CHAPTER XVII
How long Bucks lay in the darkness he did not know, but he woke toconsciousness with thunder crashing in his ears and a flood of rainbeating on his upturned face. When he opened his eyes he was blindedby sheets of lightning trembling across the sky, and he turned hisface from the pelting rain until he could collect himself.
While he lay insensible from the shock of the bullet, whichprovidentially had only grazed his scalp, the storm had burst over themountains drowning everything before it. Water fell in torrents, andthe desert below him was one wide river. Water danced and swam downthe rocks and ran in broad, shallow waves over the sand, and the scenewas light as day. Thunder peals crashed one upon another like salvoesof artillery, deafening and alarming the confused boy, and the rainpoured without ceasing. Continuing waves of lightning revealed therailroad and station building before him and he realized that he hadfallen the rest of the way down from where he had been fired at on theface of the Point.
He took quick stock of his condition and, rising to his feet, foundhimself only sore and bruised. He pressed his way through the flood tothe track, gained the platform, and, judging rightly that hisassailants had abandoned their fight, entered the half-burned buildingunafraid. Rain poured in one corner where the roof had burned awaybefore the storm had put out the fire.
Stumbling through the debris that covered the floor, Bucks made hisway to the operator's table and put his hand up to cut in thelightning arrester. He was too late. The fire had taken everythingahead of him, and his hope of getting into communication with thedespatchers was next dashed by the discovery that his instruments werewrecked.
He sat down--his chair was intact--much disheartened. But withoutdelay he opened the drawer of the table and feeling for his box ofcartridges found that the thieves had overlooked it. This he slippedinto his pocket with a feeling of relief, and, as he sat, rain-soakedand with the water dripping from his hair, he reloaded his revolverand made such preparations as he could to barricade the inner door andwait for the passing of the storm.
From time to time, awed by the fury of the elements, he looked intothe night. It seemed as if the valley as far as he could see was avast lake that rippled and danced over the rocks. Bucks had neverconceived of a thunderstorm like this. Until it abated there wasnothing he could do, and he sat in wretched discomfort, hour afterhour, waiting for the night to pass and listening to the mighty roarof the waters as they swept broadside down the divide carryingeverything ahead of them. Before daylight the violence of the stormwore itself away, but the creek in the little canyon south of theright-of-way, dashing its swollen bulk against the granite walls,pounded and roared with the fury of a cataract.
When day broke, ragged masses of gray cloud scudded low across thesky. The rain had ceased, and in the operator's room Bucks, aided bythe first rays of daylight, was struggling to get the telegraph wiresdisentangled to send a message. His hopes, as the light increased andhe saw the ruin caused by the fire, were very slender, but he keptbusily at the wreckage and getting, at length, two severed strands ofthe wires to show a current, began sending his call, followed by amessage for help to Medicine Bend. He worked at this for thirtyminutes unceasingly, then, looking around on every side of thebuilding, he satisfied himself that he was alone and, dropping down athis table, leaned upon it with his elbows, and, tired, wet, andbegrimed, fell fast asleep.
He was roused by the distant whistle of a locomotive. Opening hiseyes, he saw the sun streaming through the east side of the buildingwhere the window casement had burned away. Shaking off the heavinessof his slumber he hastened out to see an engine and box-car comingfrom the east. From the open door of the car men were waving theirhats. Bucks answered by swinging his arm.
The engine stopped before the station and Bob Scott, followed byDancing, Dave Hawk, and the train crew sprang from the caboose stepsand surrounded him. They had brought two horses and Bucks saw that allthe men were armed. It took only a minute to tell the story, and theparty scattered to view the destruction and look for clues to theperpetrators.
Scott and Dancing were especially keen in their search, but they foundnothing to suggest who the vandals were. They listened again to Bucks,as he repeated his story with more detail, and held a hurriedconference in which Dave Hawk took charge. Meantime the men weretearing up planks from the platform to make a chute for unloading thehorses.
Bucks's excitement increased as he saw the businesslike preparationsfor the chase. "Have you any idea you can catch them, Bob?" he askedfeverishly.
Bob Scott's smile was not a complete answer. "How can you catchanybody in _this_ country?" continued Bucks, regarding the scoutsceptically. But Scott looked across the interminable waste ofsage-brush and rock as if he felt at home with it.
"If they stick to the wagon," he explained leisurely, "we will havethem in an hour or two, Bucks. A man might as well travel around herewith a brass band as to try to get away with a wagon track behind him.If they stick to the wagon, we are bound to have them in two or threehours at most. You are sure they didn't have a led horse?"
"They had nothing but the team," said Bucks.
"In that case if they give up the wagon, three of them will have toride two horses. They can't go fast in that way. We will get some ofthem, Bucks, sure--somehow, sometime, somewhere. We have got to getthem. How could I hold my job if I didn't get them?"
That which had seemed impossible to Bucks looked more hopeful afterBob had smiled again. Dancing was busy installing the new telegraphoutfit. While this was going on, Scott saddled the horses and, when heand Dave Hawk had mounted, the two rode rapidly down the emigranttrail toward Bitter Creek. The train was held until Dancing could getthe instruments working again; then, at Hawk's request, it was sentdown the Bitter Creek grade after himself and Scott; the trailfollowed the railroad for miles. Dancing remained with Bucks to guardagainst further attack.
The two railroad men rode carefully along the heavy ruts of theemigrant trail, from which all recent tracks had been obliterated bythe flood, knowing that they would strike no sign of the wagon untilit had been started after the storm. They had covered in this mannerless than two miles when, rounding a little bend, they saw a coveredemigrant wagon standing in the road not half a mile from the railroadtrack.
Scott led quickly toward concealment and from behind a shoulder ofrock to which the two rode they could see that the wagon had beenhalted and the horses, strangely entangled in the harness, were lyingin front of it. Scott and Hawk dismounted and, crawling up theshoulder where they could see without being seen, waited impatientlyfor some sign of life from the suspicious outfit. The descriptionBucks had given fitted the wagon very well, and the two lay for atime waiting for something to happen, and exchanging speculations asto what the situation might mean. They were hoping that the thievesmight, if they had gone away, return, and with this thought restrainedtheir impatience.
"It may be a trick to get us up to shooting distance, Bob," suggestedHawk when Scott proposed they should close in.
"But that wouldn't explain why the horses are lying there in that way,Dave. Something else has happened. Those horses are dead; they haven'tmoved. Suppose I circle the outfit," suggested Scott benevolently.
"Take care they don't get a shot at you."
"If they can get a shot at me before I can at them they are welcome,"returned Scott as he picked up his bridle rein. "From what Bucks toldme I don't think a great deal of their shooting. He is a level-headedboy, that long-legged operator." And Scott, with some quiet grimaces,recounted Bucks's story of his descent of Point of Rocks the nightbefore, under the fire of the three desperadoes.
That he himself was now taking his own life in his hands as he startedon a perilous reconnoissance, cost him no thought. Such a situation hewas quite used to. But for a green boy from the East to put up sounequal a fight seemed to the experienced scout a most humorousproceeding.
He mounted his horse and directing Hawk what to do if he should behit, set out to ride completely aro
und the suspected wagon. The canvascover was the uncertain element in the situation. It might concealnobody, and yet it might conceal three rifles waiting for anindiscreet pursuer to come within range. Scott, taking advantage ofthe uneven country, rode circumspectly to the south, keeping theobject of his caution well in view, and at times, under cover offriendly rocks, getting up quite close to it.
Before he had completed half his ride he had satisfied himself as tothe actual state of affairs. Yet his habitual caution led him tofollow out his original purpose quite as carefully as if he hadreached no conclusion. When he crossed the trail west of the wagon, helooked closely for fresh tracks, but there were none. He then circledto the north and was soon able, by dismounting, to crawl under coverwithin a hundred yards of the heads of the horses. When he got up towhere he could see without being seen he perceived clearly that hissurmise had been correct.
Both horses lay dead in the harness. From the front seat of the wagona boot protruded; nothing more could be seen. Scott now, by signals,summoned Dave Hawk from where he lay, and when the swarthy conductorreached the scout, Scott called out loudly at the wagon.
There was no answer, no movement, no sound. Things began to seemqueer; in the bright blaze of sunshine, and with the parched desertglistening after the welcome rain, there in the midst of the vastamphitheatre of mountains lay the dead horses before the mysteriouswagon. But nowhere about was any sign of life, and the wagon mighthold within its white walls death for whoever should unwarily approachit.
Bob Scott had no idea, however, of sacrificing himself to any schemethat might have occurred to the enemy to lure him within danger. Hecalled out again at the top of his voice and demanded a surrender. Nosound gave any response, and raising his rifle he sent a bulletthrough the extreme top of the canvas cover midway back from thedriver's seat.
The echoes of the report crashed back to the rocks, but broughtnothing from the silence of the emigrant wagon. A second shotfollowed, tearing through the side board of the wagon-box itself; yetthere was no answer. Scott, taking his horse, while Hawk remained inhiding and covered the scene with his own rifle, led the horse so thatit served as a shelter and walked directly toward the wagon itself. Ashe neared it he approached from the front, pausing at times to surveywhat he saw. Hawk watched him lead his unwilling horse, trembling withfear, up to the dead team as they lay in the bright sunlight, and sawScott take hold of the protruding boot, peer above it into the wagonitself and, without turning his head, beckon Hawk to come up.
Under the canvas, the driver of the wagon lay dead with the linesclutched in his stiffened fingers, just as he had fallen when deathstruck his horses. The two frontiersmen needed no explanation of whatthey saw in the scarred and blackened face of the outlaw. A bolt oflightning had killed him and stricken both horses in the same instant.Bob crawled into the wagon and with Hawk's help dragged the dead manforward into the sunlight. Both recognized him. It was Bucks'sassailant and enemy, the Medicine Bend and Spider Water gambler,Perry.