, an' kape out av Jimmy Shovel's road, or I'll be the death av yez! Climb, now!"
It was at this moment that the tense strain of suspense was broken in the despatcher's room on the second floor of the Union Station. The telephone skirled joyously, and the train-master snatched up the ear-piece.
"What does he say?" asked Kent.
"It's all right. He says Callahan is out on the Western Division, with Tischer chasing him according to programme. Halkett's in the cab of the 1010 with Patsy, and—hold on—By George! he says one of them jumped the car as it was passing the limits station!"
"Which one was it?" asked Kent; and he had to wait till the reply came from Durgan.
"It was Hawk, the right-of-way man. He broke and ran for the nearest electric-car line the minute he hit the ground, Durgan says. Does he count?"
"No," said Kent; but it is always a mistake to under-rate an enemy's caliber—even that of his small arms.
XXVIII
THE NIGHT OF ALARMS
If Editor Hildreth had said nothing in his evening edition about the impending strike on the Trans-Western, it was not because public interest was waning. For a fortnight the newspapers in the territory tributary to the road had been full of strike talk, and Hildreth had said his say, deprecating the threatened appeal to force as fearlessly as he condemned the mismanagement which was provoking it.
But it was Kent who was responsible for the dearth of news on the eve of the event. Early in the morning of the last day of the month he had sought out the editor and begged him to close the columns of the Evening Argus to strike news, no matter what should come in during the course of the day.
"I can't go into the reasons as deeply now as I hope to a little later," he had said, his secretive habit holding good to the final fathom of the slipping hawser of events. "But you must bear with me once more, and whatever you hear between now and the time you go to press, don't comment on it. I have one more chance to win out, and it hangs in a balance that a feather's weight might tip the wrong way. I'll be with you between ten and twelve to-night, and you can safely save two columns of the morning paper for the sensation I'm going to give you."
It was in fulfilment of this promise that Kent bestirred himself after he had sent a wire to Ormsby, and M'Tosh had settled down to the task of smoothing Callahan's way westward over a division already twitching in the preliminary rigor of the strike convulsion.
"I am going to set the fuse for the newspaper explosion," he said to his ally. "Barring accidents, there is no reason why we shouldn't begin to figure definitely upon the result, is there?"
M'Tosh was leaning over Despatcher Donohue's shoulder. He had slipped Donohue's fingers aside from the key to cut in with a peremptory "G.S." order suspending, in favor of the fast mail, the rule which requires a station operator to drop his board on a following section that is less than ten minutes behind its file-leader.
"The fun is beginning," said the train-master. "Tischer has his tip from Durgan to keep Callahan's tail-lights in sight. With the mail treading on their heels the gentlemen in the Naught-seven will be chary about pulling Patsy down too suddenly in mid career. They have just passed Morning Dew, and the operator reports Tischer for disregarding his slow signal."
"Can't you fix that?" asked Kent.
"Oh, yes; that is one of the things I can fix. But there are going to be plenty of others."
"Still we must take something for granted, Mr. M'Tosh. What I have to do up-town won't wait until Callahan has finished his run. I thought the main difficulty was safely overcome."
"Umph!" said the train-master; "the troubles are barely getting themselves born. You must remember that we swapped horses at the last minute. We were ready for the race to the east. Everybody on the Prairie Division had been notified that a special was to go through to-night without stop from Lesterville to A. & T. Junction."
"Well?"
"Now we have it all to straighten out by wire on another division; meeting points to make, slow trains to side-track, fool operators to hold down; all on the dizzy edge of a strike that is making every man on the line lose his balance. But you go ahead with your newspaper business. I'll do what a man can here. And if you come across that right-of-way agent, I wish you'd make it a case of assault and battery and get him locked up. I'm leery about him."
Kent went his way dubiously reflective. In the moment of triumph, when Durgan had announced the success of the bold change in the programme, he had made light of Hawk's escape. But now he saw possibilities. True, the junto was leaderless for the moment, and Bucks had no very able lieutenants. But Hawk would give the alarm; and there was the rank and file of the machine to reckon with. And for weapons, the ring controlled the police power of the State and of the city. Let the word be passed that the employees of the Trans-Western were kidnapping their receiver and the governor, and many things might happen before "Red" Callahan should finish his long race to the westward.
Thinking of these things, David Kent walked up-town when he might have taken a car. When the toxin of panic is in the air there is no antidote like vigorous action.
Passing the Western Union central office, he stopped to send Ormsby a second telegram, reporting progress and asking him to be present in person at the dénouement to put the facts on the wire at the earliest possible instant of time. "Everything depends upon this," he added, when he had made the message otherwise emphatic. "If we miss the morning papers, we are done."
While he was pocketing his change at the receiving clerk's pigeon-hole, a cab rattled up with a horse at a gallop, and Stephen Hawk sprang out. Kent saw him through the plate-glass front and turned quickly to the public writing-desk, hoping to be overlooked. He was. For once in a way the ex-district attorney was too nearly rattled to be fully alert to his surroundings. There were others at the standing desk; and Hawk wrote his message, after two or three false starts, almost at Kent's elbow.
Kent heard the chink of coin and the low-spoken urgings for haste at the receiving clerk's window; but he forbore to move until the cab had rattled away. Then he gathered up the spoiled blanks left behind by Hawk and smoothed them out. Two of them bore nothing but the date line, made illegible, it would seem, by the writer's haste and nervousness. But at the third attempt Hawk had got as far as the address: "To All Trans-Western agents on Western Division."
Kent stepped quickly to the receiver's window. The only expedient he could think of was open to reproach, but it was no time to be over-scrupulous.
"Pardon me," he began, "but didn't the gentleman who was just here forget to sign his message?"
The little hook caught its minnow. The receiving clerk was folding Hawk's message to place it in the leather carrier of the pneumatic tube, but he opened and examined it.
"No," he said; "it's signed all right: 'J.B. Halkett, G.S.'"
"Ah!" said Kent. "That's a little odd. Mr. Halkett is out of town, and this gentleman, Mr. Hawk, is not in his department. I believe I should investigate a little before sending that, if I were you."
Having thus sown the small seed of suspicion, which, by the by, fell on barren soil, Kent lost no time in calling up M'Tosh over the nearest telephone.
"Do our agents on the Western Division handle Western Union business?" he asked.
The reply came promptly.
"Yes; locally. The W-U. has an independent line to Breezeland Inn and points beyond."
"Well, our right-of-way man has just sent a telegram to all agents, signing Halkett's name. I don't know what he said in it, but you can figure that out for yourself."
"You bet I can!" was the emphatic rejoinder. And then: "Where are you now?"
"I'm at the Clarendon public 'phone, but I am going over to the Argus office. I'll let you know when I leave there. Good-by."
When Kent reached the night editor's den on the third floor of the Argus building he found Hildreth immersed chin-deep in a sea of work. But he quickly extricated himself and cleared a chair for his visitor.
"Praise be!" he ejaculated. "I was beginning to get anxious. Large things are happening, and you didn't turn up. I've had Manville wiring all over town for you."
"What are some of the large things?" asked Kent, lighting his first cigar since dinner.
"Well, for one: do you know that your people are on the verge of the much-talked-of strike?"
"Yes; I knew it this morning. That was what I wanted you to suppress in the evening edition."
"I suppressed it all right; I didn't know it—day and date, I mean. They kept it beautifully quiet. But that isn't all. Something is happening at the capitol. I was over at the club a little while ago, and Hendricks was there. Somebody sent in a note, and he positively ran to get out. When I came back, I sent Rogers over to Cassatti's to see if he could find you. There was a junto dinner confab on; Meigs, Senator Crowley, three or four of the ring aldermen and half a dozen wa-ward politicians. Rogers has a nose for news, and when he had 'phoned me you weren't there, he hung around on the edges."
"Good men you have, Hildreth. What did the unimpeachable Rogers see?"
"He saw on a large scale just what I had seen on a small one: somebody pup-passed a note in, and when it had gone the round of the dinner-table those fellows tumbled over each other trying to get away."
"Is that all?" Kent inquired.
"No. Apart from his nose, Rogers is gifted with horse sense. When the dinner crowd boarded an up-town car, our man paid fare to the same conductor. He wired me from the Hotel Brunswick a few minutes ago. There is some sort of a caucus going on in Hendricks' office in the capitol, and mum-messengers are flying in all directions."
"And you wanted me to come and tell you all the whys and wherefores?" Kent suggested.
"I told the chief I'd bet a bub-blind horse to a broken-down mule you could do it if anybody could."
"All right; listen: something worse than an hour ago the governor, his private secretary, Guilford, Hawk and Halkett started out on a special train to go to Gaston."
"What for?" interrupted the editor.
"To meet Judge MacFarlane, Mr. Semple Falkland, and the Overland officials. You can guess what was to be done?"
"Sure. Your railroad was to be sold out, lock, stock and barrel; or leased to the Overland for ninety-nine years—which amounts to the same thing."
"Precisely. Well, by some unaccountable mishap the receiver's special was switched over to the Western Division at yard limits, and the engineer seems to think he has orders to proceed westward. At all events, that is what he is doing. And the funny part of it is that he can't stop to find out his blunder. The fast mail is right behind him, with the receiver's order to smash anything that gets in its way; so you see—"
"That will do," said the night editor. "We don't print fairy stories in the Argus."
"None the less, you are going to print this one to-morrow morning, just as I'm telling it to you," Kent asserted confidently. "And when you get the epilogue you will say that it makes my little preface wearisome by contrast."
The light was slowly dawning in the editorial mind.
"My heaven!" he exclaimed. "Kent, you're good for twenty years, at the very lul-least!"
"Am I? It occurs to me that the prosecuting attorney in the case will have a hard time proving anything. Doesn't it look that way to you? At the worst, it is only an unhappy misunderstanding of orders. And if the end should happen to justify the means——"
Hildreth shook his head gravely.
"You don't understand, David. If you could be sure of a fair-minded judge and an unbiased jury—you and those who are implicated with you: but you'll get neither in this machine-ridden State."
"We are going to have both, after you have filled your two columns—by the way, you are still saving those two columns for me, aren't you?—in to-morrow morning's Argus. Or rather, I'm hoping there will be no need for either judge or jury."
The night editor shook his head again, and once more he said, "My heaven!" adding: "What could you possibly hope to accomplish? You'll get the receiver and his big boss out of the State for a few minutes, or possibly for a few hours, if your strike makes them hunt up another railroad to return on. But what will it amount to? Getting rid of the receiver doesn't annul the decree of the court."
Kent fell back on his secretive habit yet once again.
"I don't care to anticipate the climax, Hildreth. By one o'clock one of two things will have happened: you'll get a wire that will make your back hair sit up, or I'll get one that will make me wish I'd never been born. Let it rest at that for the present; you have work enough on hand to fill up the interval, and if you haven't, you can distribute those affidavits I gave you among the compositors and get them into type. I want to see them in the paper to-morrow morning, along with the other news."
"Oh, we can't do that, David! The time isn't ripe. You know what I told you about—"
"If the time doesn't ripen to-night, Hildreth, it never will. Do as I tell you, and get that stuff into type. Do more; write the hottest editorial you can think of, demanding to know if it isn't time for the people to rise and clean out this stable once for all."
"By Jove! David, I've half a mum-mind to do it. If you'd only unbutton yourself a little, and let me see what my backing is going to be——"
"All in good season," laughed Kent. "Your business for the present moment is to write; I'm going down to the Union Station."
"What for?" demanded the editor.
"To see if our crazy engineer is still mistaking his orders properly."
"Hold on a minute. How did the enemy get wind of your plot so quickly? You can tell me that, can't you?"
"Oh, yes; I told you Hawk was one of the party in the private car. He fell off at the yard limits station and came back to town."
The night editor stood up and confronted his visitor.
"David, you are either the coolest plunger that ever drew breath—or the bub-biggest fool. I wouldn't be standing in your shoes to-night for two such railroads as the T-W."
Kent laughed again and opened the door.
"I suppose not. But you know there is no accounting for the difference in tastes. I feel as if I had never really lived before this night; the only thing that troubles me is the fear that somebody or something will get in the way of my demented engineer."
He went out into the hall, but as Hildreth was closing the door he turned back.
"There is one other thing that I meant to say: when you get your two columns of sensation, you've got to be decent and share with the Associated Press."
"I'm dud-dashed if I do!" said Hildreth, fiercely.
"Oh, yes, you will; just the bare facts, you know. You'll have all the exciting details for an 'exclusive,' to say nothing of the batch of affidavits in the oil scandal. And it is of the last importance to me that the facts shall be known to-morrow morning wherever the Associated has a wire."
"Go away!" said the editor, "and dud-don't come back here till you can uncork yourself like a man and a Cuc-Christian! Go off, I say!"
It wanted but a few minutes of eleven when Kent mounted the stair to the despatcher's room in the Union Station. He found M'Tosh sitting at Donohue's elbow, and the sounders on the glass-topped table were crackling like overladen wires in an electric storm.
"Strike talk," said the train-master. "Every man on both divisions wants to know what's doing. Got your newspaper string tied up all right?"
Kent made a sign of assent.
"We are waiting for Mr. Patrick Callahan. Any news from him?"
"Plenty of it. Patsy would have a story to tell, all right, if he could stop to put it on the wires. Durgan ought to have caught that blamed right-of-way man and chloroformed him."
"I found him messing, as I 'phoned you. Anything come of it?"
"Nothing fatal, I guess, since Patsy is still humping along. But Hawk's next biff was more to the purpose. He came down here with Halkett's chief clerk, whom he had hauled out of bed, and two policemen. The plan was to fire Donohue and me, and put Bicknell in charge. It might have worked if Bicknell'd had the sand. But he weakened at the last minute; admitted that he wasn't big enough to handle the despatcher's trick. The way Hawk cursed him out was a caution to sinners."
"When was this?" Kent asked.
"Just a few minutes ago. Hawk went off ripping; swore he would find somebody who wasn't afraid to take the wires. And, between us three, I'm scared stiff for fear he will."
"Can it be done?"
"Dead easy, if he knows how to go about it—and Bicknell will tell him. The Overland people don't love us any too well, and if they did, the lease deal would make them side with Guilford and the governor. If Hawk asks them to lend him a train despatcher for a few minutes, they'll do it."
"But the union?" Kent objected.
"They have three or four non-union men."
"Still, Hawk has no right to discharge you."
"Bicknell has. He is Halkett's representative, and——"
The door opened suddenly and Hawk danced in, followed by a man bareheaded and in his shirt-sleeves, the superintendent's chief clerk, and the two officers.
"Now, then, we'll trouble you and your man to get out of here, Mr. M'Tosh," said the captain of the junto forces, vindictively.
But the train-master was of those who die hard. He protested vigorously, addressing himself to Bicknell and ignoring the ex-district attorney as if he were not. He, McTosh, was willing to surrender the office on an official order in writing over the chief clerk's signature. But did Bicknell fully understand what it might mean in loss of life and property to put a new man on the wires at a moment's notice?
Bicknell would have weakened again, but Hawk was not to be frustrated a second time.
"Don't you see he is only sparring to gain time?" he snapped at Bicknell. Then to M'Tosh: "Get out of here, and do it quick! And you can go, too," wheeling suddenly upon Kent.
Donohue had taken no part in the conflict of authority. But now he threw down his pen and clicked his key to cut in with the "G.S.," which claims the wire instantly. Then distinctly, and a word at a time so that the slowest operator on the line could get it, he spelled out the message: "All Agents: Stop and hold all trains except first and second fast mail, west-bound. M'Tosh fired, and office in hands of police——"
"Stop him!" cried the shirt-sleeved man. "He's giving it away on the wire!"
But Donohue had signed his name and was putting on his coat.
"You're welcome to what you can find," he said, scowling at the interloper. "If you kill anybody now, it'll be your own fault."
"Arrest that man!" said Hawk to his policemen; but Kent interposed.
"If you do, the force will be two men shy to-morrow. The Civic League isn't dead yet." And he took down the numbers of the two officers.
There were no arrests made, and when the ousted three were clear of the room and the building, Kent asked an anxious question.
"How near can they come to smashing us, M'Tosh?"
"That depends on Callahan's nerve. The night operators at Donerail, Schofield and Agua Caliente are all Guilford appointees, and when the new man explains the situation to them, they'll do what they are told to do. But I'm thinking Patsy won't pull up for anything milder than a spiked switch."
"Well, they might throw a switch on him. I wonder somebody hasn't done it before this."
The train-master shook his head.
"If Tischer is keeping close up behind, that would jeopardize more lives than Callahan's. But there is another thing that doesn't depend on nerve—Patsy's or anybody's."
"What is that?"
"Water. The run is one hundred and eighty miles. The 1010's tank is good for one hundred with a train, or a possible hundred and sixty, light. There is about one chance in a thousand that Callahan's crown-sheet won't get red-hot and crumple up on him in the last twenty miles. Let's take a car and go down to yard limits. We can sit in the office and hear what goes over the wires, even if we can't get a finger in to help Patsy out of his troubles."
They boarded a Twentieth Avenue car accordingly, but when they reached the end of the line, which was just across the tracks from the junction in the lower yards, they found the yard limits office and the shops surrounded by a cordon of militia.
"By George!" said M'Tosh. "They got quick action, didn't they? I suppose it's on the ground of the strike and possible violence."
Kent spun on his heel, heading for the electric car they had just left.
"Back to town," he said; "unless you two want to jump the midnight Overland as it goes out and get away while you can. If Callahan fails——"
XXIX
THE RELENTLESS WHEELS
But Engineer Callahan had no notion of failing. When he had drawn the hammer on his superior officer, advising discretion and a seat on Jimmy Shovel's box, the 1010 was racking out over the switches in the Western Division yards. Three minutes later the electric beam of Tischer's following headlight sought and found the first section on the long tangent leading up to the high plains, and the race was in full swing.
At Morning Dew, the first night telegraph station out of the capital, the two sections were no more than a scant quarter of a mile apart; and the operator tried to flag the second section down, as reported. This did not happen again until several stations had been passed, and Callahan set his jaw and gave the 1010 more throttle. But at Lossing, a town of some size, the board was down and a man ran out at the crossing, swinging a red light.
Callahan looked well to the switches, with the steam shut off and his hand dropping instinctively to the air; and the superintendent shrank into his corner and gripped the window ledge when the special roared past the warning signals and on through the town beyond. He had maintained a dazed silence since the episode of the flourished hammer, but now he was moved to yell across the cab.
"I suppose you know what you're in for, if you live to get out of this! It's twenty years, in this State, to pass a danger signal!" This is not all that the superintendent said: there were forewords and interjections, emphatic but unprintable.
Callahan's reply was another flourish of the hammer, and a sudden outpulling of the throttle-bar; and the superintendent subsided again.
But enforced silence and the grindstone of conscious helplessness will sharpen the dullest wit. The swerving lurch of the 1010 around the next curve set Halkett clutching for hand-holds, and the injector lever fell within his grasp. What he did not know about the working parts of a modern locomotive was very considerable; but he did know that an injector, half opened, will waste water as fast as an inch pipe will discharge it. And without water the Irishman would have to stop.
Callahan heard the chuckling of the wasting boiler feed before he had gone a mile beyond the curve. It was a discovery to excuse bad language, but his protest was lamb-like.
"No more av that, if ye plaze, Misther Halkett, or me an' Jimmy Shovel'll have to—Ah! would yez, now?"
Before his promotion to the superintendency Halkett had been a ward boss in the metropolis of the State. Thinking he saw his chance, he took it, and the blow knocked Callahan silly for the moment. Afterward there was a small free-for-all buffeting match in the narrow cab in which the fireman took a hand, and during which the racing 1010 was suffered to find her way alone. When it was over, Callahan spat out a broken tooth and gave his orders concisely.
"Up wid him over the coal, an' we'll put him back in the car where he belongs. Now, thin!"
Halkett had to go, and he went, not altogether unwillingly. And when it came to jumping across from the rear of the tender to the forward vestibule of the Naught-seven, or being chucked across, he jumped.
Now it so chanced that the governor and his first lieutenant in the great railway steal had weighty matters to discuss, and they had not missed the superintendent or the lawyer, supposing them to be still out on the rear platform enjoying the scenery. Wherefore Halkett's sudden appearance, mauled, begrimed and breathless from his late tussle with the two enginemen, was the first intimation of wrong-going that had penetrated to the inner sanctum of the private car.
"What's that you say, Mr. Halkett?—on the Western Division? Whereabouts?" demanded the governor.
"Between Lossing and Skipjack siding—if we haven't passed the siding in the last two or three minutes. I've been too busy to notice," was the reply.
"And you say you were on the engine? Why the devil didn't you call your man down?"
"I knocked him down," gritted the superintendent, savagely, "and I'd have beat his face in for him if there hadn't been two of them. It's a plot of some kind, and Callahan knows what he is about. He had me held up with a hammer till just a few minutes ago, and he's running past stop-signals and over red lights like a madman!"
Bucks and Guilford exchanged convictions by the road of the eye, and the governor said:
"This is pretty serious, Major. Have you anything to suggest?" And without waiting for a reply he turned upon Halkett: "Where is Mr. Hawk?"
"I don't know. I supposed he was in here with you. Or maybe he's out on the rear platform."
The three of them went to the rear, passing the private secretary comfortably asleep in his wicker chair. When they stepped out upon the recessed observation platform they found it empty.
"He must have suspected something and dropped off in the yard or at the shops," said Halkett. And at the saying of it he shrank back involuntarily and added: "Ah! Look at that, will you?"
The car had just thundered past another station, and Callahan had underrun one more stop-signal at full speed. At the same instant Tischer's headlight swung into view, half blinding them with its glare.
"What is that following us?" asked Bucks.
"It's the fast mail," said Halkett.
Guilford turned livid and caught at the hand-rail.
"S-s-say—are you sure of that?" he gasped.
"Of course: it was an hour and thirty-five minutes late, and we are on its time."
"Then we can't stop unless somebody throws us on a siding!" quavered the receiver, who had a small spirit in a large body. "I told M'Tosh to give the mail orders to make up her lost time or I'd fire the engineer—told him to cut out all the stops this side of Agua Caliente!"
"That's what you get for your infernal meddling!" snapped Halkett. In catastrophic moments many barriers go down; deference to superior officers among the earliest.
But the master spirit of the junto was still cool and collected.
"This is no time to quarrel," he said. "The thing to be done is to stop this train without getting ourselves ripped open by that fellow behind the headlight yonder. The stop-signals prove that Hawk and the others are doing their best, but we must do ours. What do you say, Halkett?"
"There is only one thing," replied the superintendent; "we've got to make the Irishman run ahead fast enough and far enough to give us room to stop or take a siding."
The governor planned it in a few curt sentences. Was there a weapon to be had? Danforth, the private secretary, roused from his nap in the wicker chair, was able to produce a serviceable revolver. Two minutes later, the sleep still tingling in his nerves to augment another tingling less pleasurable, the secretary had spanned the terrible gap separating the car from the engine and was making his way over the coal, fluttering his handkerchief in token of his peaceful intentions.
He was charged with a message to Callahan, mandatory in its first form, and bribe-promising in its second; and he was covered from the forward vestibule of the private car by the revolver in the hands of a resolute and determined state executive.
"One of them's comin' ahead over the coal," warned James Shovel; and Callahan found his hammer.
"Run ahead an' take a siding, is ut?" he shouted, glaring down on the messenger. "I have me ordhers fr'm betther men than thim that sint you. Go back an' tell thim so."
"You'll be paid if you do, and you'll be shot if you don't," yelled the secretary, persuasively.
"Tell the boss he can't shoot two av us to wanst; an' the wan that's left'll slap on the air," was Callahan's answer; and he slacked off a little to bring the following train within easy striking distance.
Danforth went painfully and carefully back with this defiance, and while he was bridging the nerve-trying gap, another station with the stop-board down and red lights frantically swinging was passed with a roar and a whistle shriek.
"Fwhat are they doing now?" called Callahan to his fireman.
"They've gone inside again," was the reply.
"Go back an' thry the tank," was the command; and Jimmy Shovel climbed over the coal and let himself down feet foremost into the manhole. When he slid back to the footplate his legs were wet to the mid shin.
"It's only up to there," he reported, measuring with his hand.
Callahan looked at his watch. There was yet a full hour's run ahead of him, and there was no more than a scant foot of water in the tank with which to make it.
Thereafter he forgot the Naught-seven, and whatever menace it held for him, and was concerned chiefly with the thing mechanical. Would the water last him through? He had once made one hundred and seventy miles on a special run with the 1010 without refilling his tank; but that was with the light engine alone. Now he had the private car behind him, and it seemed at times to pull with all the drag of a heavy train.
But one expedient remained, and that carried with it the risk of his life. An engine, not overburdened, uses less water proportionately to miles run as the speed is increased. He could outpace the safe-guarding mail, save water—and take the chance of being shot in the back from the forward vestibule of the Naught-seven when he had gained lead enough to make a main-line stop safe for the men behind him.
Callahan thought once of the child mothered by the Sisters of Loretto in the convent at the capital, shut his eyes to that and to all things extraneous, and sent the 1010 about her business. At the first reversed curve he hung out of his window for a backward look. Tischer's headlight had disappeared and his protection was gone.
On the rear platform of the private car four men watched the threatening second section fade into the night.
"Our man has thought better of it," said the governor, marking the increased speed and the disappearance of the menacing headlight.
Guilford's sigh of relief was almost a groan.
"My God!" he said; "it makes me cold to think what might happen if he should pull us over into the other State!"
But Halkett was still smarting from the indignities put upon him, and his comment was a vindictive threat.
"I'll send that damned Irishman over the road for this, if it is the last thing I ever do!" he declared; and he confirmed it with an oath.
But Callahan was getting his punishment as he went along. He had scarcely settled the 1010 into her gait for the final run against the failing water supply when another station came in sight. It was a small cattle town, and in addition to the swinging red lights and a huge bonfire to illuminate the yards, the obstructionists had torn down the loading corral and were piling the lumber on the track.
Once again Callahan's nerve flickered, and he shut off the steam. But before it was too late he reflected that the barrier was meant only to scare him into stopping. One minute later the air was full of flying splinters, and that danger was passed. But one of the broken planks came through the cab window, missing the engineer by no more than a hand's-breadth. And the shower of splinters, sucked in by the whirl of the train, broke glass in the private car and sprinkled the quartet on the platform with split kindling and wreckage.
"What was that?" gasped the receiver.
Halkett pointed to the bonfire, receding like a fading star in the rearward distance.
"Our friends are beginning to throw stones, since clods won't stop him." he said.
Bucks shook his head.
"If that is the case, we'll have to be doing something on our own account. The next obstruction may derail us."
Halkett stepped into the car and pulled the cord of the automatic air.
"No good," he muttered. "The Irishman bled our tank before he started. Help me set the hand brakes, a couple of you."
Danforth and the governor took hold of the brake wheel with him, and for a minute or two the terrible speed slackened a little. Then some part of the disused hand-gear gave way under the three-man strain and that hope was gone.
"There's one thing left," said the superintendent, indomitable to the last. "We'll uncouple and let him drop us behind."
The space in the forward vestibule was narrow and cramped, and with the strain of the dragging car to make the pin stick, it took two of them lying flat, waiting for the back-surging moment and wiggling it for slack, to pull it. The coupling dropped out of the hook and the engine shot ahead to the length of the safety-chains; thus far, but no farther.
Halkett stood up.
"It's up to you, Danforth," he said, raising his voice to be heard above the pounding roar of the wheels. "You're the youngest and lightest: get down on the 1010's brake-beam and unhook those chains."
The secretary looked once into the trap with the dodging jaws and the backward-flying bottom and declined the honor.
"I can't get down there," he cried. "And I shouldn't know what to do if I could."
Once more the superintendent exhibited his nerve. He had nothing at stake save a desire to defeat Callahan; but he had the persistent courage of the bull-terrier. With Bucks and the secretary to steady him he lowered himself in the gap till he could stand upon the brake-beam of the 1010's tender and grope with one free hand for the hook of the nearest safety-chain. Death nipped at him every time the engine gave or took up the slack of the loose coupling, but he dodged and hung on until he had satisfied himself.
"It's no good," he announced, when they had dragged him by main strength back to a footing in the narrow vestibule. "The hooks are bent into the links. We're due to go wherever that damned Irishman is taking us."
Shovel was firing, and the trailing smoke and cinders quickly made the forward vestibule untenable. When they were driven in, Bucks and the receiver went through to the rear platform, where they were presently joined by Halkett and Danforth.
"I've been trying the air again," said the superintendent, "but it's no go. What's next?"
The governor gave the word.
"Wait," he said; and the four of them clung to the hand-rails, swaying and bending to the bounding lurches of the flying car.
Mile after mile reels from beneath the relentless wheels, and still the speed increases. Station Donerail is passed, and now the pace is so furious that the watchers on the railed platform can not make out the signals in the volleying wake of dust. Station Schofield is passed, and again the signals, if any there be, are swiftly drowned in the gray dust-smother. From Schofield to Agua Caliente is but a scant ten miles; and as the flying train rushes on toward the State boundary, two faces in the quartet of watchers show tense and drawn under the yellow light of the Pintsch platform lamp.
The governor swings himself unsteadily to the right-hand railing and the long look ahead brings the twinkling arc-star of the tower light on Breezeland Inn into view. He turns to Guilford, who has fallen limp into one of the platform chairs.
"In five minutes more we shall pass Agua Caliente," he says. "Will you kill the Irishman, or shall I?" Guilford's lips move, but there is no audible reply; and Bucks takes Danforth's weapon and passes quickly and alone to the forward vestibule.
The station of Agua Caliente swings into the field of 1010's electric headlight. Callahan's tank has been bone dry for twenty minutes, and he is watching the glass water-gage where the water shows now only when the engine lurches heavily to the left. He knows that the crown-sheet of the fire-box is bare, and that any moment it may give down and the end will come. Yet his gauntleted hand never falls from the throttle-bar to the air-cock, and his eyes never leave the bubble appearing and disappearing at longer intervals in the heel of the water-glass.
Shovel has stopped firing, and is hanging out of his window for the straining look ahead. Suddenly he drops to the footplate to grip Callahan's arm.
"See!" he says. "They have set the switch to throw us in on the siding!" In one motion the flutter of the exhaust ceases, and the huge ten-wheeler buckles to the sudden setting of the brakes. The man standing in the forward vestibule of the Naught-seven lowers his weapon. Apparently it is not going to be necessary to kill the engineer, after all.
But Callahan's nerve has failed him only for the moment. There is one chance in ten thousand that the circumambulating side track is empty; one and one only, and no way to make sure of it. Beyond the station, as Callahan well knows, the siding comes again into the main line, and the switch is a straight-rail "safety." Once again the thought of his motherless child flickers into the engineer's brain; then he releases the air and throws his weight backward upon the throttle-bar. Two gasps and a heart-beat decide it; and before the man in the vestibule can level his weapon and fire, the one-car train has shot around the station, heaving and lurching over the uneven rails of the siding, and grinding shrilly over the points of the safety switch to race on the down grade to Megilp.
At the mining-camp the station is in darkness save for the goggle eyes of an automobile drawn up beside the platform, and deep silence reigns but for the muffled, irregular thud of the auto-car's motor. But the beam of the 1010's headlight shows the small station building massed by men, a score of them poising for a spring to the platforms of the private car when the slackening speed shall permit. A bullet tears into the woodwork at Callahan's elbow, and another breaks the glass of the window beside him, but he makes the stop as steadily as if death were not snapping at him from behind and roaring in his ears from the belly of the burned engine.
"Be doomping yer fire lively, now, Jimmy, b'y," he says, dropping from his box to help. And while they wrestle with the dumping-bar, these two, the poising figures have swarmed upon the Naught-seven, and a voice is lifted above the Babel of others in sharp protest.
"Put away that rope, boys! There's law here, and by God, we're going to maintain it!"
At this a man pushes his way out of the thick of the crowd and climbs to a seat beside the chauffeur in the waiting automobile.
"They've got him," he says shortly. "To the hotel for all you're worth, Hudgins; our part is to get this on the wires before one o'clock. Full speed; and never mind the ruts."