The Denver Express: From "Belgravia" for January, 1884Hayes, Augustus Allen
General
The Denver Express: From "Belgravia" for January, 1884
Hayes, Augustus Allen
Short stories; Train robberies -- Fiction
With another shriek from the whistle the train started. Sinclair and
Sam saw the men quietly returning the firearms to their places as it
gathered way. Then they walked back to their quarters. The men on the
_mesa_, balked of their purpose, had withdrawn.
Sam accompanied Sinclair to his door, and then sententiously remarked:
“Major, I think I'll light out and find some of the boys. You ain't
got no call to know anything about it, but I allow it's about time them
cusses was bounced.”
Three nights after this, a powerful party of _Vigilantes_, stern and
inexorable, made a raid on all the gambling dens, broke the tables and
apparatus, and conducted the men to a distance from the town, where they
left them with an emphatic and concise warning as to the consequences
of any attempt to return. An exception was made in Jeff Johnson's
cases--but only for the sake of his daughter--for it was found that many
a “little game” had been carried on in his house.
Ere long he found it convenient to sell his business and retire to a
town some miles to the eastward, where the railroad influence was not
as strong as at Barker's. At about this time, Sinclair made his
arrangements to go to New York, with the pleasant prospect of marrying
the young lady in Fifth Avenue. In due time he arrived at Barker's with
his young and charming wife and remained for some days. The changes
were astounding. Commonplace respectability had replaced abnormal
lawlessness. A neat station stood where had been the rough contractor's
buildings. At a new “Windsor” (or was it “Brunswick”?) the performance
of the kitchen contrasted sadly (alas! how common is such contrast
in these regions) with the promise of the _menu_. There was a tawdry
theatre yclept “Academy of Music,” and there was not much to choose in
the way of ugliness between two “meeting-houses.”
“Upon my word, my dear,” said Sinclair to his wife, “I ought to be
ashamed to say it, but I prefer Barker's _au naturel_.”
One evening, just before the young people left the town, and as Mrs.
Sinclair sat alone in her room, the frowsy waitress announced “a lady,”
and was requested to bid her enter. A woman came with timid mien into
the room, sat down, as invited, and removed her veil. Of course the
young bride had never known Sally Johnson, the whilom belle of Barker's,
but her husband would have noticed at a glance how greatly she was
changed from the girl who walked with Foster past the engineers'
quarters. It would be hard to find a more striking contrast than was
presented by the two women as they sat facing each other: the one in the
flush of health and beauty, calm, sweet, self-possessed; the other still
retaining some of the shabby finery of old days, but pale and haggard,
with black rings under her eyes, and a pathetic air of humiliation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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