The Trail of Conflict Part 27

"I get you. Where is Gr--where is the man who flagged the train?"

Nelson turned with his hand on the door-k.n.o.b.

"In the car back locked into a compartment with an armed guard before it. He wanted to talk but I wasn't taking chances with any middle-aged Lochinvar until after we'd pa.s.sed the Hold-up. Got the woman in the case locked up, haven't you?"

"Yes, she----" Courtlandt cut off the explanation he was about to offer.

Why enlighten Nelson? If he could keep Jerry's name out of the mix-up, so much the better. Greyson wouldn't be likely to talk.

"All right, see that she doesn't break loose. A girl who would flivver along a railroad track would have to be roped and tied to keep her out of a wild party like this or I miss my guess."

Steve looked unseeingly at the door as it closed behind Nelson. He was right; it would be like Jerry to get into the mix-up. He would stop at her compartment as he went forward and make sure that she was there. He unfastened the holster from his belt and flung it to the desk. With a slight bulge in the region of the hip pocket of his riding breeches he left the office. At the door of the compartment in which he had left Jerry he knocked.

There was no answer. He tapped again and listened. There was no sound inside save the creaking of woodwork and springs as the car swayed with the grinding of wheels. Courtlandt whitened. Could she have left her room? With quick impatience he opened the door and stepped inside. In his surprise he slammed it behind him. Jerry, rolled in a blanket, lay in the bunk asleep.

Even the noise he had made did not rouse her. Evidently the maid had taken her clothing to dry it, for she was blanketed like a mummy from her feet to her dimpled chin. Courtlandt crossed the narrow s.p.a.ce between them and looked down upon her. Her hair was spread over the pillow to dry, her dark lashes lay like fringes, the one cheek visible had a long red scratch, a bare foot hung over the edge of the bunk. Her sleep was so profound that she barely breathed.

Why was she so exhausted, Steve wondered anxiously. In a flash he remembered. She had been up all the night before with Mrs. Carey. Was it only last night that he had taken her to the B C ranch? It seemed weeks ago. No wonder that she was tired; she couldn't have had much sleep in the last forty-eight hours. What did the bruise mean? He leaned over her and touched it lightly. It was not a recent scratch. Very gently he raised the pink foot which swayed with every motion of the car and covered it with the blanket. He looked down upon the girl for a moment.

With jaw set and the veins in his temples standing out like cords he went out and closed the door behind him.

The train barely crawled as Courtlandt swung from the step of the coach to the ground. His eyes were strained; there was a white line about his lips as he pulled himself up into the gangway between tender and engine.

The storm had rolled east-ward. Above the distant mountains a broad and yellow moon played at hide-and-seek with fleecy remnants of cloud. Stars appeared dimly, reconnoitered for a moment, then shone with steady brilliancy. Nelson, seated on a tool-box in the cab, rolled a cigarette with slightly unsteady fingers. The engineer had his head out of the window; his a.s.sistant was tinkering a bit of balky machinery. Nelson looked up as Courtlandt appeared.

"Did you come out to see the wheels go round Steve? I'd rather ride here than anywhere else myself. What the devil! What's to pay now, Hawks?" as the engineer ground on the brakes.

"Boulder on the track," rumbled the sooty man. He turned white under the soot as his eyes crossed in a futile endeavor to look along the s.h.i.+ny blue nose of an automatic in the hand of his grimy a.s.sistant.

"Hands up, all of you! Come over here, Hawks. You gentlemen can talk to me while my friends give the train the once-over."

"Well, I'll be----"

"You sure will if you talk," growled the grimy one, looking like a popular conception of his satanic majesty sans horns. Courtlandt and Nelson who had been caught completely off guard by this attack from within, stood with upraised arms. "Now, what t'ell!" The gun swayed for the fraction of a second as a figure slid down over the coal in the tender and landed in a crumpled heap in the gangway. Courtlandt seized the opportunity. By the aboriginal expedient of kicking his victim smartly in the s.h.i.+n he surprised the grimy one into a howl of pain.

Instinctively one hand reached for the aching member. Steve seized the revolver.

"You're some gunman," he jeered. "Go back into that corner and sit down!" And Satan's understudy, shorn of all of his gun and two-thirds of his bravado--went. "Hawks, tie his feet and hands. Here's his gun.

Nelson, I can manage if you want to give orders elsewhere. What have we here?"

The man who had fallen from the tender had struggled to his feet. He braced himself against the side of the cab. His hair was matted down over his eyes, his khaki s.h.i.+rt was in strips, his breeches and riding boots were caked with mud; evidently he had been a rider before he turned bandit, Courtlandt thought as he covered him with his forty-five.

Hawks was standing guard with his prisoner's own automatic. Fate has a keen sense of comedy.

"What's your business?" Steve demanded. The man made an evident effort to rally his senses. His voice was low and broken as he answered:

"There are twenty men in the gap--waiting for this train--the silver--bricks. Here--here are the names----" He fumbled in his s.h.i.+rt.

Steve watched him with wary eyes, his finger on the trigger of his gun.

The trussed man in the corner swore volubly. The engineer silenced him with the toe of his boot. Courtlandt took a step nearer the gasping, groping man. The light was dim, if he were tricking him--but he wasn't.

With painful effort he produced a paper. His right arm hung helpless. A red spot the size of a nickel appeared on the breast of his s.h.i.+rt. "Here it is. I--I played into Ranlett's hands with the steers--Steve." He collapsed in a heap on the floor.

"Steve!"

Courtlandt was on his knees beside him echoing his name. He slipped his arm under the bent head. The man looked up with a laugh that died in a painful rattle in his throat.

"You didn't know me, Steve?"

"Denbigh!"

"Don't take it so hard, this--this scratch isn't anything. I--I swore I'd square myself with the world and--and my conscience. I've been playing my cards for this grand slam for weeks. Somehow Ranlett got wind that the silver--was to--be s.h.i.+pped sometime this month. When I found that Beechy was your man I dropped him a hint as to the owners.h.i.+p of the treasure he was after--then--then--I took care of him for Ranlett--see?

You'll find him stunned but unhurt in the shack in Buzzard's Hollow.

No--don't interrupt--let me talk while I can--they'll be here in a minute. To-night they must have been watching me. When I tried to slip away Simms fired. I--I rolled over the cliff--they must have thought that finished me--it did--almost--but I was determined to get here. Keep those names--I--hope--I've saved the government's money."

His head fell back on Courtlandt's shoulder, his eyes closed for a moment. Then with, almost superhuman effort he rallied:

"I can't drift off yet. Two green rockets--in my s.h.i.+rt. As--soon as you've caught the gang--send those up. They'll keep Ranlett and--and the others in the Hollow till--you get there. They mean that--that----"

Courtlandt had to put his ear close to Denbigh's lips to hear the last words. He laid him down and reached into his s.h.i.+rt for the rockets.

Nelson appeared.

"Leave him, Steve, I need you. I've sent a gang out to move the boulder.

We'll let the bad men think they've fooled us. Half the pa.s.sengers on this train are regulars in mufti. Little ol' Uncle Sam isn't taking chances when he s.h.i.+ps silver bricks to the coast. Here they come! Look!"

in a hoa.r.s.e, excited whisper.

Out from between crevices and behind cottonwoods stole sinister shadows.

The men trying to remove the boulder from the track worked steadily.

The night was so still after the storm that Steve could hear their hard breathing, their gruff commands and the clink of metal against rock as they attacked the granite. The man in the corner opened his lips to shout a warning but Hawks stuffed his mouth full of oily waste before he could utter a sound. Nelson oozed delighted antic.i.p.ation.

"Good Lord, man!" Steve exploded, "you haven't crossed the bridge yet.

Those men are after the government's money and they're going to put up a stiff fight for it."

"So they are, so they are, little ol' Steve, but they won't get it. We dropped the treasure car, the last lighted Pullman with the silver bricks in it, off on the siding where those crazy elopers flagged us.

Your Uncle Dudley wasn't taking any chances."

CHAPTER XIX

"After all, it has been absurdly like the fake attack and repulse of bandits in a musical comedy, except--except for Phil," Courtlandt thought two hours later. "And here's where the female portion of the audience would adjust hats and grope under the seats for missing articles," he added, as from the platform of the train he watched a splotch of darkness move slowly up the main street of Slippy Bend, en route for the jail. The act had lacked none of the usual colorful stage setting. There had been a starry heaven overhead, the dim outlines of the rocky gap for a back-drop, clumps of cottonwoods and aspens for side wings and for the crowning touch, two green rockets had sped skyward.

The attacking party had boarded the train with just the right amount of theatrical bravado, but something went wrong. Someone must have hopelessly mixed the cues, for instead of towering over their shrinking victims the bandits had found themselves staring dumbly along the snub-noses of Colts in the trigger-quick hands of veterans. Denbigh's list had been checked off and, save for Ranlett and Marks, every man named on it was now being personally conducted up the silent street.

Phil had made good, gloriously good, Courtlandt exulted as he made his way to the baggage-car where Denbigh lay on the floor, his eyes closed, his face flushed with fever. Steve knelt beside him, and laid a cool hand on his forehead, but the wounded man did not move. Nelson climbed into the car.

"They've brought the stretcher, Steve. I'll attend to moving him while you get the girl off the train. I've sent for a doctor."

With his pulses hammering Courtlandt knocked at the door of the compartment in which he had left Jerry asleep. There was no answer. Had she gone? He knocked again, this time with a peremptoriness augmented by the fear in his heart.

"Come in!" a cool voice answered.

Steve entered the compartment. From across the small room Jerry, dressed as she had been when she flagged the train, contemplated him with unfriendly eyes. Her blouse and linen breeches showed stains of mud and weather but they had been mended and pressed. Her boots, with the big rowels still attached, had been cleaned. Her hair, brushed till it shone like satin, had been coiled in place; even the scratch on her cheek had been reduced in color if not in length. Her lips were disdainful, her face curiously colorless as she challenged: