Pressing her cheek against the window-pane, and looking forward toward
the engine, she saw Taylor. With a gun in each hand, he was running down
the little level between the track and the steep wall of the cut, toward
her. She noted that his face still wore the mirthless grin that had been
on it when he shot the train-robber in the car; though his eyes were
alight with the lust of battle—that was all too plain—and she
shivered. For Taylor, having killed one man, and grimly pursuing others,
seemed to suggest the spirit of this grim, rugged country—the threat of
death that seemed to linger on every hand.
She saw him snap a shot as he ran, bending far over to send the bullet
under the car; she heard a pistol crash from the other side of the car;
and then she saw Taylor go to his knees.
She gasped with horror and held to the window-sill, for she feared
Taylor had been killed. But almost instantly she saw her error, for
Taylor was on his hands and knees crawling when she could again
concentrate her gaze; and she knew he was crawling under the car to
catch the man who had shot from the other side.
Then Taylor disappeared, and she did not see him for a time. She heard
shots, though; many of them; and then, after a great while, a silence.
And during the silence she sat very still, her face white and her lips
stiff, waiting.
The silence seemed to endure for an age; and then it was broken by the
sound of voices, the opening of the door of the car, and the appearance
of Taylor and some other men—several members of the train-crew; the
express-messenger; the engineer, his right arm hanging limply—and two
men, preceding the others, their hands bound, their faces sullen.
On Taylor’s face was the grin that had been on it all along. The girl
wondered at the man’s marvelous self-control—for certainly during those
moments of excitement and danger he must have been aware of the terrible
risk he had been running. And then the thought struck her—she had not
considered that phase of the situation before—that she _must_ have
screamed; that he had heard her, and had emerged from the smoking-room
to protect her. She blushed, gratitude and a riot of other emotions
overwhelming her, so that she leaned weakly back in the seat, succumbing
to the inevitable reaction.
She did not look at Taylor again; she did not even see him as he walked
toward the rear of the car, followed by the train-crew, and preceded by
the two train-robbers he had captured.
But as the train-crew passed her, she heard one of them say:
“That guy’s a whirlwind with a gun! Didn’t do no hesitatin’, did he?”
And again:
“Now, what do you suppose would make a guy jump in that way an’ run a
chance of gettin’ plugged—plenty? Do you reckon he was just yearnin’
fer trouble, or do you reckon they was somethin’ else behind it?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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