Indians of North America -- Fiction; Soldiers -- West (U.S.) -- Fiction
"Why, those Narrow Gauge fellows--they're owned here, you know--claim
that two of their men were shot by the same gang that did up Breifogle.
They're wiring both ways from the Junction, up here for sheriff and
detectives, and down to the Springs for Bob Anthony. They say No. 4
and I both know things about the slugging we haven't told. They say No.
4 took three of the sluggers away, and that we're hiding some to take
up into the mountains and turn 'em loose where they'll be safe. The
only man with us is--this kid," and Cullin looked up darkly into the
cab, his gloomy eyes on Geordie's coal-blackened face.
Now, indeed, it was time for action, and, quietly as he could, Geordie
put the question:
"Did you tell them you had a stranger in the cab?"
"Told 'em you were the only thing--or kind--I had."
"But you told them I'd come all the way with you from Chimney Switch,
did you not?"
"I didn't tell 'em anything except what I said to Folder here--the
station-master. I told 'em, through him, if they wanted anything on
this train they needn't ask me. I wasn't responsible."
Graham and Toomey exchanged quick glances. A wretched end would it be
to all their planning if Geordie should now be dragged off the cab as
accessory to the assault on young Breifogle, his helpless charge and
patient of the early morning hours.
Yet that was just what now was likely to happen. Resentful of there
being a mystery about the cab, a secret he was not allowed to share--an
outsider made known by Cullin's superiors to Cullin's subordinates, yet
not presented to him--true to human nature Cullin had told what Geordie
would conceal. In less than no time the enemy would know 705 had
brought a stranger within their gates who was too wary to come by
passenger-train. In less than ten minutes they might be there with a
warrant for his arrest.
And at that very moment there went up a shout from the group of miners
at the office. One of their kind had come running in, breathless and
alarmed. Three or four words only had he spoken, but they were enough.
As one man the twoscore turned and ran for the broad street beyond the
passenger station, were swallowed up in the gap between the express and
baggage sheds and the passenger waiting-rooms, and could be heard
shouting loudly beyond the high board fence--a chorus of cheers that
seemed to start near the main entrance and went travelling on the wings
of the wind westward up the lively street.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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