BULLDOG CARNEY
(1919)
by W.A. Fraser (1857 - 1933)
Chapter II. Bulldog Carney's Alibi
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A
DAY'S
trail north from where Idaho and Montana
come together on the Canadian border, fumed and
fretted Bucking Horse River. Its nomenclature was
a little bit of all right, for from the minute it
trickled from a huge blue-green glacier up in the
Selkirks till it fell into the Kootenay, it bucked
its way over, under, and around rock-cliffs, and
areas of stolid mountain sides that still held
gigantic pine and cedar.
It had ripped from the bowels of a mountain
pebbles of gold, and the town of Bucking Horse was
the home of men who had come at the call of the
yellow god.
When Bulldog Carney struck Bucking Horse it was a
sick town, decrepid, suffering from premature old
age, for most of the mines had petered out.
One hotel, the Gold Nugget, still clung to its
perch on a hillside, looking like a bird cage hung
from a balcony.
Carney had known its proprietor, Seth Long, in
the Coeur d'Alene: Seth and Jeanette Holt; in the
way of disapproval Seth, for he was a skidder;
Jeanette with a manly regard, for she was as much
on the level as a gyroscope.
Carney was not after gold that is battled from
obdurate rocks with drill and shovel. He was a
gallant knight of the road--a free lance of
adventure; considering that a man had better lie in
bed and dream than win money by dreary unexciting
toil. His lithe six foot of sinewy anatomy, the
calm, keen, gray eye, the splendid cool insulated
nerve and sweet courage, the curious streaks of
chivalry, all these would have perished tied to
routine. Like "Bucking Horse" his name, "Bulldog"
Carney, was an inspiration.
He had ridden his famous buckskin, Pat, up from
the Montana border, mentally surveying his desire,
a route for running into the free and United States
opium without the little formality of paying Uncle
Sam the exorbitant and unnatural duty. That was
why he first came to Bucking Horse.
The second day after his arrival Seth Long bought
for a few hundred dollars the Little Widow mine
that was almost like a back yard to the hotel.
People laughed, for it was a worked-out
proposition; when he put a gang of men to work,
pushing on the long drift, they laughed again.
When Seth threw up his hands declaring that the
Little Widow was no good, those who had laughed
told him that they had known it all the time.
But what they didn't know was that the long drift
in the mine now ran on until it was directly under
the Gold Nugget hotel.
It was Carney who had worked that out, and Seth
and his hotel were established as a clearing
station for the opium that was shipped in by train
from Vancouver in tins labelled "Peaches,"
"Salmon," or any old thing. It was stored in the
mine and taken from there by pack-train down to the
border, and switched across at Bailey's Ferry, the
U.S. customs officers at that point being nice
lovable chaps; or sometimes it crossed the Kootenay
in a small boat at night.
Bulldog supervised that end of the business,
bringing the heavy payments in gold back to Bucking
Horse on a laden mule behind his buckskin; then the
gold was expressed by train to the head office of
this delightful trading company in Vancouver.
This endeavor ran along smoothly, for the whole
mining West was one gigantic union, standing "agin
the government"--any old government, U.S. or
Canadian.
Carney's enterprise was practically legitimatized
by public opinion; besides there was the compelling
matter of Bulldog's proficiency in looking after
himself. People had grown into the habit of
leaving him alone.
The Mounted Police more or less supervised the
region, and sometimes one of them would be in
Bucking Horse for a few days, and sometimes the
town would be its own custodian.
One autumn evening Carney rode up the Bucking
Horse valley at his horse's heels a mule that
carried twenty thousand dollars in gold slung from
either side of a pack saddle.
Carney went straight to the little railway
station, and expressed the gold to Vancouver,
getting the agent's assurance that it would go out
on the night train which went through at one
o'clock. Then he rode back to the Gold Nugget and
put his horse and mule in the stable.
As he pushed open the front door of the hotel he
figuratively stepped into a family row, a row so
self-centered that the parties interested were
unaware of his entrance.
A small bar occupied one corner of the
dim-lighted room, and behind this Seth Long leaned
back against the bottle rack, with arms folded
across his big chest, puffing at a thick cigar.
Facing him, with elbows on the bar, a man was
talking volubly, anger speeding up his
vocalization.
Beside the man stood Jeanette Holt, fire flashing
from her black eyes, and her nostrils dilated with
passion. She interrupted the voluble one:
"Yes, Seth, I did slap this cheap affair, Jack
Wolf, fair across the ugly mouth, and I'll do it
again!"
Seth tongued the cigar to one corner of his ample
lips, and drawled: "That's a woman's privilege,
Jack, if a feller's give her just cause for
action. You ain't got no
kick comin', I reckon, 'cause this little woman
ain't one to fly off the handle for nothin'."
"Nothin', Seth? I guess when I tell you what got
her dander up you'll figger you've got another
think comin'. You're like a good many men I see--
you're bein' stung. That smooth proposition,
Bulldog Carney, is stingin' you right here in your
own nest."
Biff!
That was the lady's hand, flat open, impinged on
the speaker's cheek. The Wolf sprang back with an
oath, put his hand to his cheek, and turned to Seth
with a volley of denunciation starting from his
lips. At a look that swept over the proprietor's
face he turned, stared, and stifling an oath
dropped a hand subconsciously to the butt of his
gun.
Bulldog Carney had stepped quickly across the
room, and was now at his side, saying:
"So you're here, Jack the Wolf, eh? I thought I
had rid civilization of your ugly presence when I
turned you over to the police at Hobbema for
murdering your mate."
"That was a trumped-up charge," the Wolf
stammered.
"Ah! I see--acquitted! I can guess it in once.
Nobody saw you put that little round hole in the
back of Alberta Bill's head--not even Bill; and he
was dead and couldn't talk."
Carney's gray eyes travelled up and down the
Wolf's form in a cold, searching manner; then he
added, with the same aggravating drawl: "You put
your hands up on the bar, same as you were set when
I came in, or something will happen. I've got a
proposition."
The Wolf hesitated; but Bulldog's right hand
rested carelessly on his belt. Slowly the Wolf
lifted his arm till his fingers touched the wooden
rail, saying, surlily:
"I ain't got no truck with you; I don't want no
proposition from a man that plays into the hands of
the damn police."
"You can cut out the rough stuff, Wolf, while
there's a lady present."
Carney deliberately turned his shoulder to the
scowling man, and said, "How d'you do, Miss Holt?"
touching his hat. Then he added, "Seth, locate a
bottle on the bar and deal glasses all round."
As Long deftly twirled little heavy-bottomed
glasses along the plank as though he were dealing
cards, Carney turned, surveyed the room, and
addressing a man who sat in a heavy wooden chair
beside a square box-stove, said: "Join up,
stranger--we're going to liquidate."
The man addressed came forward, and lined up the
other side of Jack Wolf.
"Cayuse Braun, Mr. Carney," Seth lisped past his
fat cigar as he shoved a black bottle toward
Bulldog.
"The gents first," the latter intimated.
The bottle was slid down to Cayuse, who filled
his glass and passed it back to Wolf. The latter
carried it irritably past him without filling his
glass.
"Help yourself, Wolf." It was a command, not an
invitation, in Carney's voice.
"I'm not drinkin'," Jack snarled.
"Yes, you are. I've got a toast that's got to be
unanimous."
Seth, with a wink at Wolf, tipped the bottle and
half filled the latter's glass, saying, "Be a
sport, Jack."
As he turned to hand the bottle to Carney he
arched his eyebrows at Jeanette, and the girl
slipped quietly away.
Bulldog raised his glass of whisky, and said:
"Gents, we're going to drink to the squarest
little woman it has ever been my good fortune to
run across. Here's to Miss Jeanette Holt, the
truest pal that Seth Long ever had--Miss
Jeanette."
Cayuse and Seth tossed off their liquor, but the
Wolf did not touch his glass.
"You drink to that toast dam quick, Jack Wolf!"
and Carney's voice was deadly.
The room had grown still. One, two, three, a
wooden clock on the shelf behind the bar ticked off
the seconds in the heavy quiet; and in a far corner
the piping of a stray cricket sounded like the
drool of a pfirrari.
There was a click of a latch, a muffled scrape as
the outer door pushed open. This seemed to break
the holding spell of fear that was over the Wolf.
"I'll see you in hell, Bulldog Carney, before I
drink with you or a girl that----"
The whisky that was in Carney's glass shot fair
into the speaker's open mouth. As his hand jumped
to his gun the wrist was seized with a loosening
twist, and the heel of Bulldog's open right hand
caught him under the chin with a force that fair
lifted him from his feet to drop on the back of his
head.
A man wearing a brass-buttoned khaki jacket with
blue trousers down which ran wide yellow stripes,
darted from where he had stood at the door, put his
hand on Bulldog's shoulder, and said:
"You're under arrest in the Queen's name, Bulldog
Carney!"
Carney reached down and picked up the Wolf's gun
that lay where it had fallen from his twisted hand,
and passed it to Seth without comment. Then he
looked the man in the khaki coat up and down and
coolly asked. "Are you anybody in particular,
stranger?"
"I'm Sergeant Black of the Mounted Police."
"You amuse me, Sergeant; you're unusual, even for
a member of that joke bank, the Mounted."
"Fine!" the Sergeant sneered, subdued anger in
his voice; "I'll entertain you for several days
over in the pen."
"On what grounds?"
"You'll find out."
"Yes, and now, declare yourself!"
"We don't allow rough house, gun play, and
knocking people down, in Bucking Horse," the
Sergeant retorted; "assault means the pen when I'm
here."
"Then take that thing," and Bulldog jerked a
thumb toward Jack Wolf, who stood at a far corner
of the bar whispering with Cayuse.
"I'll take you, Bulldog Carney."
"Not if that's all you've got as reason," and
Carney, either hand clasping his slim waist, the
palms resting on his hips, eyed the Sergeant, a
faint smile lifting his tawny mustache.
"You're wanted, Bulldog Carney, and you know it.
I've been waiting a chance to rope you; now I've
got you, and you're coming along. There's a
thousand on you over in Calgary; and you've been
running coke over the line."
"Oh! that's it, eh? Well, Sergeant, in plain
English you're a tenderfoot to not know that the
Alberta thing doesn't hold in British Columbia.
You'll find that out when you wire headquarters for
instructions, which you will, of course. I think
it's easier for me, my dear Sergeant, to let you
get this tangle straightened out by going with you
than to kick you into the street; then they would
have something on me--something because I'd mussed
up the uniform."
"Carney ain't had no supper, Sergeant," Seth
declared; "and I'll go bail----"
"I'm not takin' bail; and you can send his supper
over to the lock-up."
The Sergeant had drawn from his pocket a pair of
handcuffs.
Carney grinned.
"Put them back in your pocket, Sergeant," he
advised. "I said I'd go with you; but if you try
to clamp those things on, the trouble is all your
own."
Black looked into the gray eyes and hesitated;
then even his duty-befogged mind realized that he
would take too big a chance by insisting. He held
out his hand toward Carney's gun, and the latter
turned it over to him. Then the two, the
Sergeant's hand slipped through Carney's arm,
passed out.
Just around the corner was the police barracks, a
square log shack divided by a partition. One room
was used as an office, and contained a bunk; the
other room had been built as a cell, and a heavy
wooden door that carried a bar and strong lock gave
entrance. There was one small window safeguarded
by iron bars firmly embedded in the logs. Into
this bull-pen, as it was called, Black ushered
Carney by the light of a candle. There was a
wooden bunk in one end, the sole furniture.
"Neat, but not over decorated," Carney commented
as he surveyed the bare interior. "No wonder, with
such surroundings, my dear Sergeant, you fellows
are angular."
"I've heard, Bulldog, that you fancied yourself a
superior sort."
"Not at all, Sergeant; you have my entire
sympathy."
The Sergeant sniffed. "If they give you three
years at Stony Mountain perhaps you'll drop some of
that side."
Carney sat down on the side of the bed, took a
cigarette case from his pocket and asked, "Do you
allow smoking here? It won't fume up your
curtains, will it?"
"It's against the regulations, but you smoke if
you want to."
Carney's supper was brought in and when he had
eaten it Sergeant Black went into the cell, saying:
"You're a pretty slippery customer, Bulldog--I
ought to put the bangles on you for the night."
Rather irrelevantly, and with a quizzical smile,
Carney asked, "Have you read 'Les Miserables,'
Sergeant?"
"I ain't read a paper in a month--I've been too
busy."
"It isn't a paper, it's a story."
"I ain't got no time for readin' magazines
either."
"This is a story that was written long ago by a
Frenchman," Carney persisted. "Then I don't want
to read it. The trickiest damn bunch that ever
come into these mountains are them Johnnie Crapeaus
from Quebec--they're more damn trouble to the
police than so many Injuns."
The soft quizzical voice of Carney interrupted
Black gently. "You put me in mind of a character
in that story, Sergeant; he was the best drawn, if
I might discriminate over a great story."
This allusion touched Black's vanity, and drew
him to ask, "What did he do--how am I like him?"
He eyed Carney suspiciously.
"The character I liked in 'Les
Miserables' was a policeman, like yourself, and his mind was
only capable of containing the one idea--duty. It was a
fetish with him; he was a fanatic."
"You're damn funny, Bulldog, ain't you? What I
ought to do is slip the bangles on you and leave
you in the dark."
"If you could. I give you full permission to
try, Sergeant; if you can clamp them on me there
won't be any hard feelings, and the first time I
meet you on the trail I won't set you afoot."
Carney had risen to his feet, ostensibly to throw
his cigarette through the bars of the open window.
Black stood glowering at him. He knew Carney's
reputation well enough to know that to try to
handcuff him meant a fight--a fight over nothing;
and unless he used a gun he might possibly get the
worst of it.
"It would only be spite work," Carney declared
presently; "these logs would hold anybody, and you
know it."
In spite of his rough manner the Sergeant rather
admired Bulldog's gentlemanly independence, the
quiet way in which he had submitted to arrest; it
would be a feather in his cap that, single-handed,
he had locked the famous Bulldog up. His better
sense told him to leave well enough alone.
"Yes," he said grudgingly, "I guess these walls
will hold you. I'll be sleeping in the other room,
a reception committee if you have callers."
"Thanks, Sergeant. I take it all back. Leave me
a candle, and give me something to read."
Black pondered over this; but Carney's allusion
to the policeman in "Les Miserables" had had an
effect. He brought from the other room a couple of
magazines and a candle, went out, and locked the
door.
Carney pulled off his boots, stretched himself on
the bunk and read. He could hear Sergeant Black
fussing at a table in the outer room; then the
Sergeant went out and Carney knew that he had gone
to send a wire to Major Silver for instructions
about his captive. After a time he came back.
About ten o'clock Carney heard the policeman's
boots drop on the floor, his bunk creak, and knew
that the representative of the law had retired. A
vagrant thought traversed his mind that the
heavy-dispositioned, phlegmatic policeman would be
a sound sleeper once oblivious. However, that
didn't matter, there was no necessity for escape.
Carney himself dozed over a wordy story, only to
be suddenly wakened by a noise at his elbow. Wary,
through the vicissitudes of his order of life he
sat up wide awake, ready for action. Then by the
light of the sputtering candle he saw his magazine
sprawling on the floor, and knew he had been
wakened by its fall. His bunk had creaked; but
listening, no sound reached his ears from the other
room, except certain stertorous breathings. He had
guessed right, Sergeant Black was an honest
sleeper, one of Shakespeare's full-paunched kind.
Carney blew out the candle; and now, perversely,
his mind refused to cuddle down and rest, but took
up the matter of Jack the Wolf's presence. He
hated to know that such an evil beast was even
indirectly associated with Seth, who was easily
led. His concern was not over Seth so much as over
Jeanette.
He lay wide awake in the dark for an hour; then a
faint noise came from the barred window; it was a
measured, methodical click-click-click of a pebble
tapping on iron.
With the stealthiness of a cat he left the bunk,
so gently that no tell-tale sound rose from its
boards, and softly stepping to the window thrust
the fingers of one hand between the bars. A soft
warm hand grasped his, and he felt the smooth sides
of a folded paper. As he gave the hand a
reassuring pressure, his knuckles were tapped
gently by something hard. He transferred the paper
to his other hand, and reaching out again,
something was thrust into it, that when he lifted
it within he found was a strong screw-driver.
He crept back to his bunk, slipped the screw-
driver between the blankets, and standing by the
door listened for ten seconds; then a faint
gurgling breath told him that Black slept.
Making a hiding canopy of his blanket, he lighted
his candle, unfolded the paper, and read:
"Two planks, north end, fastened with screws.
Below is tunnel that leads to the mine. Will meet
you there. Come soon. Important."
There was no name signed, but Carney knew it was
Jeanette's writing.
He blew out the candle and stepping softly to the
other end of the pen knelt down, and with his
fingertips searched the ends of the two planks
nearest the log wall. At first he was baffled, his
fingers finding the flat heads of ordinary nails;
but presently he discovered that these heads were
dummies, half an inch long. Suddenly a board
rasped in the other room. He had just time to slip
back to his bunk when a key clinked in the lock,
and a light glinted through a chink as the door
opened.
As if suddenly startled from sleep, Carney called
out:
"Who's that--what do you want?"
The Sergeant peered in and answered, "Nothing!
thought I heard you moving about. Are you all
right, Carney?"
He swept the pen with his candle, noted Carney's
boots on the floor, and, satisfied, closed the door
and went back to his bunk. This interruption
rather pleased Carney; he felt that it was a
somnolent sense of duty, responsibility, that had
wakened Black. Now that he had investigated and
found everything all right he would probably sleep
soundly for hours.
Carney waited ten minutes. The Sergeant's bunk
had given a note of complaint as its occupant
turned over; now it was still. Taking his boots in
his hand he crept back to the end of the pen and
rapidly, noiselessly, withdrew the screw-nails from
both ends of two planks. Then he crept back to the
door and listened; the other room was silent save
for the same little sleep breathings he had heard
before.
With the screw-driver he lifted the planks,
slipped through the opening, all in the dark, and
drew the planks back into place over his head. He
had to crouch in the little tunnel.
Pulling on his boots, on hands and knees he
crawled through the small tunnel for fifty yards.
Then he came to stope timbers stood on end, and
turning these to one side found himself in what he
knew must be a cross-cut from the main drift that
ran between the mine opening and the hotel.
As he stood up in this he heard a faint whistle,
and whispered, "Jeanette."
The girl came forward in the dark, her hand
touching his arm.
"I'm so glad," she whispered. "We'd better stand
here in the dark, for I have something serious to
tell you."
Then in a low tone the girl said:
"The Wolf and Cayuse Braun are going to hold up
the train to-night, just at the end of the trestle,
and rob the express car."
"Is Seth in it?"
"Yes, he's standing in, but he isn't going to
help on the job.
The Wolf is going to board the train at the
station, and enter the express car when the train
is creeping over the trestle. He's got a bar and
rope for fastening the door of the car behind the
express car. When the engine reaches the other
side Cayuse will jump it, hold up the engineer, and
make him stop the train long enough to throw the
gold off while the other cars are still on the
trestle; then the Wolf will jump off, and Cayuse
will force the engineer to carry the train on, and
he will drop off on the up-grade, half a mile
beyond."
"Old stuff, but rather effective," Carney
commented; "they'll get away with it, I believe."
"I listened to them planning the whole thing
out," Jeanette confessed, "and they didn't know I
could hear them."
"What about this little tunnel under the jail--
that's a new one on me?"
"Seth had it dug, pretending he was looking for
gold; but the men who dug it didn't know that it
led under the jail, and he finished it himself,
fixed the planks, and all. You see when the police
go away they leave the keys with Seth in case any
sudden trouble comes up. Nobody knows about it but
Seth."
There was a tang of regret in Carney's voice as
he said:
"Seth is playing it pretty low down, Jeanette;
he's practically stealing from his pals. I put
twenty thousand in gold in to-night to go by that
train, coke money; he knows it, and that's what
these thieves are after."
"Surely Seth wouldn't do that, Bulldog--steal
from his partners!"
"Well, not quite, Jeanette. He figures that the
express company is responsible, will have to make
good, and that my people will get their money back;
but all the same, it's kind of like that--it's
rotten!"
"What am I to do, Bulldog? I can't peach, can
I--not on Seth--not while I'm living with him? And
he's been kind of good to me, too. He ain't--well,
once I thought he was all right, but since I knew
you it's been different. I've stuck to him--you
know, Bulldog, how straight I've been--but a
thief!"
"No, you can't give Seth away, Jeanette," Carney
broke in, for the girl's voice carried a tremble.
"I think they had planned, that you being here in
Bucking Horse, the police would kind of throw the
blame of this thing on you. Then your being
arrested upset that. What am I to do, Bulldog?
Will you speak to Seth and stop it?"
"No. He'd know you had told me, and your life
with him would be just hell. Besides, girl, I'm in
jail."
"But you're free now--you'll go away."
"Let me think a minute, Jeanette."
As he stood pondering, there was the glint of a
light, a faint rose flicker on the wall and
flooring of the cross-cut they stood in, and they
saw, passing along the main drift, Seth, the Wolf,
and Cayuse Braun. The girl clutched Carney's arm
and whispered, "There they go. Seth is going out
with them, but he'll come back and stay in the
hotel while they pull the job off."
The passing of the three men seemed to have
galvanized Carney into action, fructified in his
mind some plan, for he said:
"You come back to the hotel, Jeanette, and say
nothing--I will see what I can do."
"And Seth--you won't----"
"Plug him for his treachery? No, because of you
he's quite safe. Don't bother your pretty little
head about it."
The girl's hand that had rested all this time on
Carney's arm was trembling. Suddenly she said,
brokenly, hesitatingly, just as a school-girl might
have blundered over wording the grand passion:
"Bulldog, do you know how much I like you? Have
you ever thought of it at all, wondered?"
"Yes, many times, girl; how could I help it? You
come pretty near to being the finest girl I ever
knew."
"But we've never talked about it, have we,
Bulldog?"
"No; why should we? Different men have different
ideas about those things. Seth can't see that
because that gold was ours in the gang, he
shouldn't steal it; that's one kind of man. I'm
different."
"You mean that I'm like the gold?"
"Yes, I guess that's what I mean. You see, well
--you know what I mean, Jeanette."
"But you like me?"
"So much that I want to keep you good enough to
like."
"Would it be playing the game crooked, Bulldog,
if you--if I kissed you?"
"Not wrong for you to do it, Jeanette, because
you don't know how to do what I call wrong, but I'm
afraid I couldn't square it with myself. Don't get
this wrong, girl, it sounds a little too holy, put
just that way. I've kissed many a fellow's girl,
but I don't want to kiss you, being Seth's girl,
and that isn't because of Seth, either. Can you
untangle that--get what I mean?"
"I get it, Bulldog. You are some man, some man!"
There was a catch in the girl's voice; she took
her hand from Carney's arm and drew the back of it
irritably across her eyes; then she said in a
steadier voice:
"Good night, man--I'm going back."
Together they felt their way along the cross-cut,
and when they came to the main drift, Carney said:
"I'm going out through the hotel, Jeanette, if
there's nobody about; I want to get my horse from
the stable. When we come to the cellar you go
ahead and clear the way for me."
The passage from the drift through the cellar led
up into a little store-room at the back of the
hotel; and through this Carney passed out to the
stable where he saddled his buckskin, transferring to his
belt a gun that was in a pocket of the saddle.
Then he fastened to the horn the two bags that had
been on the pack mule. Leading the buckskin out he
avoided the street, cut down the hillside, and
skirted the turbulent Bucking Horse.
A half moon hung high in a deep-blue sky that in
both sides was bitten by the jagged rock teeth of
the Rockies. The long curving wooden trestle
looked like the skeleton of some gigantic serpent
in the faint moonlight, its head resting on the
left bank of the Bucking Horse, half a mile from
where the few lights of the mining town glimmered,
and its tail coming back to the same side of the
stream after traversing two short kinks. It looked
so inadequate, so frail in the night light to carry
the huge Mogul engine with its trailing cars. No
wonder the train went over it at a snail's pace,
just the pace to invite a highwayman's attention.
And with the engine stopped with a pistol at the
engineer's head what chance that anyone would drop
from the train to the trestle to hurry to his
assistance.
Carney admitted to himself that the hold-up was
fairly well planned, and no doubt would go through
unless---- At this juncture of thought Carney
chuckled. The little unforeseen something that was
always popping into the plans of crooks might
eventuate.
When he came to thick scrub growth Carney
dismounted, and led the buckskin whispering,
"Steady, Pat--easy, my boy!"
The buckskin knew that he must make
no noisy slip--that there was no hurry. He and
Carney had chummed together for three years, the
man talking to him as though he had a knowledge of
what his master said, and he, understanding much of
the import if not the uttered signs.
Sometimes going down a declivity the horse's soft
muzzle was over Carney's shoulder, the flexible
upper lip snuggling his neck or cheek; and some.
times as they went up again Carney's arm was over
the buckskin's withers and they walked like two men
arm in arm.
They went through the scrubby bush in the
noiseless way of wary deer; no telltale stone was
thrust loose to go tinkling down the hillside; they
trod on no dried brush to break with snapping
noise.
Presently Carney dropped the rein from over the
horse's head to the ground, took his lariat from
the saddle-horn, hung the two pack-bags over his
shoulder, and whispering, "Wait here, Patsy boy,"
slipped through the brush and wormed his way
cautiously to a huge boulder a hundred feet from
the trestle. There he sat down, his back against
the rock, and his eye on the blobs of yellow light
that was Bucking Horse town. Presently from beyond
the rock carried to his listening ears the clink of
an iron-shod hoof against a stone, and he heard a
suppressed, "Damn!"
"Coming, I guess," he muttered to himself.
The heavy booming whistle of the giant Mogul up
on the Divide came hoarsely down the Bucking Horse
Pass, and then a great blaring yellow-red eye
gleamed on the mountain side as if some Cyclops
forced his angry way down into the valley. A bell
clanged irritably as the Mogul rocked in its swift
glide down the curved grade; there was the
screeching grind of airbrakes gripping at iron
wheels; a mighty sigh as the compressed air seethed
from opened valves at their release when the train
stood at rest beside the little log station of
Bucking Horse.
He could see, like the green eye of some serpent,
the conductor's lantern gyrate across the platform;
even the subdued muffled noise of packages thrust
into the express car carried to the listener's ear.
Then the little green eye blinked a command to
start, the bell clanged, the Mogul coughed as it
strained to its task, the drivers gripped at steel
rails and slipped, the Mogul's heart beating a
tattoo of gasping breaths; then came the grinding
rasp of wheel flange against steel as the heavy
train careened on the curve, and now the timbers of
the trestle were whining a protest like the twang
of loose strings on a harp.
Carney turned on his hands and knees and,
creeping around to the far side of the rock, saw
dimly in the faint moonlight the figure of a man
huddled in a little rounded heap twenty feet from
the rails. In his hand the barrel of a gun glinted
once as the moon touched it.
Slowly, like some ponderous animal, the Mogul
crept over the trestle! it was like a huge
centipede slipping along the dead limb of a tree.
When the engine reached the solid bank the crouched
figure sprang to the steps of the cab and was lost
to view. A sharp word of command carried to
Carney's ear; he heard the clanging clamp of the
air brakes; the stertorous breath of the Mogul
ceased; the train stood still, all behind the
express car still on the trestle.
Then a square of yellow light shone where the car
door had slid open, and within stood a masked man,
a gun in either hand; in one corner, with hands
above his head, and face to the wall, stood a
second man, while a third was taking from an iron
safe little canvas bags and dropping them through
the open door.
Carney held three loops of the lariat in his
right hand, and the balance in his left; now he
slipped from the rock, darted to the side of the
car and waited.
He heard a man say, "That's all!" Then a voice
that he knew as Jack the Wolf's commanded, "Face to
the wall! I've got your guns, and if you move I'll
plug you!" The Wolf appeared at the open door,
where he fired one shot as a signal to Cayuse;
there was the hiss and clang of releasing brakes
and gasps from the starting engine. At that
instant the lariat zipped from a graceful sweep of
Carney's hand to float like a ring of smoke over
the head of Jack the Wolf, and he was jerked to
earth. Half stunned by the fall he was pinned
there as though a grizzly had fallen upon him.
The attack was so sudden, so unexpected, that he
was tied and helpless with hardly any semblance of
a fight, where he lay watching the tail end of the
train slipping off into the gloomed pass, and the
man who had bound him as he nimbly gathered up the
bags of loot.
Carney was in a hurry; he wanted to get away
before the return of Cayuse. Of course if Cayuse
came back too soon so much the worse for Cayuse,
but shooting a man was something to be avoided. He
was hampered a little due either to the Wolf's
rapacity, or the express messenger's eagerness to
obey, for in addition to the twenty thousand
dollars there were four other plump bags of gold.
But Carney, having secured the lot, hurried to his
horse, dropped the pack bags astride the saddle,
mounted, and made his way to the Little Widow mine.
He had small fear that the two men would think of
looking in that direction for the man who had
robbed them; even if they did he had a good start
for it would take time to untie the Wolf and get
their one horse. Also he had the Wolf's guns.
He rode into the mine, dismounted, took the loot
to a cross-cut that ran off the long drift and
dropped it into a sump hole that was full of water,
sliding in on top rock debris. Then he unsaddled
the buckskin, tied him, and hurried along the drift
and crawled his way through the small tunnel back
to jail. There he threw himself on the bunk, and,
chuckling, fell into a virtuous sleep.
He was wakened at daybreak by Sergeant Black who
said cheerfully, "You're in luck, Bulldog."
"Honored, I should say, if you allude to our
association."
The Sergeant groped silently through this, then,
evidently missing the sarcasm, added, "The midnight
was held up last night at the trestle, and if you'd
been outside I guess you'd been pipped as the
angel."
"Thanks for your foresight, friend--that is, if
you knew it was coming off. Tell me how your
friend worked it."
Sergeant Black told what Carney already knew so
well, and when he had finished the latter said:
"Even if I hadn't this good alibi nobody would say
I had anything to do with it, for I distrust man so
thoroughly that I never have a companion in any
little joke I put over."
"I couldn't do anything in the dark," the
Sergeant resumed, in an apologetic way, "so I'm
going out to trail the robbers now."
He looked at Carney shiftingly, scratched an ear
with a forefinger, and then said: "The express
company has wired a reward of a thousand dollars
for the robbers, and another thousand for the
recovery of the money."
"Go to it, Sergeant," Carney laughed; "get that
capital, then go east to Lake Erie and start a bean
farm."
Black grinned tolerantly. "If you'll join up,
Bulldog, we could run them two down."
"No, thanks; I like it here."
"I'm going to turn you out, Bulldog--set you
free."
"And I'm going to insist on a hearing. I'll take
those stripes off your arm for playing the fool."
The Sergeant drew from his pocket a telegram and
passed it to Carney. It was from Major Silver at
Golden, and ran: "Get Carney to help locate
robbers. He knows the game. Express company
offers two thousand."
"Where's the other telegram?" Carney asked, a
twinkle in his eye.
"What other one?"
"The one in answer to yours asking for
instructions over my arrest."
The Sergeant looked at Carney out of confused,
astonished eyes; then he admitted: "The Major
advises we can't hold you in B.C. on the Alberta
case. But what about joining in the hunt? You've
worked with the police before."
"Twice; because a woman was getting the worst of
it in each case. But I'm no sleuth for the
official robber--he's fair game."
"You won't take the trail with me then, Carney?"
"No, I won't; not to run down the hold-up men--
that's your job. But you can tell your
penny-in-the-slot company, that piking corporation
that offers thousand dollars for the recovery of
twenty or thirty thousand, that when they're ready
to pay five thousand dollars' reward for the gold
I'll see if I can lead them to it. Now, my dear
Sergeant, if you'll oblige me with my gun I'd like
to saunter over to the hotel for breakfast."
"I'll go with you," Sergeant Black said, "I
haven't had mine yet."
Jeanette was in the front room of the hotel as
the two men entered. Her face went white when she
saw Carney seemingly in the custody of the
policeman. He stopped to speak to her, and Black,
going through to the dining room saw the Wolf and
Cayuse Brawn at a table. He had these two under
suspicion, for the Wolf had a record with the
police.
He closed the door and, standing in front of it,
said: "I'm going to arrest you two men for the
train robbery last night. When you finish your
breakfast I want you to come quietly over to the
lock-up till this thing is investigated."
The Wolf laughed derisively. "What're you doin'
here, Sergeant--why ain't you out on the trail
chasin' Bulldog Carney?"
The Sergeant stared. "Bulldog Carney?" he
queried; "what's he got to do with it?"
"Everything. It's a God's certainty that he
pulled this hold-up off when he escaped last
night."
The Sergeant gasped. What was the Wolf talking
about. He turned, opened the door and called,
"Carney, come here and listen to Jack Wolf tell how
you robbed the train!"
At this the Wolf bent across the table and
whispered hoarsely, "Christ! Bulldog has snitched--he's
give us away! I thought he'd clear out when
he got the gold. And he knowed me last night when
we clinched. And his horse was gone from the
stable this morning!"
As the two men sprang to their feet, the Sergeant
whirled at the rasp of their chairs on the floor,
and reached for his gun. But Cayuse's gun was out,
there was a roaring bark in the walled room, a
tongue of fire, a puff of smoke, and the Sergeant
dropped.
As he fell, from just behind him Carney's gun
sent a leaden pellet that drilled a little round
hole fair in the center of Cayuse's forehead, and
he collapsed, a red jet of blood spurting over the
floor.
In the turmoil the Wolf slipped through a door
that was close to where he sat, sped along the hall
into the storeroom, and down to the mine chamber.
With a look at Cayuse that told he was dead,
Carney dropped his pistol back into the holster,
and telling Seth, who had rushed in, to hurry for a
doctor, took the Sergeant in his arms like a baby
and carried him upstairs to a bed, Jeanette showing
the way.
As they waited for the doctor Carney said: "He's
shot through the shoulder; he'll be all right."
"What's going to happen over this, Bulldog?"
Jeanette asked.
"Cayuse Braun has passed to the Happy Hunting
Ground--he can't talk; Seth, of course, won't; and
the Wolf will never stop running till he hits the
border. I had a dream last night, Jeanette, that
somebody gave me five thousand dollars easy money.
If it comes true, my dear girl, I'm going to put it
in your name so Seth can't throw you down hard if
he ever takes a notion to."
Carney's dream came true at the full of the moon.
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