Another Harry Bedwell Railroad story

Here is another Railroad Story by Harry Bedwell....a Master Railroad story teller. This one is one of his early works...
Railroad Man's Magazine, May 1911



THE SECRET RED LIGHTS.

PART I.



BY HARRY BEDWELL.


Bert Daily, the Conductor, Begins an Investigation
of a Queer Happening on the Lobo Division.



I.



THE engineer of the work-train was forcing his
undersized engine to do her best to make time.

It was Saturday night, and the crew was
impatient to be at Lobo, the division headquarters,
for Sunday.

The headlight thrust its wedge of white into
the darkened desert. The east was beginning to be faintly tinged by
the coming moon.

It was a light train that the engine pulled, a few empty flat
cars, a tool-car, and the caboose. The workmen sat on the edge of
the flat cars and stared vacantly into the desert. The gang-boss
stood stiffly erect in the middle of one of the cars, his hands behind
his back, trying to look masterful. Bert Daily, the rear brakeman,
came out of the caboose and stood on the platform, gazing ahead,
his lantern swinging idly in his hand.



The train rounded on a curve at the foot of a line of sand-
dunes, and the flaming tail-lights of a freight-train which stopped
on the track ahead of them showed almost in the engineer's face. A
flagman sprang from the rear of the freight-train, and frantically
waved down the work-train.

The fireman's "Hold 'em!" was tossed broadcast over the
desert as the air-brakes went on with a roar that convulsed the
train. It checked the train so suddenly that the gang-boss soared
upward with flapping arms; then came to earth on the soft sand,
alighting on his face.

The workmen were tumbled off the cars like tenpins. Bert
Daily glimpsed the red lights ahead in time to anticipate the shock
of air-brakes and to study the distance between his train and the
freight with a calm eye.

We're going to hit 'em hard," he judged reluctantly.

The left-hand tail-light blinked once, and Daily knew the head
brakeman had deserted the cab. It blinked again, and he guessed
the fireman had unloaded.

"It's time I, too, was going," he said grimly as the whistle
screamed a final protest, and the engineer swung clear of his
engine.

Daily glanced back as he swung low on the bottom step for the
jump. He saw the conductor spring from the rear platform of the
caboose and bound off at a tangent, and then over a bunch of sage-
brush. He fell heavily and shattered his lantern. Daily swung lower
still, and sprang away easily.

The freight-train began to move ahead slowly. Then the work-
train struck, and went tearing through the caboose.

Bert Daily rounded sharply about and ran to his conductor,
who was getting painfully to his feet, spitting out sand and vicious
oaths with the same breath.

"We've torn those fellows up some," Daily panted. "I'll go
back and flag. You have your work cut out for you."

Still running, he struck the track and swept on around the
sand-dunes. He untwisted two torpedoes from his lantern-frame,
planted them at the prescribed distance, then walked back some
way toward the wreck and sat down.

He could catch only faint sounds from the wreck. These
became fainter as the night slipped by, and at length ceased
altogether. Something definite had been done - help sent for, or
perhaps the two crews had settled to the work of getting under way
again.

The chill of the desert night caused Daily to get up and pace
about restlessly. The hours dragged out till midnight and into
morning, yet no sign came from the other side of the sand-dunes to
proclaim how affairs were with the two trains.

Daily's impatience waxed hot as his body grew chill. This was
a deuce of a way to spend Saturday night! What were those fellows
over there doing to take up so much time -- and yet make so little
noise? And why had there been no trains along to be stopped? Two
or three were past due from the east.

So he fretted out the hours till some time after sunrise, when
the desert fumed like a furnace under the hot sun. Then a train
streaked up over the long horizon, shot toward him, struck the
torpedoes, and stopped beside him.

"Work-train tore up the hind end of a freight around on the
other side of those dunes some time last night," Daily explained to
the conductor and the engineer. "Haven't heard anything of them
since. Don't know if they are still there or not."

"You look as if you had spent a pleasant night of it," grinned
the conductor. "We've been tied up behind a wreck ourselves."

"What have you there?" asked Daily, nodding gloomily at the
two dusty coaches drawn by the engine. He had hoped for a
passenger-train with diner attached.

"Superintendent Hood's car," answered the conductor easily.

A straight, slim young man, with a face of great gravity, strode
from the rear end of the train.

What's the delay, Morris?" he asked the conductor.

Tone and gesture were self-conscious of his fresh, clean
clothes, and his authority over these older men. Daily looked into
the restless eyes with his own direct gaze, and saw the other's
flinch.

This was Ellis Sargent, Mr. Hood's chief clerk.

The conductor explained why they had stopped.

"All right," said Sargent bruskly. "Run down to where the
accident happened, and see what has become of the two trains.
Daily, you come back to the car with me, and tell Mr. Hood what
has happened."

Daily followed Sargent back to the private car, and swung up
on the platform as the train started slowly forward. Sargent entered
the car. Daily paused in the door-way till his eyes, used to the
glaring hot light, could distinguish objects in the cool, dark car.

"Oh, it's Daily!" came Mr. Hood's quiet voice. "What has
happened now?"

Daily began to see the interior of the apartment more clearly.
Mr. Hood sat comfortably tilted back in a chair, a newspaper on his
knee. At the far end two ladies sat at a small table, on which
glasses of cold stuff clinked musically. Daily sat his useless lantern
down upon the platform.

"Here, sit down," ordered Mr. Hood, pushing out a chair with
his foot. His quiet eyes had noted that Daily's face was haggard
from a sleepless night of watching.

Daily slumped wearily into the chair and explained how he
happened to be there, and his eyes kept turning toward the glasses
of cool liquid that clinked so merrily on the little table between the
two young ladies.

He had neither eaten nor drunk anything since the afternoon of
the day before.

"Yes," he heard Sargent murmur to the young women, "he has
been out all night flagging."

"You don't know if any one was hurt, do you?" asked Mr.
Hood.

"No, sir." Daily shook his head, and the motion caused a row
of sweating glasses to ring themselves about the car.

The train came to a stop, and Mr. Hood and his chief clerk
walked out into the sunlight. Daily arose stiffly, and started to
follow. At the doorway a quiet voice checked him suddenly.

"Wouldn't you like to have a drink after your night out?"

Daily came about slowly. One of the young women was
coming toward him with a glass held out.

"If - you - please." He counted out the words slowly, to be
sure of them.

He put the glass to his lips and drank deliberately. The cool
stuff seemed to saturate his being with a divine fire. The grave face
of the girl before him became radiant and glorified. It seemed to
lure him kindly out on an azure cloud.

"Won't you have another?" the glorified face asked.

Daily willed himself to refuse, but his will was broken.

"If - you - please," he again counted out soberly.

Another glass loomed before him; again he drank, and again
the grave face of the girl became glorified and floated above him in
a vague mist. He gave up the glass slowly, thanked her with a
tearful voice, and walked out into the hot sunlight.

The work-train and the freight-train were gone, leaving behind
only the caboose - a splintered and mangled hulk tipped
disconsolately to one side - the only mark to show there had been
an accident.

Daily forgot to be angry because he had not been called in
when the trains had departed.

"I wonder what that was she gave me to drink?" he asked the
solitude.

The girl was Miss Glen Hood, the superintendent's daughter.

II.

MR. HOOD was holding an investigation in his office to determine
the cause of the rear-end collision between the work-train and the
freight. All those interested, and some who were not, were
gathered to give testimony.

Mr. Hood, his chief clerk, and the train-master sat at one side
of a big table and examined witnesses. The investigation was
wearisome to all, particularly the rear brakeman of the freight-
train, for the evidence tended to show that his swiftness in getting
out to flag any train following his own was not great.

To the rest it was nerve-fretting, for cautious train and engine
men make poor witnesses.

Bert Daily was called, told the little he knew, then went back
to his chair at the back of the room and the paper he had been
reading.

Four days had elapsed since the rear-end collision, and in that
time he had been promoted to the rank and pay of a conductor. He
had made two trips, and had but a few minutes before going on the
stand been called to take an extra east at five o'clock.

Daily raised his head from his paper to listen to the testimony
of the engineer of the freight-train The engineer said doubtfully
that a few seconds after rounding the sand-dunes he had seen a red
light swing across the track and disappear.

"I gave her the big hole," he concluded his testimony
doggedly, "and had her stopped within her own length. That's all,
except I guess maybe there really wasn't any red light there."

Daily grew tired of the questioning, and wandered into the
outer office. There was no one there. Business had been suspended
during the investigation. Daily got himself another paper, a more
comfortable chair, and sat down by a window.

Presently Miss Hood and her friend, Miss Harnett, came in
quietly, nodded gravely at Daily, and sat down. Daily lost interest
in the paper and stared idly out of the window.

The investigation broke up, and men began to file through the
outer office. Ellis Sargent came out hurriedly, spied the ladies and
Daily, and came forward with his quick, nervous stride. He turned
to Daily from greeting the young women.

"I'm going out with you to-night, Daily," he said. "Wait till I
get my hat and coat, and I'll go down to the yard office with you."
He hurried back into the inner office.

"I hope there were no bad effects from your night of flagging,"
Miss Hood said, turning slowly to Daily.

The conductor looked at her idly, and the vague speculation
began again in his brain as to what kind of drink she had given him
to make this grave face appear glorified. Her remark hardly broke
his chain of thought, for the thought of so many harder nights than
that one made it seem pointless.


Why Sargent was going out with him was of more interest.

"The beverage you gave me killed all evil effects before they
even came to a bud," he said.

Mr. Hood came out of his office, followed by Sargent, who
carried a long coat on his arm.

"Been entertaining Conductor Daily?" smiled Mr. Hood at his
daughter as they were moving to follow Sargent and Daily down
the stairs. "Be careful of him. He never does anything just as you
expect. There was never a man came to this division with a
recommendation like his. He came in here one day over three years
ago - thin, red-eyed, and rather old - and gave me a letter from an
old friend of mine in the East. 'This man is as good a one as I know
of when sober - but he is seldom sober,' is the way the letter ran. I
put him in the train service, expecting the job to break him. He's
still there."

Daily and Sargent, turned up the street to a restaurant. Half an
hour later they had collected the orders from the despatcher's
office, the way-bills from the yard office, and soon the freight-train
was swinging out of the yards. Sargent lounged in the cupola,
where Daily joined him.

The train pushed steadily into the silent, starlit desert. Sargent
and Daily seldom spoke. An hour and a half, and the sand-dunes
began to loom up on the right.

"It was about here the collision occurred, wasn't it?" Sargent
finally asked.

Daily nodded. His eyes still continued to follow the path of the
headlight. He stiffened suddenly and gripped his chair. The air-
brakes went on with a roar that boomed away and lost itself in the
desert. Cars jammed together savagely, and one in the middle of
the train reared and plunged clear of the track, dragging one or two
others with it.

"Now, I saw that," Daily bit out as the crash of cars ceased.

Sargent arose, battered and shaken, from a corner of the
cupola.

"Saw what, Daily?" he questioned.

"Saw a red light swing across the track. Come on and let's see
what kind of a job that engineer did stopping us."

They dropped to the ground from the caboose steps and
hurried forward. Sargent was bruised and excited, and gasped out
eager, useless questions.

They found Dave, the head brakeman, swearing indifferently
at two cars turned over, and a third with the front trucks plowed
deep into ties and dirt. Daily walked around the derailed cars and
examined the track by the light of his lantern. Sargent followed,
barking useless questions and giving useless advice.

"We'll have to cut loose the engine and run in for help," he
said. "Daily, this is a bad spill."

Daily rounded on him suddenly.

"Why did you come out with me to-night?" he demanded.
"Was it about these mysterious red lights?"

"Yes, and to keep in touch with the freight service," answered
the chief clerk, unconsciously using a phrase from Mr. Hood's
instructions.

Daily took him by the shoulder and faced him toward the rear
of the train.

"Do you see that red light down the track there?" he asked.
"That is Billy Mack, my rear brakeman, back there flagging. You
get a lantern from the caboose, run back there, and take his place.
Send Mack up here to me. Now, do you think you can do a decent
job of flagging?"


Daily's tone was fatherly; but it came hard to disobey his
orders. Sargent went with relief in his heart, for he liked little
responsibility.

"Now, we'll clean up this mess," said Daily briskly.

He ordered out cables and flanges and the other simple
paraphernalia from caboose and engine, and they began pulling
and hauling at the two cars that lay on their sides. They dragged
them clear of the track, and left them. The track was blocked up
where the wheels had crushed through the ties, and the front trucks
of the third car were pulled back on the rails.

Daily worked his men deliberately, with hardly a glance at his
watch, for it is not well to hurry men by reminding them just how
much time they have left.

Fifty minutes, and they were ready to start. Sargent was called
in and the train pushed on through the desert. Daily and Sargent
hung over the railing of the rear platform of the caboose and
watched the dunes steal softly by.

"It's a God-forsaken country," said Sargent, shivering at a
breath of chill air.

"I'd like to ride through those dunes some day," mused Daily
thoughtfully. "It must be a queer place. I've ridden through the
mountains a great deal, but it never struck me before that the dunes
could be interesting. Did you see that red light a while ago?"

III.

LOBO recognized few gradations in the social stratum. The
occasional Saturday night dances given at the big railroad hotel
were attended by individuals from every walk of local life.

On a Saturday night, when Lobo foregathered to enjoy, Bert
Daily lounged in a corner of the hotel office, idly watching the
crowd gather and reading a paper.

He saw Ellis Sargent come in with Miss Hood and Miss
Harnett. Then the dance started and Daily was lost for a time in his
reading. He threw away the paper when Sargent sat down beside
him, nodding somewhat gloomily.

"Mr. Hood has decided not to investigate the wreck of your
train the other night," said the chief clerk. "There have been two
more trains stopped at that same place since then - both of them
passenger-trains."

Sargent in his gloom was growing superficial. Every one on
the division knew this, and knew also that this was but a small part
of the trouble which has visited the division of late.

Among other things, an engineer had pretty well torn up his
train stopping at sight of a rag effigy tied across the track so
conspicuously that it was easy to see the ropes by which it was
fastened. Cars left on blind sidings had been run through the
derailing-switches; water-tanks and coal-chutes had been emptied
on the ground by a mysterious hand, and a great many other
destructive happenings had occurred during the week.

"What do you make of all this bad luck?" asked Daily, eying
Sargent to see if the question was impertinent.

"Blackmail," breathed the chief clerk as if his heart chilled at
the mention of the word. "We got notice this morning. It's from a
gang that wants one hundred thousand dollars. They threaten to put
this division out of commission if they don't get it. Mr. Hood
started east this afternoon to see the general manager. As I was
coming over here, I got a message that when his train stopped at
the Volcano water-tank some one cut all the air-hose on the train
and got away without being seen."

Daily slid upright in his chair.


"Well," said he slowly, "it's a fight. You can't buy them off
this time without doing it again."

"That's what Mr. Hood thinks," replied Sargent, "but what can
we do in this country of little civilization that is all desert and
mountains? Either way there will be trouble."

"Sure," breathed Daily. "That's mostly what makes life worth
while."

The two drifted to the door of the dining-room where the
couples were dancing, and Daily saw why Sargent had deserted the
ballroom to talk to him.

Glen Hood was dancing with a lithe, black-haired man, and
Daily gathered from the smile's some of the ladies turned on the
couple that something amusing had occurred. He guessed that in a
contest for Miss Hood's favor Sargent had lost his head and his
temper and had been vanquished.

As the couple swept by him, Daily saw that the man had dark
skin and hard features. For a few moments Daily felt that
something in life had gone wrong.

"A Mexican!" He tried the word doubtfully. "A Mexican!"
Then, deliberately, "a greaser!"

The smoky light faded and long shadows sprang out of the
corners of the room. The dancers whirled into a dim circle and
dwindled away, leaving a face with a straight nose and a gleaming
smile, topped with stiff, black hair, standing out like a portrait on a
canvas.

Then the will that had driven a broken body from end to end
on the division gripped him and cleared his mind.

"A puncher from the south - or a gambler," he decided more
calmly. "Anyway, I'm going to try to stop him."

Daily stepped forward quickly when the music ceased and
stood before Glen Hood as she sat down. The first quick look of
doubt and estimate she gave him as he made his request hurt him
more than anything else had hurt him in years. In that glance she
really took consideration of him for the first time, and judged him.
Then she accepted him, and the Mexican melted away with his
gleaming smile.

They danced twice together, then Freddy Dyer, the second-
trick despatcher, came and Daily strolled out to the veranda.

As he turned slowly out of the doorway he noticed, in the
moonlight, four men gathered at the far end of the veranda. One
leaned idly against the railing, talking in low, insinuating tones
with glinting teeth. Daily also recognized the back of Sargent. The
little group stood almost motionless, listening tensely to the
speaker.

Daily paused doubtfully. A call-boy touched him on the arm,
holding out his book. The conductor saw that he was to take an
extra east in an hour, and signed the book. Then he strolled down
the long veranda.

He heard the Mexican's low laugh, and saw Sargent double up
grotesquely in the dancing light - saw him strike out passionately,
blindly, an amateurish blow at the Mexican's face.

Daily drew in quickly. The Mexican's nose streamed blood as
he came upright with a springy jump. Then he lunged at Sargent,
his arm stiff, a slender knife quivering in the light.

Back of Daily were three years of rough-and-tumble fighting,
of sudden blind rages and quick attacks. As the Mexican lunged,
Daily caught Sargent by the shoulder and kicked savagely at the
hand that held the knife.

The knife flickered into the sand and the Mexican spat out a
Spanish oath as he staggered against Daily's fist. He stumbled back
against the railing, holding his wounded hand in dumb pain,
peering doubtfully at Daily.

Then he squared himself on his feet, brushed by them all,
strode to the veranda-steps, and out toward the railroad-yards.

Sargent was trembling under the hand on his shoulder. He
turned his white face, twisted into a smile, to Daily.

"Thank you," he mumbled. "The fellow is a blackguard."

"That's all right," said Daily hurriedly. "I must be off now."

An hour later his train was nosing its way into the moonlit
desert.

For a long time Daily sat in his caboose sorting way-bills. The
moon dropped over the rim of the sky, and when the conductor
climbed into the cupola beside Mack, his brakeman, the desert was
darkness.

"Guess there's a tramp on board of us. I'm goin' up ahead to
see," said Mack, and disappeared below.

Daily watched the brakeman's lantern swing out over the cars
and pause mid-way on the train. From the sudden rush of sound
and chill air, he was conscious that the caboose door had been
opened.

The next moment he was peering down into the grinning face
of the Mexican.

"Hallo!" Daily said abruptly. "How did you get here?"

"Your brakeman ran me this way, so I came in. Don't move, or
I'll kill you. I shoot as well with my left hand as with my right I'm
going to climb up there to that seat on the opposite side of the
cupola from you so that I can keep an eye on your brakeman! Then
you and I will talk!"

The Mexican climbed to the seat and peered ahead at Mack's
lantern still twinkling at the middle of the train. Daily eyed him
curiously, then settled back in his chair, smiling quietly.

"All right," he said, "talk your head off."

"I never dreamed of such luck as meeting you so soon again,
when I hid on this train," grinned the Mexican.

The train pushed on through the desert; the two men faced
each other with quiet eyes.

"All this clash and friction between us has given me an
inspiration," went on the Mexican steadily, resting his revolver
comfortably on his lap. "I'm going to take you from your train at
Volcano and keep you with me for a time. I may kill you, but I
don't think so. You see, I am trying to get this second-rate railroad
to part with a hundred thousand dollars to be rid of me, but, so far,
it seems to be more inclined to the company of both myself and the
hundred thousand."

Daily's eyes danced wickedly.

"So you are the fellow that's blackmailing the division," he
said softly. "Well, I don't see just why you are mixing me up in this
deal of dollars. All I did to you was to stop you from sticking a
friend of mine, and keep your own royal person alive and free. If
you had ever struck Sargent, you would have been out of it all by
now."

"But, as you see, I am not at all grateful," glinted the Mexican.
"My kidnaping you will make the railroad sit up and take a little
more notice."

"Just what are you going to do with me?" asked Daily
anxiously.

"Have you stop your train at Volcano, get off, then signal your
train to proceed. There are comrades of mine there who know I am
coming. It is best to do as I say."

The many-toothed smile gleamed evilly in the faintly lit
cupola. Daily peered ahead into the darkness thoughtfully. He saw
that his rear brakeman's lantern still spotted the darkness in the
middle of the train. Then he turned to the Mexican deliberately.

"I don't see the sense of it," he complained. "Have you a
cigarette? I suppose you won't let me get into my own pockets.
Thanks. And a match? You take me away from my work and my
pay and do no good to yourself."

The match flared. Daily held it to his cigarette as he talked
eagerly.

"If you go to stealing men instead of dollars you will have the
whole State against you instead of the railroad: Don't you see that?
Give me another match, will you? "

Another match flared, and Daily puffed hard at the cigarette.
Then he argued on, leaning forward eagerly, his voice raised
somewhat above the roar and click of the hurrying wheels. He held
the Mexican's attention by tense tone and calm eye. As he talked,
the Mexican's smile became cold and cruel and his eyes were lit
with a smoldering madness.

You think you will talk your way to freedom and to life - for
you fear death," he cut in coldly. "You fear death!" he repeated,
"and you'll fear it more before -"

The narrow window at the back of the cupola rasped harshly
in its frame as a rush of cold air struck in from behind. The
Mexican's hands fluttered helplessly to the arms of his chair.

In that second of his terror, two long arms ending in two huge
slabs of hands drove in on the cold air, seized him by the shoulders
and jerked him backward through the little window. The chair was
broken from its one iron leg; the revolver clattered to the floor.

Feet scuffled on the roof of the car as Daily sprang to the open
window. As he thrust his head into the darkness, he saw the
Mexican, heaved clear of the car, squirm out of sight.

A pair of boots appeared on a line with the conductor's face,
and he moved to one side to let his brakeman slide feet first
through the open window.

"I knew the hobo was on the train some place," panted Mack
as he struck the floor. "It took a lot of nerve for him to come in
here and try to stick you up. I saw him when you struck the first
match. What was he trying to do to you, anyway?"

Daily bit out short sentences of explanation as he dropped to
the floor and reached for his lantern.

Here," he ordered, as he thrust the lantern up at Mack. "Stop
her! We've got to go back there and hunt for that fellow."

"I couldn't help throwing him off," Mack apologized, as he
wormed through the window. "He fought like a cat."

Mack's lantern swooped back and forth in the quick half-circle
of the "wash-out." Some one in the cab saw the signal, the whistle
screeched, and the brakes began to nip the wheels.

Daily lit another lantern, picked up the fallen revolver, and
swung off the train before it had stopped.

He ran along the track to the point near where the Mexican
had lit and swung his lantern. Mack joined him, and they both
searched for half an hour, but found not so much as a track in the
sand.

"Anyway, we couldn't see much in this lantern light," Daily
complained. "We can't find him. That fall would have killed a
white man. This fellow has crawled out of the way and is most
likely watching us, trying to decide whether to pot us or not."

They tramped back to the caboose. The shadows played about
their feet in the circle of lantern light. A light bobbed at the rear of
the train, and Dave, the head brakeman, swung about to stride
beside them to hear what had happened.

"Let him ramble now," said Daily, as they came up to the
caboose. His lantern doubled in the air and the air-brakes whistled.
"Dave, run forward and tell the engineer to stop at the next
station."

More track began to drone in the darkness behind them. Daily
and Mack brooded silently in the caboose while the desert
whispered by. As they came to a stop at Thunder Creek, the two
swung off and walked into the office where the night operator
idled away life at the telegraph-desk.

"Ask the operator at Volcano if he has noticed any punchers or
armed men loafing about his station this evening," said Daily.

The operator rippled a call; the instrument chattered for a few
seconds.

"Volcano says there's some cow-men, or something like that,
camped over by the corrals, but they haven't any wagon with them.
Says one of 'em kept inquiring for a telegram, and about nine
o'clock this evening he got one from Lobo."

"Tell the operator," said Daily, "to keep an eye on them, then
you tell the despatcher that we are going to stop at Volcano for a
little time so he needn't lay anything out for us. I want all the guns
you have about the shack."

"There's the agent's sawed-off shotgun and his rifle over there
in the corner. There's a revolver under the ticket-window, and one
here in my desk," the operator enumerated.

"You fellows must be always looking for trouble," grinned
Daily. "I'll take all but your revolver, and send them back to you
to-morrow."

"Be careful of the shotgun," warned the operator. "It's
dangerous at both ends."


The three took the guns and walked to the engine. In a few
minutes the train was moving again.

Daily, Mack, and Dave swung onto the caboose and mounted
to the cupola.

"It's funny what can happen in such a little time - ain't it?" said
Mack as he began to hum, "Will There Be Any Stars in My
Crown" in a nasal buzz.

"This cannon is bound to scatter shot all over the country,"
complained Dave, who had the sawed-off shotgun. "You fellows
will have to stay well back of me when I go into action. If you get
into my line of fire, you'll get your lights put out."

The train swung into the yards at Volcano, and stopped with
the caboose just outside the front windows of the station.

The engineer and fireman dropped from their engine and
walked through the yards toward the back of the depot. Daily
jumped to the platform and walked to the office, leaving his two
brakemen crouched in the doorway of the caboose.

"Have you seen anything more of those fellows who got that
message from Lobo?" Daily questioned the sleepy operator.

"They're over there by the corral yet, I guess," the operator
mumbled drowsily. "There's four of them."

Some one outside called something and Daily swung around
to the doorway. A second later, four men rode restive horses into
the light that streamed from the open window and door, one riding
in close and peering down at the conductor.

"Do you belong to that train?" demanded the man on the
horse.

"Hands up - all." came Mack's excited yell from the rear end
of the caboose.

A horseman turned in his saddle and fired, all in one quick
writhe of the body and turn of the wrist that showed practice in that
exercise.

The bullet plunked into the caboose over the heads of the
brakemen who were crouched behind the sheet of steel hung on the
railing of the platform. The horseman fired twice again in as many
seconds, and the horses danced and plunged.

Daily knelt down in the shadow under the lighted window, and
fired at the man nearest him. Mack's rifle spat wickedly, and four
or five guns blazed at once.

The operator seated in the window seemed to be in the greatest
danger, but he was accustomed to such scenes, and quickly slid to
safety under his table.

With a roar that drowned all other sounds to mere cracklings,
Dave let go both barrels of the sawed-off shotgun. A horse snorted;
a man yelled and cursed. Shot ripped through the windows and
bored into the station walls.

With that shot the firing ceased. Flying hoofs rang on the track
and plowed away into the desert. A man began muttering to
himself.

Daily crouched for a little time longer in the shadow to see if
any pain would develop. He felt nothing unusual, so he reckoned
that by some accident no buckshot had found him.

"Gosh!" he breathed, and stood up.

He turned into the station to fetch a lamp.

The light showed one horse and two men down on the cinder
platform. One of the men raised on his arm and took a quick shot
at the light in Daily's hand and extinguished it. "Don't do that
again," warned a voice. "Get another light." It was the engineer.
Daily got another light. The outlaw surrendered his revolver to the
engineer.


"Where are you hurt?" asked Daily.

"All over mostly," answered the man, and fainted.

"Let's see where Mack and Dave are," said Daily.

Mack they found sitting close beside the caboose nursing his
head in both hands. He peered up at them round-eyed.

"Dave is around here some place" he told them. "I can't hear a
thing you say. The noise of that gun knocked me crazy. It knocked
Dave down, then kicked him twice after that."

They found Dave on the flat of his back and the shotgun on
top of him.

They gathered up the wounded and took them into the office
to look them over. Both of the outlaws were senseless. Dave
opened his eyes to the lamplight to ask for a drink, and Mack
walked the floor holding his head.

"This is an awful mess," complained the engineer, who
sickened at the sight of so much blood. "But they should have
known better than to tackle us," he added, and his face cleared a
little.

"Of course they should," said Daily briskly. "Send your
fireman over to the town for a doctor."

The conductor pulled the sleepy operator from under the
telegraph table, and set him in his chair.

"No need sending for a doctor," said the operator, his fists in
his eyes. "There ain't any. But there's whisky."

Daily began scribbling on a pad of paper. "Tell the despatcher
this," he ordered the operator, pushing the paper under his nose;
"and ask him if we shall go on to Newpoint with these fellows."

The operator reached for his key. After a few moments he
looked up.

"The despatcher says you had better go on in with your train,"
he said, "then pick up the sheriff at Newpoint and come back to
find the Mexican if you can. He says there's no one in command
now that Mr. Hood has gone East, for Sargent is afraid to issue an
order. You are very likely to get fired whatever you do."

"All right," said Daily. "We'll go in."

IV.

AN hour later, Daily was in Newpoint pulling the sheriff from bed.

"I've got a job for you," he told the sheriff.

He sat on the bed and talked, while the officer got into his
clothes.

"I can get two men and enough horses within half an hour,"
the sheriff said. "You get the train ready, and I'll meet you at the
station."

Another hour and they were careening westward, racing
behind a sleek little engine to be on hand at daylight. In a box car
between the engine and the caboose were four horses. Another
conductor was in charge of the train, for Daily was to ride with the
sheriff.

"I am going to sleep like a dog," said Daily, as he stretched
himself out on a cushioned bench.

The sun was up when the train stopped at the point where
Mack had tossed the Mexican from the top of the caboose. After a
good deal of searching about in the sand they found where the
Mexican had landed on his feet, bounded forward a few steps, then
plowed up the sand in a hard fall. His trail began there, dragged
across the desert, and was lost in the shimmering heat.

"Get out the horses," ordered the sheriff. "From the swing of
his feet that fellow is pretty well in towards the mountains by this
time. We have likely come too late; but we'll give him a try."


The horses were unloaded and saddled. The four men
mounted.

"You may as well run into La Salle and ask for orders," Daily
told the conductor in charge of the train. "We won't need you any
more."

They spurred away into the silent waste and aching glare of
the sun. It was like riding into a furnace.

By eleven o'clock the trail had led them into the shadow of the
mountains. At noon it ceased in a rocky canon.

"This is his own country," said the sheriff, as he looked up at
the mountains. "There's no use trying to find him here. Daily,
we've lost."

"I don't like to think we have come all this way for nothing,"
Daily complained. "Let's try a little farther. That fellow may have
dropped just around the next turn of the canon wall."

"We may be riding straight into hell," said the sheriff. "That
canon is narrow and high, and once in it we're in a hole for sure. If
the Mexican had won through all right he's sure to have picked up
some of his men, and may be waiting for us."

"Shall we go in?" asked Daily quietly.

"Oh, I guess so," answered the sheriff, and they rode forward.

They made the first turn, and the canon lay there blankly
before them. At the next turn it lost itself in the gloom of its own
towering walls.

"No good," said the sheriff sullenly. "I won't risk it further."

"Do you see that black lump in the shadow against the wall
ahead there?" asked Daily, pointing. "I am two-thirds sure it's a
rock or a log, but I'm going to be sure it isn't the Mexican. You
stay here."

He walked his horse forward for three hundred yards, found
the lump to be a mound of earth, and then he faced back. He reined
in as a rock clattered down the mountainside.

A rifle spoke faintly from high above. Daily's horse sank to its
knees with a tired grunt, and the conductor leaped to safety.

The sheriff spurred for Daily. Then two rifles spoke sharply
from above, and the sheriff threw himself clear of his own horse as
it went down. One of his men was at his side in another moment.
He hauled the sheriff up behind him, and the two horses clattered
swiftly out of sight.

Daily was left alone. He cleared the width of the canon in a
swift sprint, sprang up at a handful of dry shrubs, caught them, and
pulled himself up among the rocks, where he lay for a few
moments. The marksmen above began to pester him with bullets
that spat uncomfortably close. Daily glanced upward along the
mountain wall, then began slowly to climb higher to a spot more
on a line with the marksman. His progress was followed by the
steady, persistent spit of bullets, and it was an hour before he
plumped down panting behind a huge boulder.

The bullets pecked about him for a little while longer, then
ceased.

"Those fellows will about move around where they can get me
coming and going." Commented Daily, idly fingering the loose
stones, "and then where am I?"

He scanned the bare walls above him, then peered out at the
rocks which concealed the marksman. The range was too great for
his revolver, so he lay down and watched the mountains above and
below.

After an hour, he caught a movement far to the left. A second
later, a bullet threw dust in his face.

Another bounced from the rock a little above his head. Daily
threw himself into a small niche, and thrust his revolver forward.
He fired at the next puff of smoke, and for the next few moments
answered shot for shot.

He played for time and darkness. He reasoned that the sheriff
would return by daylight of the next day with more men to rescue
him. With the fall of darkness, he hoped to avoid the outlaws.

But the lone marksman on the mountain-side seemed intent
that the sun should not set on Daily alive. He drew down nearer. A
shot gently touched Daily's coat-sleeve. Daily crowed more of
himself down in the niche, but the next shot came from a different
angle, and cut his arm.

"Ouch!" protested Daily.

A dry, mirthless laugh came from behind a boulder. Daily
watched the big rock with restless eyes, and when a gun-barrel
showed over the top of it, he promptly fired.

The rifle slid from sight, then reappeared cautiously around
the side of the boulder. Daily fired again, but the answering shot
came close on his own, and a bullet slit open the tip of his
shoulder.

Anxiously, he calculated the distance to the boulder, and
gathered himself for a rush. The blue barrel came slowly in sight
again. Daily fired three times quickly, and held still and tense
waiting for the stinging bullet from the rifle to strike.

Then, and no sooner, would he rush the man on the other side
of the boulder.

In the pause his eyes swept the mountains swiftly. The
shadows were become long and dark in the low land.

Why didn't he fire? His heart beat off the seconds distinctly
and audibly: One, two, three. His restless eyes turned downward in
a racing glance. Then his caught breath went out in a long, slow
whisper.

The impossible had happened. A saddle-horse, strayed from
others belonging to the outlaws, came slowly down the canon,
pulling at tufts of dry grass as it came. Three more heart-beats, and
it was almost beneath him. He could plainly see the bridle hanging
from the saddle.

Daily's eyes were pivoted on the gun-barrel nestling at the side
of the boulder. The top of a black head came in line with the
glowing steel, and Daily fired again. The horse raised its head
curiously, then continued grazing. The top of the black head was
withdrawn.

Then the horse thrust out its nose, planted its feet, and snorted.
It had come to Daily's horse shot in the trail.

Daily bunched himself, rose, and leaped the boulder in front of
him. He went tobogganing down the mountain, starting a mass of
earth and stones. Twice he turned over to right himself and spit out
dirt. He struck the trail, and went sprawling on.

He jumped to his feet half blinded, and seized the horse before
it could elude him, ran a few steps as it shied past the dead horse,
then swung to the saddle. The horse leaped forward in a few short,
stiff jumps, then struck into a long, racing stride.

Guns began to sputter and spit from both sides of the canon.
The saddle bow was torn away under Daily's hand, a stinging
wound in his side grew into an agonizing ache.

The mountains began to careen and fade away, and the sky
flamed and seethed like liquid fire; but he set his grip on the saddle
and swept around the first turn in the canon, around the second,
and away to the desert.

His burning, straining eyes photographed the riotous scene as
he looked backward. High on a sliver of rock, seeming to move
with the swaying mountains, a slim figure, with a puffing revolver
in the left hand, was carved. Even after a filmy darkness settled
down and blotted out all else, that lone figure remained a darker
blot against the blackness.