The Mountain Divide - Frank H. Spearman (english reading book .txt) 📗

Lee stopped only long enough to throw his right arm and forefinger with an excited gesture toward the west.

“San Francisco, San Francisco!” he cried.

“Why, Lee,” exclaimed Bucks running after him, “hold on! You are crazy! San Francisco is fifteen hundred miles from here.” This information did not visibly move Ong. “Indian no good,” he cried, pausing, but only long enough to wave both hands wildly toward the sand-hills. “San Francisco good. No some more cook here. Indian come too quick”––Ong with his active finger girdled the crown of his head in a lightning-like imitation of a scalping knife––“psst! No good for Ong!”

It would have seemed funny to Bucks if he had not been already frightened himself. But if the section men had fled with the hand-car it meant he would have to face the Indians. Lee Ong, running like mad, was already out of hearing, and in any event Bucks had no wish to imperil the poor China boy’s scalp with his own.

He turned an anxious eye toward the sand-hills. Then realizing that on the platform he was exposing himself needlessly, he hastened inside to his key and called up Medicine Bend. It was only a moment, but it seemed to the frightened operator a lifetime before the despatcher answered. Bucks reported the Indians and asked if there were any freight trains coming that he could make his escape on.

The despatcher answered that No. 11, the local freight, was then due at Goose Creek and would pick him up and carry him to Julesburg if he felt in danger. Bucks turned with relief to the east window and saw down the valley the smoke of the freight already in sight. Never had a freight train looked so good to his eyes as it did at that moment. He hailed its appearance with a shout and looked apprehensively back toward the sand-hills.

The activity in that direction was not reassuring. The Indians, too, apparently had noticed the smoke of No. 11 trailing on the horizon. A conference followed, illustrated by frequent pointing and violent gesticulating to indicate the coming 139 train. Then with a sudden resolve the whole party rode rapidly out of the hills and down toward the railroad.

Bucks’s heart misgave him as he watched. But the cotton-woods growing along the river hid the Indians from his eyes and he could not surmise what they were doing. The information all went to the despatcher, however, who, more experienced, scented serious mischief when Bucks’s bulletins now came in.

“Watch close,” he wired. “It looks as if they were going to attack the train.”

The operator’s anxiety rose with the intimation. He ran out of doors and down the track, but he could neither hear nor see a thing except the slow-moving train with the smoke puffing from the awkward, diamond-stack locomotive moving peacefully toward the cotton-woods that fringed the eastern shore of Goose Creek. The very silence seemed ominous. Bucks knew the Indians were hidden somewhere in the cotton-woods and felt that they could mean nothing but mischief. He ran back to his key and reported.

“They will surely attack No. 11,” he wired. “I will run across the bridge and warn them.”

“Where are the Indians?” demanded the despatcher.

“In the timber across the creek. I am starting.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” returned the despatcher, with an expression of Western force and brevity. “They will lift your hair before you get half-way to the train. Stick to your key as long as you can. If they start to cross the creek, leg it for the ranch. Do you get me?”

Bucks, considerably flurried, answered that he did, and the despatcher with renewed emphasis reiterated his sharp inquiry. “Do you understand, young fellow? If they start to cross the creek, leg it for the ranch or you’ll lose your hair.”

Bucks strained his eyes looking for a sign of movement across the bridge. The cotton-woods swayed gently in the light breeze, but revealed nothing of what they hid.

The freight train continued to crawl lazily along, its crews quite unconscious of any impending fate. 141 Bucks, smothering with excitement and apprehension, saw the engine round the curve that led to the trestle approach of the bridge. Then the trees hid the train from his sight.

“What are they doing?” demanded the despatcher, growing apprehensive himself. An appalling crash from the woods electrified Bucks, and the key rattled fast.

“They have wrecked the train,” he wired without an instant’s hesitation. “I can hear the crash of cars falling from the trestle.”

Before he could finish his message he heard also the screech of an engine whistle. The next instant the locomotive dashed out of the woods upon the bridge at full speed and with cries of disappointment and rage the savages rode out to the very bank of the creek and into the water after it. Bucks saw the sudden engine and thought at first that the train had escaped. The next moment he knew it had not. The engine was light: evidently it had passed in safety the trap laid for its destruction, but the cars following had left the rails.

If confirmation of this conclusion had been needed, it came when he ran out upon the platform as the engine approached. Bucks waved vigorous signals at it, but the ponderous machine came faster instead of slower as it neared the station, and, with Bucks vainly trying to attract the attention of the engineman or fireman, the locomotive thundered past at forty miles an hour.

He caught one glimpse through the tender gangway as the engine dashed by and saw both men in the cab crouching in front of the furnace door to escape the fancied bullets of the savages. Bucks shouted, but knew he had been neither seen nor heard, and, as the engine raced into the west, his best chance of escape from an unpleasant situation had disappeared almost before he realized it.

Each detail was faithfully reported to the despatcher, who answered at once.

“Relief train,” he wired, “now making up with a hundred men. Hold on as long as you can, but take no chances. What are they doing? Can you see or hear them?”

“They are yelling so you could hear them a mile.”

“Scout around a little,” directed the despatcher, “but don’t get caught.”

Bucks scouted around the room a little, but did not venture this time farther than the windows. He was growing very nervous. And the Indians, unrestrained in their triumph, displayed themselves everywhere without concealment. Helpless to aid, Bucks was compelled to stand and see a fleeing white man, the brakeman of the doomed train, running for his life, cut down by the pursuers and scalped before his eyes.

The horror and savagery of it sank deeply into the boy’s heart and only the realization of his utter inability to help kept him quiet. Tears of fury coursed down his cheeks as he saw in the distance the murdered man lying motionless on the sand beside the track, and with shaking fingers he reported the death to Medicine Bend.

“The relief train has started,” answered the despatcher, “with Stanley, Scott, Sublette, Dancing, and a hundred men.”

As the message came, Bucks heard shooting farther up the creek and this continued at intervals for some moments. It was sickening to hear, for it meant, Bucks surmised, that another trainman was being murdered.

Meantime the Indians that he could see were smashing into the wrecked merchandise cars and dragging the loot out upon the open prairie. Hats, clothing, tobacco, provisions, camp supplies of every sort, and musical instruments, millinery, boots, and blankets were among the plunder. The wearing apparel was tumbled out of the broken cases and, arrayed in whatever they could seize, the Indians paraded on their horses up and down the east bank of the creek in fantastic show.

Some wore women’s hats, some crinoline hoop-skirts over their shoulders; others brandished boots and shirts, and one glistening brave swung a banjo at arm’s-length over his flying horse’s head. Another party of the despoilers discovered a shipment of silks and satins. These they dragged in bolts from the packing-cases and, tying one end of a bolt of silk to their ponies’ tails, they 145 raced, yelling, in circles around the prairie with the parti-colored silks streaming behind, the bolts bobbing and jerking along the ground like rioting garlands of a crazy May-pole dance. And, having exhausted their ingenuity and robed themselves in this wise in all manner of plunder, they set fire to the wrecked train, singing and dancing in high glee as the flames rose crackling above the trees.

Bucks, with clenched hands, watched and prayed for the arrival of the speeding relief train. The moments passed with leaden feet and the train had many miles to come. The despatcher continued his encouraging messages, but did not cease his words of caution, and, as the wreckage burned, Bucks perceived the Indians were riding in great numbers up the creek. Too late he realized what it meant. They were looking for the ford and were about to cross to his side.