II.--BULLDOG CARNEY'S ALIBI
|A day's trail north from where Idaho and Montana come together on theCanadian border, fumed and fretted Bucking Horse River. Its nomenclaturewas a little bit of all right, for from the minute it trickled froma huge blue-green glacier up in the Selkirks till it fell into theKootenay, it bucked its way over, under, and around rock-cliffs, andareas of stolid mountain sides that still held gigantic pine and cedar.
It had ripped from the bowels of a mountain pebbles of gold, and thetown of Bucking Horse was the home of men who had come at the call ofthe yellow god.
When Bulldog Carney struck Bucking Horse it was a sick town, decrepid,suffering from premature old age, for most of the mines had petered out.
One hotel, the Gold Nugget, still clung to its perch on a hillside,looking like a bird cage hung from a balcony.
Carney had known its proprietor, Seth Long, in the Cour d'Alene: Sethand Jeanette Holt; in the way of disapproval Seth, for he was a skidder;Jeanette with a manly regard, for she was as much on the level as agyroscope.
Carney was not after gold that is battled from obdurate rocks withdrill and shovel. He was a gallant knight of the road--a free lance ofadventure; considering that a man had better lie in bed and dreamthan win money by dreary unexciting toil. His lithe six foot of sinewyanatomy, the calm, keen, gray eye, the splendid cool insulated nerveand sweet courage, the curious streaks of chivalry, all these wouldhave perished tied to routine. Like "Bucking Horse" his name, "Bulldog"Carney, was an inspiration.
He had ridden his famous buckskin, Pat, up from the Montana border,mentally surveying his desire, a route for running into the free andUnited States opium without the little formality of paying Uncle Samthe exorbitant and unnatural duty. That was why he first came to BuckingHorse.
The second day after his arrival Seth Long bought for a few hundreddollars the Little Widow mine that was almost like a back yard to thehotel. People laughed, for it was a worked-out proposition; when he puta gang of men to work, pushing on the long drift, they laughed again.When Seth threw up his hands declaring that the Little Widow was nogood, those who had laughed told him that they had known it all thetime.
But what they didn't know was that the long drift in the mine now ran onuntil it was directly under the Gold Nugget hotel.
It was Carney who had worked that out, and Seth and his hotel wereestablished as a clearing station for the opium that was shipped in bytrain from Vancouver in tins labelled "Peaches," "Salmon," or any oldthing. It was stored in the mine and taken from there by pack-train downto the border, and switched across at Bailey's Ferry, the U. S. customsofficers at that point being nice lovable chaps; or sometimes it crossedthe Kootenay in a small boat at night.
Bulldog supervised that end of the business, bringing the heavy paymentsin gold back to Bucking Horse on a laden mule behind his buckskin; thenthe gold was expressed by train to the head office of this delightfultrading company in Vancouver.
This endeavor ran along smoothly, for the whole mining West was onegigantic union, standing "agin the government"--any old government, U.S. or Canadian.
Carney's enterprise was practically legitimatized by public opinion;besides there was the compelling matter of Bulldog's proficiency inlooking after himself. People had grown into the habit of leaving himalone.
The Mounted Police more or less supervised the region, and sometimes oneof them would be in Bucking Horse for a few days, and sometimes the townwould be its own custodian.
One autumn evening Carney rode up the Bucking Horse valley at hishorse's heels a mule that carried twenty thousand dollars in gold slungfrom either side of a pack saddle.
Carney went straight to the little railway station, and expressed thegold to Vancouver, getting the agent's assurance that it would go out onthe night train which went through at one o'clock. Then he rode back tothe Gold Nugget and put his horse and mule in the stable.
As he pushed open the front door of the hotel he figuratively steppedinto a family row, a row so self-centered that the parties interestedwere unaware of his entrance.
A small bar occupied one corner of the dim-lighted room, and behind thisSeth Long leaned back against the bottle rack, with arms folded acrosshis big chest, puffing at a thick cigar. Facing him, with elbows on thebar, a man was talking volubly, anger speeding up his vocalization.
Beside the man stood Jeanette Holt, fire flashing from her black eyes,and her nostrils dilated with passion. She interrupted the voluble one:
"Yes, Seth, I did slap this cheap affair, Jack Wolf, fair across theugly mouth, and I'll do it again!"
Seth tongued the cigar to one corner of his ample lips, and drawled:"That's a woman's privilege, Jack, if a feller's give her just cause foraction You ain't got no kick comin', I reckon, 'cause this little womanain't one to fly off the handle for nothin'."
"Nothin', Seth? I guess when I tell you what got her dander up you'llfigger you've got another think comin'. You're like a good many men Isee--you're bein' stung. That smooth proposition, Bulldog Carney, isstingin' you right here in your own nest."
Biff!
That was the lady's hand, flat open, impinged on the speaker's cheek.
The Wolf sprang back with an oath, put his hand to his cheek, and turnedto Seth with a volley of denunciation starting from his lips. At a lookthat swept over the proprietor's face he turned, stared, and stifling anoath dropped a hand subconsciously to the butt of his gun.
Bulldog Carney had stepped quickly across the room, and was now at hisside, saying:
"So you're here, Jack the Wolf, eh? I thought I had rid civilization ofyour ugly presence when I turned you over to the police at Hobbema formurdering your mate."
"That was a trumped-up charge," the Wolf stammered.
"Ah! I see--acquitted! I can guess it in once. Nobody saw you put thatlittle round hole in the back of Alberta Bill's head--not even Bill; andhe was dead and couldn't talk."
Carney's gray eyes travelled up and down the Wolf's form in a cold,searching manner; then he added, with the same aggravating drawl: "Youput your hands up on the bar, same as you were set when I came in, orsomething will happen. I've got a proposition."
The Wolf hesitated; but Bulldog's right hand rested carelessly on hisbelt. Slowly the Wolf lifted his arm till his fingers touched the woodenrail, saying, surlily:
"I ain't got no truck with you; I don't want no proposition from a manthat plays into the hands of the damn police."
"You can cut out the rough stuff, Wolf, while there's a lady present."
Carney deliberately turned his shoulder to the scowling man, and said,"How d'you do, Miss Holt?" touching his hat. Then he added, "Seth,locate a bottle on the bar and deal glasses all round."
As Long deftly twirled little heavy-bottomed glasses along the plankas though he were dealing cards, Carney turned, surveyed the room,and addressing a man who sat in a heavy wooden chair beside a squarebox-stove, said: "Join up, stranger--we're going to liquidate."
The man addressed came forward, and lined up the other side of JackWolf.
"Cayuse Braun, Mr. Carney," Seth lisped past his fat cigar as he shoveda black bottle toward Bulldog.
"The gents first," the latter intimated.
The bottle was slid down to Cayuse, who filled his glass and passed itback to Wolf. The latter carried it irritably past him without fillinghis glass.
"Help yourself, Wolf." It was a command, not an invitation, in Carney'svoice.
"I'm not drinkin'," Jack snarled.
"Yes, you are. I've got a toast that's got to be unanimous."
Seth, with a wink at Wolf, tipped the bottle and half filled thelatter's glass, saying, "Be a sport, Jack."
As he turned to hand the bottle to Carney he arched his eyebrows atJeanette, and the girl slipped quietly away.
Bulldog raised his glass of whisky, and said: "Gents, we're going todrink to the squarest little woman it has ever been my good fortune torun across. Here's to Miss Jeanette Holt, the truest pal that Set
h Longever had--_Miss Jeanette_ Cayuse and Seth tossed off their liquor, butthe Wolf did not touch his glass.
"You drink to that toast dam quick, Jack Wolf!" and Carney's voice wasdeadly.
The room had grown still. One, two, three, a wooden clock on the shelfbehind the bar ticked off the seconds in the heavy quiet; and in afar corner the piping of a stray cricket sounded like the drool of apfirrari.
There was a click of a latch, a muffled scrape as the outer door pushedopen. This seemed to break the holding spell of fear that was over theWolf. "I'll see you in hell, Bulldog Carney, before I drink with you ora girl that----"
The whisky that was in Carney's glass shot fair into the speaker'sopen mouth. As his hand jumped to his gun the wrist was seized with aloosening twist, and the heel of Bulldog's open right hand caught himunder the chin with a force that fair lifted him from his feet to dropon the back of his head.
A man wearing a brass-buttoned khaki jacket with blue trousers downwhich ran wide yellow stripes, darted from where he had stood at thedoor, put his hand on Bulldog's shoulder, and said:
"You're under arrest in the Queen's name, Bulldog Carney!"
Carney reached down and picked up the Wolf's gun that lay where it hadfallen from his twisted hand, and passed it to Seth without comment.Then he looked the man in the khaki coat up and down and coolly asked."Are you anybody in particular, stranger?"
"I'm Sergeant Black of the Mounted Police."
"You amuse me, Sergeant; you're unusual, even for a member of that jokebank, the Mounted."
"Fine!" the Sergeant sneered, subdued anger in his voice; "I'llentertain you for several days over in the pen."
"On what grounds?"
"You'll find out."
"Yes, and now, declare yourself!"
"We don't allow, rough house, gun play, and knocking people down, inBucking Horse," the Sergeant retorted; "assault means the pen when I'mhere."
"Then take that thing," and Bulldog jerked a thumb toward Jack Wolf, whostood at a far corner of the bar whispering with Cayuse.
"I'll take you, Bulldog Carney."
"Not if that's all you've got as reason," and Carney, either handclasping his slim waist, the palms resting on his hips, eyed theSergeant, a faint smile lifting his tawny mustache.
"You're wanted, Bulldog Carney, and you know it. I've been waiting achance to rope you; now I've got you, and you're coming along. There'sa thousand on you over in Calgary; and you've been running coke over theline."
"Oh! that's it, eh? Well, Sergeant, in plain English you're a tenderfootto not know that the Alberta thing doesn't hold in British Columbia.You'll find that out when you wire headquarters for instructions, whichyou will, of course. I think it's easier for me, my dear Sergeant, tolet you get this tangle straightened out by going with you than to kickyou into the street; then they would have something on me--somethingbecause I'd mussed up the uniform."
"Carney ain't had no supper, Sergeant," Seth declared; "and I'll gobail----"
"I'm not takin' bail; and you can send his supper over to the lock-up."
The Sergeant had drawn from his pocket a pair of handcuffs.
Carney grinned.
"Put them back in your pocket, Sergeant," he advised. "I said I'd gowith you; but if you try to clamp those things on, the trouble is allyour own." Black looked into the gray eyes and hesitated; then evenhis duty-befogged mind realized that he would take too big a chanceby insisting. He held out his hand toward Carney's gun, and the latterturned it over to him. Then the two, the Sergeant's hand slipped throughCarney's arm, passed out.
Just around the corner was the police barracks, a square log shackdivided by a partition. One room was used as an office, and contained abunk; the other room had been built as a cell, and a heavy wooden doorthat carried a bar and strong lock gave entrance. There was one smallwindow safeguarded by iron bars firmly embedded in the logs. Into thisbull-pen, as it was called, Black ushered Carney by the light of acandle. There was a wooden bunk in one end, the sole furniture.
"Neat, but not over decorated," Carney commented as he surveyed thebare interior. "No wonder, with such surroundings, my dear Sergeant, youfellows are angular."
"I've heard, Bulldog, that you fancied yourself a superior sort."
"Not at all, Sergeant; you have my entire sympathy."
The Sergeant sniffed. "If they give you three years at Stony Mountainperhaps you'll drop some of that side."
Carney sat down on the side of the bed, took a cigarette case from hispocket and asked, "Do you allow smoking here? It won't fume up yourcurtains, will it?"
"It's against the regulations, but you smoke if you want to."
Carney's supper was brought in and when he had eaten it SergeantBlack went into the cell, saying: "You're a pretty slippery customer,Bulldog--I ought to put the bangles on you for the night." Ratherirrelevantly, and with a quizzical smile, Carney asked, "Have you read'Les Miserables,' Sergeant?"
"I ain't read a paper in a month--I've been too busy."
"It isn't a paper, it's a story."
"I ain't got no time for readin' magazines either."
"This is a story that was written long ago by a Frenchman," Carneypersisted.
"Then I don't want to read it. The trickiest damn bunch that ever comeinto these mountains are them Johnnie Crapeaus from Quebec--they'remore damn trouble to the police than so many Injuns." The soft quizzicalvoice of Carney interrupted Black gently. "You put me in mind of acharacter in that story, Sergeant; he was the best drawn, if I mightdiscriminate over a great story."
This allusion touched Black's vanity, and drew him to ask, "What did hedo--how am I like him?" He eyed Carney suspiciously.
"The character I liked in 'Les Miserables' was a policeman, likeyourself, and his mind was only capable of containing the oneidea--duty. It was a fetish with him; he was a fanatic."
"You're damn funny, Bulldog, ain't you? What I ought to do is slip thebangles on you and leave you in the dark."
"If you could. I give you full permission to try, Sergeant; if you canclamp them on me there won't be any hard feelings, and the first time Imeet you on the trail I won't set you afoot."
Carney had risen to his feet, ostensibly to throw his cigarette throughthe bars of the open window.
Black stood glowering at him. He knew Carney's reputation well enoughto know that to try to handcuff him meant a fight--a fight over nothing;and unless he used a gun he might possibly get the worst of it.
"It would only be spite work," Carney declared presently; "these logswould hold anybody, and you know it."
In spite of his rough manner the Sergeant rather admired Bulldog'sgentlemanly independence, the quiet way in which he had submitted toarrest; it would be a feather in his cap that, single-handed, he hadlocked the famous Bulldog up. His better sense told him to leave wellenough alone.
"Yes," he said grudgingly, "I guess these walls will hold you. I'll besleeping in the other room, a reception committee if you have callers."
"Thanks, Sergeant. I take it all back. Leave me a candle, and give mesomething to read."
Black pondered over this; but Carney's allusion to the policeman in "LesMiserables" had had an effect. He brought from the other room a coupleof magazines and a candle, went out, and locked the door.
Carney pulled off his boots, stretched himself on the bunk and read. Hecould hear Sergeant Black fussing at a table in the outer room; thenthe Sergeant went out and Carney knew that he had gone to send a wireto Major Silver for instructions about his captive. After a time he cameback. About ten o'clock Carney heard the policeman's boots drop on thefloor, his bunk creak, and knew that the representative of the lawhad retired. A vagrant thought traversed his mind that theheavy-dispositioned, phlegmatic policeman would be a sound sleeperonce oblivious. However, that didn't matter, there was no necessity forescape.
Carney himself dozed over a wordy story, only to be suddenly wakenedby a noise at his elbow. Wary, through the vicissitudes of his order oflife he sat
up wide awake, ready for action. Then by the light of thesputtering candle he saw his magazine sprawling on the floor, and knewhe had been wakened by its fall. His bunk had creaked; but listening,no sound reached his ears from the other room, except certain stertorousbreathings. He had guessed right, Sergeant Black was an honest sleeper,one of Shakespeare's full-paunched kind.
Carney blew out the candle; and now, perversely, his mind refusedto cuddle down and rest, but took up the matter of Jack the Wolf'spresence. He hated to know that such an evil beast was even indirectlyassociated with Seth, who was easily led. His concern was not over Sethso much as over Jeanette.
He lay wide awake in the dark for an hour; then a faint noise came fromthe barred window; it was a measured, methodical click-click-click of apebble tapping on iron.
With the stealthiness of a cat he left the bunk, so gently that notell-tale sound rose from its boards, and softly stepping to the windowthrust the fingers of one hand between the bars.
A soft warm hand grasped his, and he felt the smooth sides of a foldedpaper. As he gave the hand a reassuring pressure, his knuckles weretapped gently by something hard. He transferred the paper to his otherhand, and reaching out again, something was thrust into it, that when helifted it within he found was a strong screw-driver.
He crept back to his bunk, slipped the screwdriver between the blankets,and standing by the door listened for ten seconds; then a faint gurglingbreath told him that Black slept.
Making a hiding canopy of his blanket, he lighted his candle, unfoldedthe paper, and read:
"Two planks, north end, fastened with screws. Below is tunnel that leadsto the mine. Will meet you there. Come soon. Important."
There was no name signed, but Carney knew it was Jeanette's writing.
He blew out the candle and stepping softly to the other end of the penknelt down, and with his fingertips searched the ends of the two planksnearest the log wall. At first he was baffled, his fingers finding theflat heads of ordinary nails; but presently he discovered that theseheads were dummies, half an inch long. Suddenly a board rapped in theother room. He had just time to slip back to his bunk when a key clinkedin the lock, and a light glinted through a chink as the door opened.
As if suddenly startled from sleep, Carney called out: "Who's that--whatdo you want?"
The Sergeant peered in and answered, "Nothing! thought I heard youmoving about. Are you all right, Carney?"
He swept the pen with his candle, noted Carney's boots on the floor,and, satisfied, closed the door and went back to his bunk.
This interruption rather pleased Carney; he felt that it was a somnolentsense of duty, responsibility, that had wakened Black. Now that he hadinvestigated and found everything all right he would probably sleepsoundly for hours.
Carney waited ten minutes. The Sergeant's bunk had given a note ofcomplaint as its occupant turned over; now it was still. Taking hisboots in his hand he crept back to the end of the pen and rapidly,noiselessly, withdrew the screw-nails from both ends of two planks. Thenhe crept back to the door and listened; the other room was silent savefor the same little sleep breathings he had heard before.
With the screw-driver he lifted the planks, slipped through the opening,all in the dark, and drew the planks back into place over his head. Hehad to crouch in the little tunnel.
Pulling on his boots, on hands and knees he crawled through the smalltunnel for fifty yards. Then he came to stope timbers stood on end,and turning these to one side found himself in what he knew must be across-cut from the main drift that ran between the mine opening and thehotel.
As he stood up in this he heard a faint whistle, and whispered,"Jeanette."
The girl came forward in the dark, her hand touching his arm.
"I'm so glad," she whispered. "We'd better stand here in the dark, for Ihave something serious to tell you."
Then in a low tone the girl said:
"The Wolf and Cayuse Braun are going to hold up the train to-night, justat the end of the trestle, and rob the express car."
"Is Seth in it?"
"Yes, he's standing in, but he isn't going to help on the job. The Wolfis going to board the train at the station, and enter the express carwhen the train is creeping over the trestle. He's got a bar and rope forfastening the door of the car behind the express car. When the enginereaches the other side Cayuse will jump it, hold up the engineer, andmake him stop the train long enough to throw the gold off while theother cars are still on the trestle; then the Wolf will jump off, andCayuse will force the engineer to carry the train on, and he will dropoff on the up-grade, half a mile beyond."
"Old stuff, but rather effective," Carney commented; "they'll get awaywith it, I believe."
"I listened to them planning the whole thing out," Jeanette confessed,"and they didn't know I could hear them."
"What about this little tunnel under the jail--that's a new one on me?"
"Seth had it dug, pretending he was looking for gold; but the menwho dug it didn't know that it led under the jail, and he finished ithimself, fixed the planks, and all. You see when the police go away theyleave the keys with Seth in case any sudden trouble comes up. Nobodyknows about it but Seth."
There was a tang of regret in Carney's voice as he said:
"Seth is playing it pretty low down, Jeanette; he's practically stealingfrom his pals. I put twenty thousand in gold in to-night to go bythat train, coke money; he knows it, and that's what these thieves areafter."
"Surely Seth wouldn't do that, Bulldog--steal from his partners!"
"Well, not quite, Jeanette. He figures that the express company isresponsible, will have to make good, and that my people will get theirmoney back; but all the same, it's kind of like that--it's rotten!"
"What am I to do, Bulldog? I can't peach, can I--not on Seth--not whileI'm living with him? And he's been kind of good to me, too. He ain't--well, once I thought he was all right, but since I knew you it'sbeen different. I've stuck to him--you know, Bulldog, how straight I'vebeen--but a thief!"
"No, you can't give Seth away, Jeanette," Carney broke in, for thegirl's voice carried a tremble.
"I think they had planned, that you being here in Bucking Horse, thepolice would kind of throw the blame of this thing on you. Then yourbeing arrested upset that. What am I to do, Bulldog? Will you speak toSeth and stop it?"
"No. He'd know you had told me, and your life with him would be justhell. Besides, girl, I'm in jail."
"But you're free now--you'll go away."
"Let me think a minute, Jeanette."
As he stood pondering, there was the glint of a light, a faint roseflicker on the wall and flooring of the cross-cut they stood in, andthey saw, passing along the main drift, Seth, the Wolf, and CayuseBraun.
The girl clutched Carney's arm and whispered, "There they go. Seth isgoing out with them, but he'll come back and stay in the hotel whilethey pull the job off."
The passing of the three men seemed to have galvanized Carney intoaction, fructified in his mind some plan, for he said:
"You come back to the hotel, Jeanette, and say nothing--I will see whatI can do."
"And Seth--you won't----"
"Plug him for his treachery? No, because of you he's quite safe. Don'tbother your pretty little head about it."
The girl's hand that had rested all this time on Carney's arm wastrembling. Suddenly she said, brokenly, hesitatingly, just as aschool-girl might have blundered over wording the grand passion:"Bulldog, do you know how much I like you? Have you ever thought of itat all, wondered?"
"Yes, many times, girl; how could I help it? You come pretty near tobeing the finest girl I ever knew."
"But we've never talked about it, have we, Bulldog?"
"No; why should we? Different men have different ideas about thosethings. Seth can't see that because that gold was ours in the gang, heshouldn't steal it; that's one kind of man. I'm different."
"You mean that I'm like the gold?"
"Yes, I guess that's what I me
an. You see, well--you know what I mean,Jeanette."
"But you like me?"
"So much that I want to keep you good enough to like."
"Would it be playing the game crooked, Bulldog, if you--if I kissedyou?".
"Not wrong for you to do it, Jeanette, because you don't know how todo what I call wrong, but I'm afraid I couldn't square it with myself.Don't get this wrong, girl, it sounds a little too holy, put just thatway. I've kissed many a fellow's girl, but I don't want to kiss you,being Seth's girl, and that isn't because of Seth, either. Can youuntangle that--get what I mean?"
"I get it, Bulldog. You are some man, some man!"
There was a catch in the girl's voice; she took her hand from Carney'sarm and drew the back of it irritably across her eyes; then she said ina steadier voice: "Good night, man--I'm going back." Together they felttheir way along the cross-cut, and when they came to the main drift,Carney said: "I'm going out through the hotel, Jeanette, if there'snobody about; I want to get my horse from the stable. When we come tothe cellar you go ahead and clear the way for me."
The passage from the drift through the cellar led up into a littlestore-room at the back of the hotel; and through this Carney passed outto the stable where he saddled his bucksin, transferring to his belt agun that was in a pocket of the saddle. Then he fastened to the hornthe two bags that had been on the pack mule. Leading the buckskin outhe avoided the street, cut down the hillside, and skirted the turbulentBucking Horse.
A half moon hung high in a deep-blue sky that in both sides was bittenby the jagged rock teeth of the Rockies. The long curving woodentrestle looked like the skeleton of some gigantic serpent in the faintmoonlight, its head resting on the left bank of the Bucking Horse, halfa mile from where the few lights of the mining town glimmered, and itstail coming back to the same side of the stream after traversing twoshort kinks. It looked so inadequate, so frail in the night light tocarry the huge Mogul engine with its trailing cars. No wonder the trainwent over it at a snail's pace, just the pace to invite a highwayman'sattention.
And with the engine stopped with a pistol at the engineer's head whatchance that anyone would drop from the train to the trestle to hurry tohis assistance.
Carney admitted to himself that the hold-up was fairly well planned,and no doubt would go through unless---- At this juncture of thought Carneychuckled. The little unforeseen something that was always popping intothe plans of crooks might eventuate. When he came to thick scrub growthCarney dismounted, and led the buckskin whispering, "Steady, Pat--easy,my boy!"
The bucksin knew that he must make no noisy slip--that there was nohurry. He and Carney had chummed together for three years, the mantalking to him as though he had a knowledge of what his master said, andhe, understanding much of the import if not the uttered signs.
Sometimes going down a declivity the horse's soft muzzle was overCarney's shoulder, the flexible upper lip snuggling his neck or cheek;and sometimes as they went up again Carney's arm was over the buckskin'swithers and they walked like two men arm in arm.
They went through the scrubby bush in the noiseless way of wary deer; notelltale stone was thrust loose to go tinkling down the hillside; theytrod on no dried brush to break with snapping noise.
Presently Carney dropped the rein from over the horse's head to theground, took his lariat from the saddle-horn, hung the two pack-bagsover his shoulder, and whispering, "Wait here, Patsy boy," slippedthrough the brush and wormed his way cautiously to a huge boulder ahundred feet from the trestle. There he sat down, his back against therock, and his eye on the blobs of yellow light that was Bucking Horsetown. Presently from beyond the rock carried to his listening ears theclink of an iron-shod hoof against a stone, and he heard a suppressed,"Damn!"
"Coming, I guess," he muttered to himself.
The heavy booming whistle of the giant Mogul up on the Divide camehoarsely down the Bucking Horse Pass, and then a great blaringyellow-red eye gleamed on the mountain side as if some Cyclops forcedhis angry way down into the valley. A bell clanged irritably as theMogul rocked in its swift glide down the curved grade; there was thescreeching grind of airbrakes gripping at iron wheels; a mighty sigh asthe compressed air seethed from opened valves at their release when thetrain stood at rest beside the little log station of Bucking Horse.
He could see, like the green eye of some serpent, the conductor'slantern gyrate across the platform; even the subdued muffled noise ofpackages thrust into the express car carried to the listener's ear. Thenthe little green eye blinked a command to start, the bell clanged, theMogul coughed as it strained to its task, the drivers gripped atsteel rails and slipped, the Mogul's heart beating a tattoo of gaspingbreaths; then came the grinding rasp of wheel flange against steelas the heavy train careened on the curve, and now the timbers of thetrestle were whining a protest like the twang of loose strings on aharp.
Carney turned on his hands and knees and, creeping around to the farside of the rock, saw dimly in the faint moonlight the figure of a manhuddled in a little rounded heap twenty feet from the rails. In his handthe barrel of a gun glinted once as the moon touched it.
Slowly, like some ponderous animal, the Mogul crept over the trestle! itwas like a huge centipede slipping along the dead limb of a tree.
When the engine reached the solid bank the crouched figure sprang to thesteps of the cab and was lost to view. A sharp word of command carriedto Carney's ear; he heard the clanging clamp of the air brakes; thestertorous breath of the Mogul ceased; the train stood still, all behindthe express car still on the trestle.
Then a square of yellow light shone where the car door had slid open,and within stood a masked man, a gun in either hand; in one corner, withhands above his head, and face to the wall, stood a second man, while athird was taking from an iron safe little canvas bags and dropping themthrough the open door.
Carney held three loops of the lariat in his right hand, and the balancein his left; now he slipped from the rock, darted to the side of the carand waited.
He heard a man say, "That's all!" Then a voice that he knew as Jack theWolf's commanded, "Face to the wall! I've got your guns, and if you moveI'll plug you!"
The Wolf appeared at the open door, where he fired one shot as a signalto Cayuse; there was the hiss and clang of releasing brakes and gaspsfrom the starting engine. At that instant the lariat zipped from agraceful sweep of Carney's hand to float like a ring of smoke over thehead of Jack the Wolf, and he was jerked to earth. Half stunned by thefall he was pinned there as though a grizzly had fallen upon him.
The attack was so sudden, so unexpected, that he was tied and helplesswith hardly any semblance of a fight, where he lay watching the tailend of the train slipping off into the gloomed pass, and the man who hadbound him as he nimbly gathered up the bags of loot.
Carney was in a hurry; he wanted to get away before the return Cayuse.Of course if Cayuse came back too soon so much the worse for Cayuse, butshooting a man was something to be avoided.
He was hampered a little due either to the Wolf's rapacity, or theexpress messenger's eagerness to obey, for in addition to the twentythousand dollars there were four other plump bags of gold. ButCarney, having secured the lot, hurried to his horse, dropped the packbags astride the saddle, mounted, and made his way to the Little Widowmine. He had small fear that the two men would think of looking in thatdirection for the man who had robbed them; even if they did he had agood start for it would take time to untie the Wolf and get their onehorse. Also he had the Wolf's guns.
He rode into the mine, dismounted, took the loot to a cross-cut thatran off the long drift and dropped it into a sump hole that was full ofwater, sliding in on top rock debris. Then he unsaddled the buckskin,tied him, and hurried along the drift and crawled his way through thesmall tunnel back to jail. There he threw himself on the bunk, and,chuckling, fell into a virtuous sleep.
He was wakened at daybreak by Sergeant Black who said cheerfully,"You're in luck, Bulldog."
"Honored, I should s
ay, if you allude to our association."
The Sergeant groped silently through this, then, evidently missing thesarcasm, added, "The midnight was held up last night at the trestle, andif you'd been outside I guess you'd been pipped as the angel."
"Thanks for your foresight, friend--that is, if you knew it was comingoff. Tell me how your friend worked it."
Sergeant Black told what Carney already knew so well, and when he hadfinished the latter said: "Even if I hadn't this good alibi nobody wouldsay I had anything to do with it, for I distrust man so thoroughly thatI never have a companion in any little joke I put over."
"I couldn't do anything in the dark," the Sergeant resumed, in anapologetic way, "so I'm going out to trail the robbers now."
He looked at Carney shiftingly, scratched an ear with a forefinger, andthen said: "The express company has wired a reward of a thousand dollarsfor the robbers, and another thousand for the recovery of the money."
"Go to it, Sergeant," Carney laughed; "get that capital, then go east toLake Erie and start a bean farm."
Black grinned tolerantly. "If you'll join up, Bulldog, we could run themtwo down."
"No, thanks; I like it here."
"I'm going to turn you out, Bulldog--set you free."
"And I'm going to insist on a hearing. I'll take those stripes off yourarm for playing the fool." The Sergeant drew from his pocket a telegramand passed it to Carney. It was from Major Silver at Golden, and ran:
"Get Carney to help locate robbers. He knows the game. Express companyoffers two thousand."
"Where's the other telegram?" Carney asked, a twinkle in his eye.
"What other one?"
"The one in answer to yours asking for instructions over my arrest."
The Sergeant looked at Carney out of confused, astonished eyes; then headmitted: "The Major advises we can't hold you in B. C. on the Albertacase. But what about joining in the hunt? You've worked with the policebefore."
"Twice; because a woman was getting the worst of it in each case. ButI'm no sleuth for the official robber--he's fair game."
"You won't take the trail with me then, Carney?"
"No, I won't; not to run down the hold-up men--that's your job. But youcan tell your penny-in-the-slot company, that piking corporation thatoffers thousand dollars for the recovery of twenty or thirty thousand,that when they're ready to pay five thousand dollars' reward for thegold I'll see if I can lead them to it. Now, my dear Sergeant, ifyou'll oblige me with my gun I'd like to saunter over to the hotel forbreakfast."
"I'll go with you," Sergeant Black said, "I haven't had mine yet."
Jeanette was in the front room of the hotel as the two men entered.Her face went white when she saw Carney seemingly in the custody of thepoliceman. He stopped to speak to her, and Black, going through to thedining room saw the Wolf and Cayuse Braun at a table. He had these twounder suspicion, for the Wolf had a record with the police.
He closed the door and, standing in front of it, said: "I'm going toarrest you two men for the train robbery last night. When you finishyour breakfast I want you to come quietly over to the lock-up till thisthing is investigated."
The Wolf laughed derisively. "What're you doin' here, Sergeant--whyain't you out on the trail chasin' Bulldog Carney?"
The Sergeant stared. "Bulldog Carney?" he queried; "what's he got to dowith it?"
"Everything. It's a God's certainty that he pulled this hold-up off whenhe escaped last night."
The Sergeant gasped. What was the Wolf talking about. He turned, openedthe door and called, "Carney, come here and listen to Jack Wolf tell howyou robbed the train!"
At this the Wolf bent across the table and whispered hoarsely, "Christ!Bulldog has snitched--he's give us away! I thought he'd clear out whenhe got the gold. And he knowed me last night when we clinched. And hishorse was gone from the stable this morning!"
As the two men sprang to their feet, the Sergeant whirled at the rasp oftheir chairs on the floor, and reached for his gun. But Cayuse's gun wasout, there was a roaring bark in the walled room, a tongue of fire, apuff of smoke, and the Sergeant dropped.
As he fell, from just behind him Carney's gun sent a leaden pellet thatdrilled a little round hole fair in the center of Cayuse's forehead, andhe collapsed, a red jet of blood spurting over the floor.
In the turmoil the Wolf slipped through a door that was close to wherehe sat, sped along the hall into the storeroom, and down to the minechamber.
With a look at Cayuse that told he was dead, Carney dropped his pistolback into the holster, and telling Seth, who had rushed in, to hurry fora doctor, took the Sergeant in his arms like a baby child carried himupstairs to a bed, Jeanette showing the way.
As they waited for the doctor Carney said: "He's shot through theshoulder; he'll be all right."
"What's going to happen over this, Bulldog?" Jeanette asked.
"Cayuse Braun has passed to the Happy Hunting Ground--he can't talk;Seth, of course, won't; and the Wolf will never stop running till hehits the border. I had a dream last night, Jeanette, that somebody gaveme five thousand dollars easy money. If it comes true, my dear girl,I'm going to put it in your name so Seth can't throw you down hard if heever takes a notion to."
Carney's dream came true at the full of the moon.