Excuse Me! Part 49

Ashton had brought his fellow pa.s.sengers to a state of ecstatic excitability, and, like many a recounter of burglar stories at night, had tuned his own nerves to high tension.

The violent stopping of the train, the heart-shaking yells and shots outside, found the pa.s.sengers already apt to respond without delay to the appeals of fright. After the first hush of dread, came the reaction to panic.

Each pa.s.senger showed his own panic in his own way. Ashton whirled round and round, like a horse with the blind staggers, then bolted down the aisle, knocking aside men and women. He climbed on a seat, pulled down an upper berth, and, scrambling into it, tried to shut it on himself. Mrs. Whitcomb was so frightened that she a.s.sailed Ashton with fury and seizing his feet, dragged him back into the aisle, and beat him with her fists, demanding that he protect her and save her for Sammy's sake.

Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k, rus.h.i.+ng out of her stateroom and not finding her luscious-eyed husband, laid hold of Jimmie Wellington and ordered him to go to the rescue of her spouse. Mrs. Wellington tore her hands loose, crying: "Let him go, madam. He has a wife of his own to defend."

Jimmie was trying to pour out dying messages, and only sputtering, forgetting that he had put his watch in his mouth to hide it, though its chain was still attached to his waistcoat.

Anne Gattle, who had read much about Chinese atrocities to missionaries, gave herself up to death, yet rejoiced greatly that she had provided a timely man to lean on and should not have to enter Paradise a spinster, providing she could manage to convert Ira in the next few seconds, before it was everlastingly too late. She was begging her first heathen to join her in a gospel hymn. But Ira was roaring curses like a pirate captain in a hurricane, and swearing that the villains should not rob him of his bride.

Mrs. Temple wrung her twitching hands and tried to drag her husband to his knees, crying:

"Oh, Walter, Walter, won't you please say a prayer?--a good strong prayer?"

But the preacher was so confused that he answered: "What's the use of prayer in an emergency like this?"

"Walter!" she shrieked.

"I'm on my va-vacation, you know," he stammered.

Marjorie was trying at the same time to compel Mallory to crawl under a seat and to find a place to hide Snoozleums, whom she was warning not to say a word. Snoozleums, understanding only that his mistress was in some distress, refused to stay in his basket and kept offering his services and his attentions.

Suddenly Marjorie realized that Kathleen was trying to faint in Mallory's arms, and forgot everything else in a determined effort to prevent her.

After the first blood-sweat of abject fright had begun to cool, the pa.s.sengers came to realize that the invaders were not after lives, but loot. Then came a panic of miserly effort to conceal treasure.

Kathleen, finding herself banished from Mallory's protection, ran to Mrs. Whitcomb, who had given Ashton up as a hopeless task.

"What shall we do, oh, what, oh what shall we do, dear Mrs.

Wellington?" she cried.

"Don't you dare call me Mrs. Wellington!" Mrs. Whitcomb screamed; then she began to flutter. "But we'd better hide what we can. I hope the rah-rah-robbers are ge-gentlemen-men."

She pushed a diamond locket containing a small portrait of Sammy into her back hair, leaving part of the chain dangling. Then she tried to stuff a large handbag into her stocking.

Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k found her husband at last, for he made a wild dash to her side, embraced her, called her his wife and defied all the powers of Nevada to tear them apart. He had a brilliant idea. In order to save his fat wallet from capture, he tossed it through an open window. It fell at the feet of one of the robbers as he ran along the side of the car, shooting at such heads as were put out of windows. He picked it up and dropped it into the feed-bag he had swung at his side. Then running on, he clambered over the bra.s.s rail of the observation platform and entered the rear of the train, as his confederate, driving the conductor ahead of him, forged his way aft from the front, while a third masquerader aligned the engineer, the fireman, the brakeman and the baggagemen.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

HANDS UP!

All this time Lieutenant Mallory had been thinking as hard as an officer in an ambuscade. His harrowing experiences and incessant defeats of the past days had unnerved him and shattered his self-confidence. He was not afraid, but intensely disgusted. He sat absent-mindedly patting Marjorie on the back and repeating:

"Don't worry, honey, they're not going to hurt anybody. They don't want anything but our money. Don't worry, I won't let 'em hurt you."

But he could not shake off a sense of nausea. He felt himself a representative of the military prowess of the country, and here he was as helpless as a man on parole.

The fact that Mallory was a soldier occurred to a number of the pa.s.sengers simultaneously. They had been trained by early studies in those beautiful works of fiction, the school histories of the United States, and by many Fourths of July, to believe that the American soldier is an invincible being, who has never been defeated and never known fear.

They surged up to Mallory in a wave of hope. Dr. Temple, being nearest, spoke first. Having learned by experience that his own prayers were not always answered as he wished, had an impulse to try some weapon he had never used.

"Young man," he pleaded across the back of a seat, "will you kindly lend me a gun?"

Mallory answered sullenly: "Mine is in my trunk on the train ahead, d.a.m.n it. If I had it I'd have a lot of fun."

Mrs. Whitcomb had an inspiration. She ran to her berth, and came back with a tiny silver-plated revolver.

"I'll lend you this. Sammy gave it to me to protect myself in Nevada!"

Mallory smiled at the .22-calibre toy, broke it open, and displayed an empty cylinder.

"Where are the pills that go with it?" he said.

"Oh, Sammy wouldn't let me have any bullets. He was afraid I'd hurt myself."

Mallory returned it, with a bow. "It would make an excellent nut-cracker."

"Aren't you going to use it?" Mrs. Whitcomb gasped.

"It's empty," Mallory explained.

"But the robbers don't know that! Couldn't you just overawe them with it?"

"Not with that," said Mallory, "unless they died laughing."

Mrs. Wellington pushed forward: "Then what the devil are you going to do when they come?"

Mallory answered meekly: "If they request it, I shall hold up my hands."

"And you won't resist?" Kathleen gasped.

"Not a resist."

"And he calls himself a soldier!" she sneered.

Mallory writhed, but all he said was: "A soldier doesn't have to be a jacka.s.s. I know just enough about guns not to monkey with the wrong end of 'em."

"Coward!" she flung at him. He turned white, but Marjorie red, and made a leap at her, crying: "He's the bravest man in the world. You say a word, and I'll scratch your eyes out."

This reheartened Mallory a little, and he laughed nervously, as he restrained her. Kathleen retreated out of danger, with a parting shot: "Our engagement is off."

"Thanks," Mallory said, and put out his hand: "Will you return the bracelet?"

"I never return such things," said Kathleen.