CHAPTER XXII
They plunged together into the river. The water, icy cold, was ashock, but Dancing had made no mistake. They were below the rocks andneeded only to steady themselves as the resistless current swept themdown toward the railroad yards.
Bucks demonstrated that he could swim and the two seemed hardly in thewater before they could fully see the burning roundhouse. A momentlater, chilled to the bone but with his mind cleared by the sharpplunge, Bucks felt his companion's arm drawing him toward the farthershore where, in the slack water of an elbow of the stream, Dancing ledthe way across a shoal of gravel and Bucks waded after him up theriverbank.
They hastened together across the dark railroad yard. The sound offiring came again from the square in front of the railroad stationand thither they directed their fleeing feet. To the right they heardthe shouts of the men who were fighting the fire at the roundhouse andthe hot crackling of the flames. They reached the station together andentered the waiting-room by a rear door.
Men were running everywhere in and out of the building and thewaiting-room was barricaded for war. Bill Dancing caught a passingtrainman by the arm.
"What's going on here?"
The man looked at the lineman and his companion in surprise: "Thegamblers are driving the vigilantes, Bill. They've got all FrontStreet. What's the matter with you?"
Dancing caught sight of Bob Scott coming down the rear stairway withan armful of rifles, and, without answering the question, called tohim.
"Hello!" exclaimed Scott halting. He started as he saw Bucks. "Were_you_ with him? And I've been scouring the town for you! Stanley willhave a word to say to you, youngster. They thought the gamblers hadyou, Bill," he added, turning to the lineman.
Dancing, a sight from the pounding he had taken, his clothing intatters, and with the blood-stains now streaked by the water drippingfrom his hair, drew himself up. "I hope you didn't think so, Bob? Didthey reckon a handful of blacklegs would get me?"
Scott grinned inscrutably. "They've got the best part of your shirt,Bill. How did you get off?"
"Swam for it," muttered Dancing, shaking himself. "Where's Stanley?"
"Out behind the flat cars. He is arming the vigilantes. We've fencedoff the yards with loaded freight-cars. They've fired the roundhouseon us, but the rifles and ammunition that came to-night are upstairshere. Take some of these guns, Bill, and hand them around in front.Bucks can follow you with a box of ammunition."
Scott spoke hurriedly and ran out of the door facing Front StreetSquare. A string of flat cars had been run along the house-track infront of the station, and behind these the hard-pressed vigilantes,reinforced now by the railroad men, were taking up a new line ofdefence. Driven through the town in a running battle, they were instraits when they reached Stanley's barricade.
Following a resolve already well defined, the railroad chief conferredwith the vigilante leaders for a brief moment. He called them to hisoffice and denounced the folly of half-way measures.
"You see," said Stanley, pointing to two dead men whom the discomfitedbusiness men had brought off with them, "what temporizing has done.There is only one way to treat with these people." He was interruptedby firing from across the square. "In an hour they will have everystore in Front Street looted."
The deliberation for a few moments was a stormy one, but Stanley heldhis ground. "Desperate diseases, gentlemen," he said, addressingAtkinson and his companions, "require desperate remedies, and you mustsometime come to what I propose."
"What you propose," returned Atkinson gloomily, "will ruin us."
Stanley answered with composure: "You are ruined now. What you shouldconsider is whether, if you don't cut this cancer of gambling,outlawry, and murder out while you have a chance, it won't remain toplague you as long as you do business in Medicine Bend, and remain toruin you periodically. This is always going to be a town and a bigone. As long as this railroad is operated, this ground where we standis and must be the chief operating point for the whole mountaindivision. You and I may be wiped out of existence and the railroadwill go on as before. But it is for you to accept or reject what Ipropose as the riddance of this curse to your community.
"The railroad has been drawn into this fight by assault upon its men.It can meet violence with violence and protect itself, or it cantemporarily abandon a town where protection is not afforded its livesand property. In an emergency, trains could be run through MedicineBend without stopping. The right of way could be manned withsoldiers. But the railroad can't supply men enough to preserve in yourtown the law and order which you yourselves ought to preserve. And ifwe were compelled to build division facilities, temporarily,elsewhere, while they would ultimately come back here, it might beyears before they did so. What else but your ruin would this mean?"
He had hardly ceased speaking when the conference was broken in upon.Bob Scott ushered in two men sent under a flag of truce from therioters. The offer they brought was that Rebstock and Seagrue shouldbe surrendered, provided Stanley would give his personal pledge thatthe two should not be shot but sent out of town until peace wasrestored, and that they should be accorded a fair trial when broughtback.
Stanley listened carefully to all that was said:
"Who sent you?" he demanded.
"The committee up street," returned the envoys evasively.
"You mean Levake sent you," retorted Stanley. He sat at his desk andeyed the two ruffians, as they faced him somewhat nervously. They atlength admitted that they had come from Levake, and gave Stanley hischance for an answer.
"Tell Levake for me there will be no peace for him or his until hecomes down here with his hands behind his back. When I want Rebstockand Seagrue I will let him know. I want him first," said Stanley,dismissing the messengers without more ado.