at once, a curious feeling of incredulity swept over him. It was an impossibility for the thing to have happened. The bolt fitted horizontally, and the washered nut had full two inches to unscrew! Besides this, the whole thing was well rusted with years of exposure. Yet the impossible had happened!
He stood gazing at the bolt with a sort of uncanny feeling stirring within him. The engine at the head of its long string of box cars approached. It passed him, and he heard its driver hurl some uncomplimentary remark at him as the rattling old kettle clanked by. Then, as the last car passed him, and rapidly grew smaller as the distance swallowed it up, he turned back to his vegetable patch with the mystery still unsolved.
The journey through the hills was nearly over, and White Point was but a short distance ahead. The conductor and crew of the local freight were lounging comfortably in the caboose.
The brakeman’s life is full of risk and little comfort, and such moments as these were all too few. When they came they were more than gratefully received. Now the men were spread out in various attitudes of repose, and, for the most part, were half asleep.
Suddenly, without the least warning, they were startled into full wakefulness by the familiar clatter, beginning at the head of the train and passing rapidly down its full length, as the cars closed up on each other. The resting men knew that the locomotive was either stopping, or had already come to a halt.
The conductor, or head brakeman, sat up with a jolt.
“Hey, you, Jack!” he cried peevishly. “Get up aloft an’ get a peek out. Say, we sure ain’t goin’ to get held up at a bum flag layout.”
His contempt was no less for the flag station than Mr. Moss’s for a local freight.
The man addressed as “Jack” sprang alertly to the roof of the caboose. A moment later his voice echoed through the car below him.
“Can’t see a thing,” he cried. “We’re on the last bend, just outside White Point. She’s stopped – dead sure. Guess the flag has got us held up.” With a few added curses he clambered down into the car again.
As the brakeman left the roof of the caboose the enactment of a strange scene began at the fore part of the car immediately in front of it.
A glance down at the coupling would have revealed the cautious appearance of a shock of rough hair covering a man’s head from under the last box car. Slowly it twisted round till a grimy, dust-covered face was turned upward, and a pair of expectant eyes peered up at the tops of the two cars.
Apparently the preliminary survey was satisfactory, for, in a moment, the head was withdrawn, only to be replaced by an outstretched bare hand and forearm. The hand reached up and caught the iron foot rail, gripping it firmly. Then another hand appeared, and with it came the same head again and part of a man’s body. The second hand reached toward the coupling-pin, which, with a dexterous movement, was slowly and noiselessly removed. The pin was lowered to the length of its chain. Then, once more the hand reached toward the coupling. This time it seized the great iron link. This, without a moment’s delay, was lifted from its hook and noiselessly lowered till it swung suspended from the car in front. Then both arms, head, and body vanished once more under the car, beneath which the man must have traveled for miles.
A few moments later the welcome jolting of couplings reached the crew in the caboose, who promptly settled themselves down to await the next call of duty. The conductor’s relief at the brevity of the delay was expressed in smiling contempt at the expense of all flag stations.
“Trust a darned outfit like that to hold you up,” he cried witheringly. “They got to act fresh, or the company ’ud get wise they ain’t no sort o’ use on the line. Say – ”
But he broke off listening.
The jolting had ceased. The grinding of wheels of the moving train was plainly heard. But – the caboose remained stationary.
He leaped to his feet.
“Hell!” he cried. “What the – ”
But the brakeman, Jack, was on his feet, too. With a bound he sprang at the door of the caboose. But instantly he fell back with a cry.
Four gun muzzles were leveled at his body, and, behind them, stood the figures of two masked men.
One of the two spoke in the slow easy drawl of the West, which lacked nothing in conviction.
“Jest keep dead still – all o’ you,” he said. “Don’t move – nor nothin’, or we’ll blow holes through your figgers that’ll cause a hell of a draught. We ain’t yearning to make no sort o’ mess in this yer caboose. But we’re going to do it – ’cep’ you keep quite still, an’ don’t worry any.”
The conductor was a man of wide experience on the railroad. He had seen many “hold-ups.” So many, he was almost used to them. But without being absolutely sure of the purpose of these men he thanked his genius of good luck that he had not seen the “pay train” for nearly a month. He was quite ready to obey. For all he cared the raiders could take locomotive, train, caboose and all, provided he was left with a whole skin.
CHAPTER III
THE HOLD-UP
Just beyond the flag station at White Point, where the forest-clad slopes of the great hills crowded in upon the railroad track, a scene of utter lawlessness was being silently enacted.
The spot was a lonely one, lonely with that oppressive solitude always to be found where the great hills of ages rear their towering heads. It was utterly cut off, too, from the outer world, by a monstrous abutment of hill which left the track a mere ribbon, like the track of some invertebrate, laboriously making its way through surroundings all uncongenial and antagonistic. Yet the station was but a few hundred yards beyond this point, where it lay open to the sweep of at least three of the four winds of Heaven. But even so, the two places were as effectually separated as though miles, and not yards, intervened.
No breath of air stirred the generous spruce and darkening pinewoods. The drooping, westering sun, already athwart the barren crown of the hill tops, left a false, velvety suggestion of twilight in the heart of the valley, while a depressing superheat enervated all life, except the profusion of vegetation which beautified the rugged slopes. For the most part the stillness was profound, only the most trifling sounds disturbing it. There was an uneasy shuffle of moving feet; there was the occasional crisp clip of a driven axe; then, too, weighty articles being dropped into the bottom of a heavy wagon sent up their dull boom at long intervals.
The outlaws worked swiftly, but without apparent haste. The success of their efforts depended upon rapidity of execution, that and the most exact care for the detail of their organization. Provided these things were held foremost in their minds there was small enough chance of interruption. Had not the train, with its all unconscious driver, passed upon its rumbling way toward Amberley? Had not all suspicion been lulled in the mind of the bucolic agent, who was even now laboriously expending a maximum of energy for a minimum return of culinary delicacies in his vegetable patch? What was there to interfere? Nothing. These men well knew that except for the flag station there was not a habitation within ten miles, and the ruggedness of the hills barred them to every form of traffic except the irresistible impulse of railroad enterprise.
Three men carried out the work of unloading the box car, while the two others held the train crew at bay. All were masked with one exception, and he, from his evident authority and mode of dress, was obviously the leader of the gang.
He was a slight, dark man, of somewhat remarkable refinement
