CHAPTER 10. THE HOLD-UP OF THE M. C. P. FLYER
Agua Negra is twelve miles from Chihuahua as the crow flies, but if onegoes by rail one twists round thirty sinuous miles of rough mountainouscountry in the descent from the pass to the capital of the State. Theten men who slipped singly or by twos out of the city in the darknessthat evening and met at the rendezvous of the Santa Dolorosa mission didnot travel by rail to the pass, but followed a horseback trail which wasnot more than half the distance.
At the mission O'Halloran and his friend found gathered half a dozenMexicans, one or two of them tough old campaigners, the rest youngfellows eager for the excitement of their first active service.
"Is Juan Valdez here yet?" asked O'Halloran, peering around in thegloom.
"Not yet; nor Manuel Garcia," answered a young fellow.
Bucky was introduced to those present under the name of AlessandroPerdoza, and presently also to the two missing members of the party whoarrived together a few moments later. Juan Valdez was the son of thecandidate who was opposing the reelection of Megales, and Manuel Garciawas his bosom friend, and the young man to whom his sister was engaged.They were both excellent types of the honorable aristocratic youngMexican. They were lightly built, swarthy your men, possessed of thatperfect grace and courtesy which can be found at its best in the Spanishraces. Gay, handsome young cavaliers as they were, filled with thepride of family, Bucky thought them almost ideal companions for such aharebrained adventure as this. The ranger was a social democrat to themarrow. He had breathed in with the Southwest breezes the convictionthat every man must stand on his own bottom, regardless of adventitiouscircumstance, but he was not fool enough to think all men equal. It hadbeen his experience that some men, by grace of the strength in them,were born to be masters and others by their weakness to be servants. Heknew that the best any civilization can offer a man is a chance. Giventhat, it is up to every man to find his own niche.
But though he had no sense of deference to what is known as good blood,Bucky had too much horse sense to resent the careless, half-indifferentgreeting which these two young sprouts of aristocracy bestowed on therest of the party. He understood that it was the natural product oftheir education and of that of the others.
"Are we all here?" asked Garcia.
"All here," returned O'Halloran briskly. "Rodrigo will guide the party.I ride next with Senor Garcia. Perdoza and Senor Valdez will bring upthe rear. Forward, gentlemen, and may the Holy Virgin bring a happytermination to our adventure." He spoke in Mexican, as they all did,though for the next two hours conversation was largely suspended, owingto the difficulty of the precipitous trail they were following.
Coming to a bit of the road where they were able to ride two abreast,O'Connor made comment on the smallness of their number. "O'Halloran musthave a good deal of confidence in his men. Forty to ten is rather heavyodds, is it not, senor?"
"There are six more to join us at the pass. The wagons have gone roundby the road and the drivers will assist in the attack."
"Of course it is all in the surprise. I have seen three men hold up atrain with five hundred people on it. Once I knew a gang to stick up atreasure train with three heavily armed guards protecting the gold.They got them right, with the drop on them, and it was good-by to themazuma."
"Yes, if they have had any warning or if our plans slip a cog anywherewe shall be repulsed to a certainty."
By the light of a moon struggling out from behind rolling clouds Buckyread eleven-thirty on his watch when the party reached Agua Negra.It was still thirty minutes before the Flyer was due, and O'Hallorandisposed his forces with explicit directions as to the course to befollowed by each detail. Very rapidly he sketched his orders as to thepresent disposition of the wagons and the groups of attackers. Whenthe train slowed down to remove the obstacles they placed on the track,Garcia and another young man were to command parties covering the trainfrom both sides, while Rodrigo and one of the drivers were to cover theengineer and the fireman.
O'Halloran himself, with Bucky and young Valdez, rode rapidly in thedirection of the approaching train. At Concho the engine would take onwater for the last stiff climb of the ascent, and here he meant to boardthe train unnoticed, just as it was pulling out, in order to emphasizethe surprise at the proper moment and render resistance useless. If thetroopers were all together in the car next the one with the boxes ofrifles, he calculated that they might perhaps be taken unawares sosharply as to render bloodshed unnecessary.
Concho was two miles from the summit, and when the three men gallopeddown to the little station the headlight of the approaching engine wasalready visible. They tied their horses in the mesquit and lurked inthe thick brush until the engine had taken water and the signal for thestart was given Then O'Halloran and Bucky slipped across in the darknessto the train and swung themselves to the platform of the last car. ToValdez, very much against his will, had fallen the task of taking thehorses back to Agua Negra Since the track wound round the side of themountain in such a way as to cover five miles in making the summit fromConcho, the young Mexican had ample time to get back to the scene ofaction before the train arrived.
The big Irishman and Bucky rested quietly in the shadows of the backplatform for some time. Then they entered the last car, passed throughit, and on to the next. In the sleeper they met the conductor, butO'Halloran quietly paid their fares and passed forward. As they hadhoped, the whole detail of forty men were in a special car next to theone containing the arms consigned to Michael O'Halloran, importer ofpianos.
Lieutenant Chaves, in charge of the detail sent out to see that therifles reached Governor Megales instead of the men who had paid forthem, was finding his assignment exceedingly uninteresting. There was atChihuahua a certain black-eyed dona with whom he had expected to enjoy apleasant evening's flirtation. It was confounded luck that it had fallento him to take charge of the escort for the guns. He had endured inconsequence an unpleasant day of dusty travel and many hours of boredomthrough the evening. Now he was cross and sleepy, which latter mightalso be said of the soldiers in general.
He was connected with a certain Arizona outfit which of late had beenmaking money very rapidly. If one more coup like the last could bepulled off safely by his friend Wolf Leroy he would resign from the armyand settle down. It would then no longer be necessary to bore himselfwith such details as this.
There was, of course, no necessity for alertness in his presentassignment. The opposition was scarcely mad enough to attempt taking theguns from forty armed men. Chaves devoutly hoped they would, in orderthat he might get a little glory, at least, out of the affair. But ofcourse such an expectation would be ridiculous. No, the journey wouldcontinue to be humdrum to the end, he was wearily assured of that,and consequently attempted to steal a half hour's sleep while proppedagainst a window with his feet in the seat opposite.
The gallant lieutenant was awakened by a cessation of the drumming ofthe wheels. Opening his eyes, he saw that the train was no longer inmotion. He also saw--and his consciousness of that fact was much moreacute--the rim of a revolver about six inches from his forehead. Behindthe revolver was a man, a young Spanish gypsy, and he was offering theofficer very good advice.
"Don't move, sir. No cause for being uneasy. Just sit quiet andeverything will be serene. No, I wouldn't reach for that revolver, if Iwere you."
Chaves cast a hurried eye down the car, and at the end of it beheldthe huge Irishman, O'Halloran, dominating the situation with a pair ofrevolvers. Chaves' lambs were ranged on either side of the car, theirhands in the air. Back came the lieutenant's gaze to the impassiveface in front of him. Taken by and large, it did not seem an auspiciousmoment for garnering glory. He decided to take the advice bestowed onhim.
"Better put your hands up and vote with your men. Then you won't betempted to play with your gun and commit suicide. That's right, sir.I'll relieve you of it if you don't object."
Since the lieutenant had no objections to offer, the smiling gypsypossessed him
self of the revolver. At the same instant two more menappeared at the end of the car. One of them was Juan Valdez and anotherone of the mule-skinners. Simultaneously with their entrance rang outa most disconcerting fusillade of small arms in the darkness without.Megales' military band, as O'Halloran had facetiously dubbed them tothe ranger, arrived at the impression that there were about a thousandinsurgents encompassing the train. Chaves choked with rage, but the restof the command yielded to the situation very tranquilly, with no desireto offer themselves as targets to this crackling explosion of Colts. Muybien! After all, Valdez was a better man to serve than the fox Megales.
Swiftly Valdez and the wagon driver passed down the car and gathered theweapons from the seats of the troopers. Raising a window, they passedthem out to their friends outside. Meanwhile, the sound of an axe couldbe heard battering at the door of the next car, and presently the crashof splintering wood announced that an entrance had been forced.
"Breaking furniture, I reckon," drawled Bucky, in English, for themoment forgetful of the part he was playing. "I hope they'll be allright careful of them pianos and not mishandle them so they'll get outof tune."
"So, senor, you are American," said Chaves, in English, with a sinistersmile.
O'Connor shrugged, answering in Spanish: "I am Romany. Who shall say,whether American, or Spanish, or Bohemian? All nations call to me, butnone claim me, senor."
The lieutenant continued to smile his meaning grin. "Yet you areAmerican," he persisted.
"Oh, as you please. I am what you will, lieutenant."
"You speak the English like a native."
"You are complimentary."
Chaves lifted his eyebrows. "For believing that you are in costume, thatyou are wearing a disguise, Mr. American?"
Bucky laughed outright, and offered a gay retort. "Believe me,lieutenant, I am no more disguised as a gypsy than you are as asoldier."
The Mexican officer flushed with anger at the suggestion of contemptin the careless voice. His generalship was discredited. He had beenoutwitted and made to yield without a blow. But to have it flung in histeeth with such a debonair insolence threw him into a fury.
"If you and I ever meet on equal terms, senor, God pity you," he groundout between his set jaws.
Bucky bowed, answering the furious anger in the man's face as much ashis words. "I shall try to be careful not to offer myself a sheath for aknife some dark night," he scoffed.
A whistle blew, and then again. The revolver of Bucky rang out almost onthe same instant as those of O'Halloran. Under cover of the smoke theyslipped out of the car just as Rodrigo leaped down from the cab of theengine. Slowly the train began to back down the incline in the samedirection from which it had come. The orders given the engineer were tomove back at a snail's pace until he reached Concho again. There he wasto remain for two hours. That Chaves would submit to this O'Halloran didnot for a moment suspect.
But the track would be kept obstructed till six o'clock in the morning,and a sufficient guard would wait in the underbrush to see that theright of way was not cleared. In the meantime the wagons would bepushing toward Chihuahua as fast as they could be hurried, and the restof the riders would guard them till they separated on the outskirts ofthe town and slipped quietly in. In order to forestall any telegraphiccommunication between Lieutenant Chaves and his superiors in the city,the wires had been cut. On the face of it, the guns seemed to be safe.Only one thing had O'Halloran forgotten. Eight miles across the hillsfrom Concho ran the line of the Chihuahua Northern.