When the celebrated Rocky Mountain gold excitement broke out, more than twenty years ago, and people painted “Pike's Peak or Bust” on the canvas covers of their wagons and started for the diggings, they established a “trail” or “trace” leading in a southwesterly direction from the old one to California.
At a certain point on this trail a frontiersman named Barker built a forlorn ranch-house and corral, and offered what is conventionally called “entertainment for man and beast.”
For years he lived there, dividing his time between fighting the Indians and feeding the passing emigrants and their stock. Then the first railroad to Denver was built, taking another route from the Missouri, and Barker's occupation was gone. He retired with his gains to St. Louis and lived in comfort.
Years passed on, and the “extension” over which our train is to pass was planned. The old pioneers were excellent natural engineers and their successors could find no better route than they had chosen. Thus it was that “Barker's” became, during the construction period, an important point, and the frontiersman's name came to figure on time-tables. Meanwhile the place passed through a process of evolution which would have delighted Darwin. In the party of engineers which first camped there was Sinclair, and it was by his advice that the contractors selected it for division headquarters. Then came drinking “saloons” and gambling houses—alike the inevitable concomitant and the bane of Western settlements; then scattered houses and shops and a shabby so-called hotel, in which the letting of miserable rooms (divided from each other by canvas partitions) was wholly subordinated to the business of the bar. Before long, Barker's had acquired a worse reputation than even other towns of its type, the abnormal and uncanny aggregations of squalor and vice which dotted the plains in those days; and it was at its worst when Sinclair returned thither and took up his quarters in the engineers' building. The passion for gambling was raging, and to pander thereto were collected as choice a lot of desperadoes as ever “stacked” cards or loaded dice. It came to be noticed that they were on excellent terms with a man called “Jeff” Johnson, who was lessee of the hotel; and to be suspected that said Johnson, in local parlance, “stood in with” them. With this man had come to Barker's his daughter Sarah, commonly known as “Sally,” a handsome girl, with a straight, lithe figure, fine features, reddish auburn hair, and dark-blue eyes. It is but fair to say that even the “toughs” of a place like Barker's show some respect for the other sex, and Miss Sally's case was no exception to the rule. The male population admired her; they said she “put on heaps of style”; but none of them had seemed to make any progress in her good graces.
On a pleasant afternoon just after the track had been laid some miles west of Barker's, and construction trains were running with some regularity to and from the end thereof, Sinclair sat on the rude veranda of the engineers' quarters, smoking his well-colored meerschaum and looking at the sunset. The atmosphere had been so clear during the day that glimpses were had of Long's and Pike's peaks, and as the young engineer gazed at the gorgeous cloud display he was thinking of the miners' quaint and pathetic idea that the dead “go over the Range.”
“Nice-looking, ain't it, Major?” asked a voice at his elbow, and he turned to see one of the contractors' officials taking a seat near him.
“More than nice-looking to my mind, Sam,” he replied. “What is the news to-day?”
“Nothin' much. There's a sight of talk about the doin's of them faro an' keno sharps. The boys is gettin' kind o' riled, fur they allow the game ain't on the square wuth a cent. Some of 'em down to the tie-camp wuz a-talkin' about a vigilance committee, an' I wouldn't be surprised ef they meant business. Hev yer heard about the young feller that come in a week ago from Laramie an' set up a new faro-bank?”
“No. What about him?”
“Wa'al, yer see he's a feller thet's got a lot of sand an' ain't afeard of nobody, an' he's allowed to hev the deal to his place on the square every time. Accordin' to my idee, gamblin's about the wust racket a feller kin work, but it takes all sorts of men to make a world, an' ef the boys is bound to hev a game, I calkilate they'd like to patronize his bank. Thet's made the old crowd mighty mad an' they're a-talkin' about puttin' up a job of cheatin' on him an' then stringin' him up. Besides, I kind o' think there's some cussed jealousy on another lay as comes in. Yer see the young feller—Cyrus Foster's his name—is sweet on thet gal of Jeff Johnson's. Jeff was to Laramie before he come here, an' Foster knowed Sally up thar. I allow he moved here to see her. Hello! Ef thar they ain't a-coming now.”
Down a path leading from the town past the railroad buildings, and well on the prairie, Sinclair saw the girl walking with the “young feller.” He was talking earnestly to her and her eyes were cast down. She looked pretty and, in a way, graceful; and there was in her attire a noticeable attempt at neatness, and a faint reminiscence of bygone fashions. A smile came to Sinclair's lips as he thought of a couple walking up Fifth Avenue during his leave of absence not many months before, and of a letter many times read, lying at that moment in his breast-pocket.
“Papa's bark is worse than his bite,” ran one of its sentences. “Of course he does not like the idea of my leaving him and going away to such dreadful and remote places as Denver and Omaha and I don't know what else; but he will not oppose me in the end, and when you come on again—”
“By thunder!” exclaimed Sam; “ef thar ain't one of them cussed sharps a-watchin' 'em.”
Sure enough a rough-looking fellow, his hat pulled over his eyes, half concealed behind a pile of lumber, was casting a sinister glance toward the pair.
“The gal's well enough,” continued Sam; “but I don't take a cent's wuth of stock in thet thar father of her'n. He's in with them sharps, sure pop, an' it don't suit his book to hev Foster hangin' round. It's ten to one he sent that cuss to watch 'em, Wa'al, they're a queer lot, an' I'm afeared thar's plenty of trouble ahead among 'em. Good luck to you, Major,” and, he pushed back his chair and walked away.
After breakfast next morning, when Sinclair was sitting at the table in his office, busy with maps and plans, the door was thrown open, and Foster, panting for breath, ran in.
“Major Sinclair,” he said, speaking with difficulty, “I've no claim on you, but I ask you to protect me. The other gamblers are going to hang me. They are more than ten to one. They will track me here; unless you harbor me, I'm a dead man.”
Sinclair rose from his chair in a second and walked to the window. A party of men were approaching the building. He turned to Foster:
“I do not like your trade,” said he; “but I will not see you murdered if I can help it. You are welcome here.” Foster said “Thank you,” stood still a moment, and then began to pace the room, rapidly clinching his hands, his whole frame quivering, his eyes flashing fire—“for all the world,” Sinclair said, in telling the story afterward, “like a fierce caged tiger.”
“My God!” he muttered, with concentrated intensity, “to be trapped, trapped like this!”
Sinclair stepped quickly to the door of his bedroom and motioned Foster to enter. Then there came a knock at the outer door, and he opened it and stood on the threshold erect and firm. Half a dozen “toughs” faced him.
“Major,” said their spokesman, “we want that man.
“You can not have him, boys.”
“Major, we're a-goin' to take him.”
“You had better not try,” said Sinclair, with perfect ease and self-possession, and in a pleasant voice. “I have given him shelter, and you can only get him over my dead body. Of course you can kill me, but you won't do even that without one or two of you going down; and then you know perfectly well, boys, what will happen. You know that if you lay your finger on a railroad man it's all up with you. There are five hundred men in the tie-camp, not five miles away, and you don't need to be told that in less than one hour after they get word there won't be a piece of one of you big enough to bury.”
The men made no reply. They looked him straight in the eyes for a moment. Had they seen a sign of flinching they might have risked the issue, but there was none. With muttered curses, they slunk away. Sinclair shut and bolted the door, then opened the one leading to the bedroom.
“Foster,” he said, “the train will pass here in half an hour. Have you money enough?”
“Plenty, Major.”
“Very well; keep perfectly quiet and I will try to get you safely off.” He went to an adjoining room and called Sam, the contractor's man. He took in the situation at a glance.
“Wa'al Foster,” said he, “kind o' 'close call' for yer, warn't it? Guess yer'd better be gittin' up an' gittin' pretty lively. The train boys will take yer through an' yer kin come back when this racket's worked out.”
Sinclair glanced at his watch, then he walked to the window and looked out. On a small mesa, or elevated plateau, commanding the path to the railroad, he saw a number of men with rifles.
“Just as I expected,” said he. “Sam, ask one of the boys to go down to the track and, when the train arrives, tell the conductor to come here.”
In a few minutes the whistle was heard and the conductor entered the building. Receiving his instructions, he returned, and immediately on engine, tender, and platform appeared the trainmen, with their rifles covering the group on the bluff. Sinclair put on his hat.
“Now, Foster,” said he, “we have no time to lose. Take Sam's arm and mine, and walk between us.”
The trio left the building and walked deliberately to the railroad. Not a word was spoken. Besides the men in sight on the train, two behind the window-blinds of the one passenger coach, and imseen, kept their fingers on the triggers of their repeating carbines. It seemed a long time, counted by anxious seconds, until Foster was safe in the coach.
“All ready, conductor,” said Sinclair. “Now, Foster, good-by. I am not good at lecturing, but if I were you, I would make this the turning-point in my life.”
Foster was much moved.
“I will do it, Major,” said he; “and I shall never forget what you have done for me to-day. I am sure we shall meet again.”
With another shriek from the whistle the train started. Sinclair and Sam saw the men quietly returning the firearms to their places as it gathered way. Then they walked back to their quarters. The men on the mesa, balked of their purpose, had withdrawn.
Sam accompanied Sinclair to his door, and then sententiously remarked: “Major, I think I'll light out and find some of the boys. You ain't got no call to know anything about it, but I allow it's about time them cusses was bounced.”
Three nights after this, a powerful party of Vigilantes, stern and inexorable, made a raid on all the gambling dens, broke the tables and apparatus, and conducted the men to a distance from the town, where they left them with an emphatic and concise warning as to the consequences of any attempt to return. An exception was made in Jeff Johnson's cases—but only for the sake of his daughter—for it was found that many a “little game” had been carried on in his house.
Ere long he found it convenient to sell his business and retire to a town some miles to the eastward, where the railroad influence was not as strong as at Barker's. At about this time, Sinclair made his arrangements to go to New York, with the pleasant prospect of marrying the young lady in Fifth Avenue. In due time he arrived at Barker's with his young and charming wife and remained for some days. The changes were astounding. Commonplace respectability had replaced abnormal lawlessness. A neat station stood where had been the rough contractor's buildings. At a new “Windsor” (or was it “Brunswick”?) the performance of the kitchen contrasted sadly (alas! how common is such contrast in these regions) with the promise of the menu. There was a tawdry theatre yclept “Academy of Music,” and there was not much to choose in the way of ugliness between two “meeting-houses.”
“Upon my word, my dear,” said Sinclair to his wife, “I ought to be ashamed to say it, but I prefer Barker's au naturel.”
One evening, just before the young people left the town, and as Mrs. Sinclair sat alone in her room, the frowsy waitress announced “a lady,” and was requested to bid her enter. A woman came with timid mien into the room, sat down, as invited, and removed her veil. Of course the young bride had never known Sally Johnson, the whilom belle of Barker's, but her husband would have noticed at a glance how greatly she was changed from the girl who walked with Foster past the engineers' quarters. It would be hard to find a more striking contrast than was presented by the two women as they sat facing each other: the one in the flush of health and beauty, calm, sweet, self-possessed; the other still retaining some of the shabby finery of old days, but pale and haggard, with black rings under her eyes, and a pathetic air of humiliation.
“Mrs. Sinclair,” she hurriedly began, “you do not know me, nor the like of me. I've got no right to speak to you, but I couldn't help it. Oh! please believe me, I am not real downright bad. I'm Sally Johnson, daughter of a man whom they drove out of the town. My mother died when I was little, and I never had a show; and folks think because I live with my father, and he makes me know the crowd he travels with, that I must be in with them, and be of their sort. I never had a woman speak a kind word to me, and I've had so much trouble that I'm just drove wild, and like to kill myself; and then I was at the station when you came in, and I saw your sweet face and the kind look in your eyes, and it came in my heart that I'd speak to you if I died for it.” She leaned eagerly forward, her hands nervously closing on the back of a chair. “I suppose your husband never told you of me; like enough he never knew me; but I'll never forget him as long as I live. When he was here before, there was a young man”—here a faint color came in the wan cheeks—“who was fond of me, and I thought the world of him, and my father was down on him, and the men that father was in with wanted to kill him; and Mr. Sinclair saved his life. He's gone away, and I've waited and waited for him to come back—and perhaps I'll never see him again. But oh! dear lady, I'll never forget what your husband did. He's a good man, and he deserves the love of a dear good woman like you, and if I dared I'd pray for you both, night and day.”
She stopped suddenly and sank back in her seat, pale as before, and as if frightened by her own emotion. Mrs. Sinclair had listened with sympathy and increasing interest.
“My poor girl,” she said, speaking tenderly (she had a lovely, soft voice) and with slightly heightened color, “I am delighted that you came to see me, and that my husband was able to help you. Tell me, can we not do more for you? I do not for one moment believe you can be happy with your present surroundings. Can we not assist you to leave them?”
The girl rose, sadly shaking her head. “I thank you for your words,” she said. “I don't suppose I'll ever see you again, but I'll say, God bless you!”
She caught Mrs. Sinclair's hand, pressed it to her lips, and was gone.
Sinclair found his wife very thoughtful when he came home, and he listened with much interest to her story.
“Poor girl!” said he; “Foster is the man to help her. I wonder where he is? I must inquire about him.”
The next day they proceeded on their way to San Francisco, and matters drifted on at Barker's much as before. Johnson had, after an absence of some months, come back and lived without molestation amid the shifting population. Now and then, too, some of the older residents fancied they recognized, under slouched sombreros, the faces of some of his former “crowd” about the “Ranchman's Home,” as his gaudy saloon was called.
Late on the very evening on which this story opens, and they had been “making up” the Denver Express in the train-house on the Missouri, “Jim” Watkins, agent and telegrapher at Barker's, was sitting in his little office, communicating with the station rooms by the ticket window. Jim was a cool, silent, efficient man, and not much given to talk about such episodes in his past life as the “wiping out” by Indians of the construction party to which he belonged, and his own rescue by the scouts. He was smoking an old and favorite pipe, and talking with one of “the boys” whose head appeared at the wicket. On a seat in the station sat a woman in a black dress and veil, apparently waiting for a train.
“Got a heap of letters and telegrams there, ain't yer, Jim?” remarked the man at the window.
“Yes,” replied Jim; “they're for Engineer Sinclair, to be delivered to him when he passes through here. He left on No. 17, to-night.” The inquirer did not notice the sharp start of the woman near him.
“Is that good-lookin' wife of his'n a-comin' with him?” asked he.
“Yes, there's letters for her, too.”
“Well, good-night, Jim. See yer later,” and he went out. The woman suddenly rose and ran to the window.
“Mr. Watkins,” cried she, “can I see you for a few moments where no one can interrupt us? It's a matter of life and death.” She clutched the sill with her thin hands, and her voice trembled. Watkins recognized Sally Johnson in a moment. He unbolted a door, motioned her to enter, closed and again bolted it, and also closed the ticket window. Then he pointed to a chair, and the girl sat down and leaned eagerly forward.
“If they knew I was here,” she said in a hoarse whisper, “my life wouldn't be safe five minutes. I was waiting to tell you a terrible story, and then I heard who was on the train due here tomorrow night. Mr. Watkins, don't, for God's sake, ask me how I found out, but I hope to die if I ain't telling you the living truth! They're going to wreck that train—No. 17—at Dead Man's Crossing, fifteen miles east, and rob the passengers and the express car. It's the worst gang in the country, Perry's. They're going to throw the train off the track, the passengers will be maimed and killed—and Mr. Sinclair and his wife on the cars! Oh! my God! Mr. Watkins, send them warning!”
She stood upright, her face deadly pale, her hands clasped. Watkins walked deliberately to the railroad map which hung on the wall and scanned it. Then he resumed his seat, laid his pipe down, fixed his eyes on the girl's face, and began to question her. At the same time his right hand, with which he had held the pipe, found its way to the telegraph key. None but an expert could have distinguished any change in the clicking of the instrument, which had been almost incessant; but Watkins had “called” the head office on the Missouri. In two minutes the “sounder” rattled out “ All right! What is it? ”
Watkins went on with his questions, his eyes still fixed on the poor girl's face, and all the time his fingers, as it were, playing with the key. If he were imperturbable, so was not a man sitting at a receiving instrument nearly five hundred miles away. He had “taken” but a few words when he jumped from his chair and cried:
“Shut that door, and call the superintendent and be quick! Charley, brace up—lively—and come and write this out!” With his wonderful electric pen, the handle several hundreds of miles long, Watkins, unknown to his interlocutor, was printing in the Morse alphabet this startling message:
“Inform'n rec'd. Perry gang going to throw No. 17 off track near —xth mile-post, this division, about nine to-morrow (Thursday) night, kill passengers, and rob express and mail. Am alone here. No chance to verify story, but believe it to be on square. Better make arrangements from your end to block game. No Sheriff here now. Answer.”
The superintendent, responding to the hasty summons, heard the message before the clerk had time to write it out. His lips were closely compressed as he put his own hand on the key and sent these laconic sentences: “ O. K. Keep perfectly dark. Will manage from this end.”
Watkins, at Barker's, rose from his seat, opened the door a little way, saw that the station was empty, and then said to the girl, brusquely, but kindly:
“Sally, you've done the square thing, and saved that train. I'll take care that you don't suffer and that you get well paid. Now come home with me, and my wife will look out for you.”
“Oh! no,” cried the girl, shrinking back, “I must run away. You're mighty kind, but I daren't go with you.” Detecting a shade of doubt in his eye, she added: “Don't be afeared; I'll die before they'll know I've given them away to you!” and she disappeared in the darkness.
At the other end of the wire, the superintendent had quietly impressed secrecy on his operator and clerk, ordered his fast mare harnessed, and gone to his private office.
“Read that!” said he to his secretary. “It was about time for some trouble of this kind, and now I'm going to let Uncle Sam take care of his mails. If I don't get to the reservation before the General's turned in, I shall have to wake him up. Wait for me, please.”
The gray mare made the six miles to the military reservation in just half an hour. The General was smoking his last cigar, and was alert in an instant; and before the superintendent had finished the jorum of “hot Scotch” hospitably tendered, the orders had gone by wire to the commanding officer at Fort ———, some distance east of Barker's, and been duly acknowledged.
Returning to the station, the superintendent remarked to the waiting secretary:
“The General's all right. Of course we can't tell that this is not a sell; but if those Perry hounds mean business they'll get all the fight they want—and if they've got any souls—which I doubt—may the Lord have mercy on them!”
He prepared several despatches, two of which were as follows:
Mr. Henry Sinclair: “On No. 17, Pawnee Junction: This telegram your authority to take charge of train on which you are, and demand obedience of all officials and trainmen on road. Please do so, and act in accordance with information wired station agent at Pawnee Junction.” To the Station Agent: “Reported Perry gang will try wreck and rob No. 17 near —xth mile-post, Denver Division, about nine Thursday night. Troops will await train at Fort ——. Car ordered ready for them. Keep everything secret, and act in accordance with orders of Mr. Sinclair.”
“It's worth about ten thousand dollars,” sententiously remarked he, “that Sinclair's on that train. He's got both sand and brains. Goodnight,” and he went to bed and slept the sleep of the just.