The Steel Horse/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI.
TWO NARROW ESCAPES.
"I TELL you I feel so savage that I could bite a nail in two an' not half try," were the first words that came to the ears of the listening wheelmen. They were preceded by a long-drawn sigh of satisfaction, such as a thirsty boy sometimes utters when he has taken a hearty drink of water. "Seems to me that I can't turn in no direction no way but I find them oneasy chaps at my heels to pester the life out of me. They're to blame for me losin' them six thousand dollars of mine that I worked hard fur, dog-gone 'em."
How the boys trembled when that harsh voice grated on their ears. It was Matt Coyle's, sure enough. They had heard it so often that there could be no mistake about it.
"They was the ones that blocked this little game of mine, an' sent me an' the fellers hum empty-handed when we thought to come back rich," Matt went on, growing angrier and raising his voice to a higher key as he proceeded. "I seen 'em as plain as daylight; an' now I come hum to find that they've been here an' shot them two dogs that I was dependin' on to keep the constable away from my shanty. Did anybody ever hear of sich pizen luck?"
"If you saw them there at the rock, what was the reason you did not drive them off so't the train could run into it?" inquired another familiar voice,—in point of fact, the voice of Dave Daily. The boys were surprised to know that he was there, and wondered if he had come out to meet Matt and put him on their trail. If he had, what was his object in doing it? Did he want to see them punished for shooting those savage dogs, or did he want to have them robbed?
"You say you and your crowd worked hard to get that rock down the bluff and onto the track, and yet you sot there in the bresh and let one single boy turn you from your purpose, which was to bust up the train," continued Daily. "He must have been alone, for you say yourself that one of his friends went one way and t'other went t'other to tell the engineer to watch out. Why didn't you go down and pitch him into the ravine?"
"What would have been the good of doin' that, seein' that Joe an' Arthur had already went off?" demanded the squatter, with some show of spirit. "An' don't I tell you that he had a pistol or something in his hand."
Daily uttered an exclamation of impatience.
"'Twasn't a pistol nor nothing of the sort," said he. "It was a little pop-gun that wouldn't hit the side of a barn nor shoot through a piece of card-board. Before I would say that I was scared by a little thing like that I would go off and hide myself; wouldn't you, Spence?"
"Them pop-guns was big enough an' ugly enough to kill them two dogs of mine, an' I ain't got no call to face sich we'pons," retorted Matt, who, as you know, always took care to look out for number one. "An' here we've been hidin' around in the bresh fur most a week, fearin' the officers, when we might as well come hum to onct. That's another thing that makes me mad. I do wish I could get my two hands onto them boys fur a little while, an' you fellers here to help me. I'd larrup 'em so't they wouldn't ever come nigh here agin, I bet you."
"I don't know whether you would or not," replied Daily. "I kinder liked 'em, and as long as they ain't officers—"
"That's so," interrupted Matt. "But they're jest the chaps to put the constables onto your trail an' mine. That's their best holt. Didn't you say that if you was in my place you wouldn't rest easy till everybody who had had a hand in mistreatin' you had been burned outen house an' home? Well, them are three of 'em."
"Now why didn't you say so?" demanded the chief of the Buster band.
"If we'd only knowed that, we'd a kept 'em for you," added Spence's voice. "Wouldn't we, Dave? Now that I come to think of it, the youngsters never told us who they was or where they come from, and we didn't think to ask them."
"They'd a lied to you if you had," said Matt, and the boys judged by the sound of crunching gravel that he was pacing back and forth across the road like some caged wild animal. "That's the kind of fellers they be; an' now I'll tell you what's a fact: If you don't help me ketch them fellers an' hold 'em so't they can't get away till we get ready to let 'em, this country of your'n will be thick with officers afore two weeks more has gone by. That's the way it was down to Injun Lake."
"And this is what we get by taking you in and feeding you when you was nigh about dead, is it?" exclaimed Daily, in angry tones. "I bet you that the next tramp who comes this way will be kicked out before he has time to tell his story. You've brought some of our boys into trouble by talking them big notions of your'n into their heads, and telling how easy it was to smash a train and get thousands of dollars outen the pocket of the folks—Ugh! I can't bear to think of what fools we made of ourselves by listening to you. Now you clear yourself, before we make an end of you for good."
"I come here 'cause I had to go somewhere, didn't I?" said Matt, in tones that were fully as angry and fierce as Daily's. "I'm sorry enough I done it, for you're not the men I took you for. You're willin' to stand here with your hands in your pockets an' let them rich folks tell you what an' when you shall eat."
"No, we ain't," roared Daily. "We're free Amerikin citizens, and we don't allow nobody to tell us what we shall do."
"Well, then, what makes you talk to me that-a-way?" cried Matt. "I come here to help, an' I've told you of more ways to bother the folks who want to make laws for you than you would have thought of in ten years' time. As fur puttin' that rock on the track, nobody suspicions who done it, an' we laid around in the bresh so't the officers, if any happened to be here, shouldn't see us comin' from t'wards the railroad. I'm free to say that I didn't want to go down to the track alone an' face the we'pon that Sheldon boy had in his hand (I knowed him dark as it was), but I offered to go if any one would go with me; an' they wouldn't. Ask 'em if it ain't so."
This proved to Roy Sheldon's entire satisfaction that he had done the right thing when he pulled his pocket rifle from its case, shoved a cartridge into it, and prepared to defend himself if the train-wreckers thought it best to attack him. It seems that they did watch him and discuss plans for getting him out of their way, but some of the timid ones among them saw the light reflected from the nickel-plated ornaments on his rifle, and could not muster courage enough to show themselves.
"Nobody don't suspicion that we put the rock on the track," repeated Matt, "an' that ain't why the officers will come here. You're the one who done the mischief—you, yourself. As soon as one of them boys began to let on that they knowed who you was, you showed them all the letters an' things vou writ for the papers, an' talked to 'em like they was friends of your'n. You will find yourself in trouble all along of that nonsense, if you don't do what I say."
"That puts a different look on the matter," said Daily, in a much milder tone, "and, Matt, I'm sorry I jawed you that-a-way. Fact of it is, I couldn't help it. We've been in a power of trouble and trib'lation ever since them rich folks down to Washington sent for us to go and fight their war for 'em, and then went and made laws against shooting deer and ketching trout, and we've got pretty well riled up. What do you think we had best do?"
"Nab them boys fust an' foremost," said the squatter emphatically. "That's the fust thing; then, after I have had my satisfaction outen 'em, by tyin' 'em to a tree an' larrupin' 'em with hickories, like I would have done with that there pizen Joe Wayring if them friends of his' n hadn't come up an' rescooed him—after I've done all that, I'll take a day off an' think what we'll do next. One thing is sartin: them boys must not be let go out of these mountings till their mouths has been shut about the Buster band in some way or 'nuther."
"Ketching of 'em is going to be the hardest part of the whole business," remarked Spence. "They skum along right peart after we let them go, and I b'lieve they are plumb outen the mountings by this time. If they are—"
"But they ain't, I tell you," Matt Coyle interposed. "It don't lay in no steam injun, let alone a bisickle, to get outen these mountings betwixt five o'clock an' dark. They're camped summers between here an' Ogden, an' all we've got to do is to circle round to our usual lookin'-out place an' stay there till we see 'em comin'; then we'll run down an' stop 'em. When I get my hands onto 'em they'd best watch out, fur I feel jest like poundin' 'em plumb to death to pay 'em fur stickin' that innercent ole woman of mine in jail. An' the boys too; the very best, honestest an' hardest workin' boys that any pap ever had. They're likewise shut up all along of that pizen Joe Wayring an' his rich friends."
These words were followed by the strangest sounds the boys had ever heard. If they had not known Matt Coyle as well as they did, they would have been sure he was crying.
All this while the men (and there seemed to be a large party of them) had been taking turns drinking at the brook; and having quenched their thirst they started on again with a common impulse, not along the road, but up the stream on whose right-hand bank the boys were encamped. There could be no doubt of it, for there was no longer any crunching of gravel under the heels of their heavy boots, but the bushes snapped and swayed, and the voices came more distinctly to their ears. Matt Coyle was the one who did most of the talking. He did not seem to take his failure to wreck the train so very much to heart, but he bewailed the loss of his dogs, whose good qualities could not be enumerated by any one man, and asked who would warn him now if the officers came to his shanty some dark night to arrest him.
"They are coming this way as sure as the world," whispered Roy, drawing his feet closer to him and placing an elbow on each knee so that he could have a dead rest with his rifle. "Why don't the fools stick to the road? It's easier walking there than it is in the bushes."
"This is no doubt a short cut to their hiding-place," replied Joe. "Stand together, fellows, and we'll show them what we are made of. We'll give them fair warning, and if they are foolish enough to disregard it, they will have to take the consequences."
"That's what's the matter," whispered Arthur, cautiously moving a little closer to his friends. "I'm afraid, but I'll never be tied to a tree and whipped; they can bet on that."
I can not begin to tell you how frightened I was as I stood there and listened to the voices and footsteps of those desperate men who were every minute drawing nearer to our place of concealment. Remember, I was utterly helpless. However good my will may have been, I did not possess the power to do the first thing to aid my master in the fight which I firmly believed would be commenced in less than ten seconds. And bear another thing in mind: If the young wheelmen were found there, and were overpowered and taken captive, the shooting of Matt Coyle's worthless dogs was not the only thing for which they would be punished. They knew Matt's secret. They knew that he and some of his party had tried to wreck a train. They had talked about it where the boys could plainly hear every word they uttered. Of course Matt would know it, if he found them there in the bushes, and what would he do? How would he go to work to "shut up their mouths," as he had spoken of doing? I assure you this thought was enough to make even my steel nerves shake; and I believe it must have passed through Joe Wayring's mind and frightened him, for I heard him say, in a scarcely audible whisper:
"It's do or die, fellows. That villain will be wild with rage if he learns that we heard all he said to Dave Daily. If the worst must come, be sure of your man before you shoot."
That moment's terrible suspense is something I never shall forget; then the reaction came, and I felt as if I were going to fall in a heap like a piece of wet rope. There was a tolerably well-beaten path along the bank of the brook, but it was on the other side. Dave Daily and his gang of villains followed it, and that was all that saved us. If there had been a spark of fire on our side the brook as big as the end of your finger, I should have had a different story to tell. I was so confused that I could not pay any attention to their conversation, but I counted them as they passed along in Indian file, and when at last they were out of hearing and Roy Sheldon spoke, I knew his count agreed with mine.
"Thirteen," was all he said; and then he lay down on his blanket and probably looked as nerveless as I felt.
"And at least half of them must have been with Matt," added Arthur Hastings. "I know it took six or seven men to roll that bowlder out of the ditch and place it on the track. Great Scott! Wasn't that a narrow escape!"
"I'd like to know how we shall come out to-morrow," said Joe, anxiously. "That 'looking-out place' that Matt spoke of must command a view of the road along which we will have to go to get to Ogden, and if we do not mind what we are about, Matt will meet and stop us there."
This was another thing the young wheelmen had to worry over, and taken in connection with the vivid recollection of the exciting scene through which they had just passed, it effectually banished sleep from their eyes for the rest of the night. And daylight was a long time coming, as it always is when anxiously waited and watched for. They ate breakfast as they had eaten supper in the dark and when the birds began singing picked up their wheels and struck out for the road, which they found to be quite as bad as it looked on the previous evening. The first hill they encountered was a hard one, as they knew it was going to be, and when they gained the top they had to go down again on the other side. Of course the woods were about as dark as they could be, and it was anything but pleasant for the leading boy to feel his way while trundling his wheel beside him. But the fear of Matt Coyle's wrath and the hope of passing his "looking-out place" before the sun arose, drove them on, and to such good purpose that, by the time they could see to ride, they found themselves on a smooth, well-traveled highway. They did not stop to ask one another whether or not it was the road they wanted to find. It led away from the mountains, and that was all they cared to know.
"Away we go on our wheels, boys," sang Joe; and suiting the action to the word he sprang into his saddle and set out at a lively pace. "Now, Matt Coyle, come on. It would take a better horse than you ever did or ever will own to stop us."
"But a stick thrown into the road might do the business for us," suggested Roy.
"You don't suppose Matt knows that, do you?" said Arthur. "Does anybody see anything that looks as though it might be used for a look-out station?"
Nobody did. There was nothing to be seen but a cultivated field on the right hand, a thickly wooded hill-side on the left, and a farm house in the distance. True there was a high, bald peak a little to the left of the hill over which the road disappeared, but it was all of ten or fifteen miles away, and a man stationed on its summit would have needed a good glass to make us out. At least that was what Joe Wayring said, and then he dismissed all fears of Matt Coyle from his mind, and made a motion with his hand as if to throw open the breech of his pocket rifle, which he had thus far carried in readiness for any emergency that might arise, and remove the cartridge; but, on reflection, he decided to wait a little longer. It was lucky he did so, and that his companions followed his example.
If the Buster band really had a "looking-out place" anywhere within sight of the road I don't know it, but I do know that by taking short cuts through the mountains they managed to reach the highway in advance of us, for when we reached the top of the hill of which I have spoken, and the wheelmen were about to stow the rifles in their cases preparatory to a coast, Matt Coyle and Dave Daily suddenly stepped out of a thicket on one side of the road, and as many more ruffians arose from behind the fence on the other. They were about thirty yards away, and although all except Matt carried guns in their hands, I was relieved to see that there was not a club or stone among them. They supposed that all they had to do was to form across the road, call upon the boys to halt, and they would be obeyed.
"Them's the fellers—the very chaps I've been a-lookin' fur," yelled the squatter, shaking his fists in the air and striking up a war-dance in the middle of the road. "Now I'll have the whole on you, an' there won't be nobody to interfere when I—"
"Full speed, boys," said Joe, in a low tone. "Hold fast to your guns and be ready to stop if anybody gets unhorsed. It's our only chance. Get out of the way," he cried, flourishing his cocked rifle above his head with one hand while he guided me with the other. "Get out of the way or we will run you down. If we strike you, you are dead men."
It never occurred to Matt and Dave to ask each other what would become of the boys themselves if their headlong progress were suddenly stopped, and neither did they linger to try the experiment. The three Columbias fairly whistled through the air; and when Matt saw that his peremptory orders to halt were disregarded, and that we were charging down upon him with apparently irresistible force, he scuttled out of the way with the greatest haste, and Dave Daily, the terrible man who hid in the woods and shot at officers unawares, was not an inch behind him.
"Look out for them pop-guns," he yelled.
"Yes, look out for them," shouted Arthur. "They're death on all sorts of varmints."
In less time than it takes to tell it the danger was over. Moving abreast and going at almost railroad speed we flew down the hill, and the way was clear. I caught just one glimpse of Matt Coyle's scowling and astonished face as we sped by, and that was the first and last time I ever saw him. After that I did not wonder that my master and his friends were resolved to fight to the death and take any risks rather than fall into his power, for if I ever saw an evil face I saw it then. But the man who carried it around with him was a coward, and so was the leader of the Buster band, who was afraid of the pocket rifles. If those handy little weapons had brought their owners into difficulty, they had also assisted in getting them out of it.
Being afraid to apply the brakes the boys regulated their speed with the pedals as well as they could, and when the foot of the hill was reached they stopped and looked behind them. There was no one in sight.
The excitement for that day was all over now, and I was very glad of it. The road being good and the coasting places frequent, we bowled along at a lively pace, and at four o'clock in the afternoon rode into the village of Ogden, where we halted for the night. One of the loungers on the porch was reading aloud from a weekly paper which had but just arrived with news that was no news to city people by this time. Of course the work of the train-wreckers was given a prominent place, as well as a lengthy notice. As I leaned against the porch and listened, I asked myself what those loungers would have said if some one had told them that the three dusty boys who had just disappeared through the doorway were the ones who brought the efforts of the train-wreckers to naught. Roy and Arthur respected Joe's wishes, and never, in any one's hearing, spoke of what he had done that night.