Part 41 (1/2)

There is a shriek of terror from the engineer of the pursuing locomotive, for Buck Powers, in the moonlight, has risen up beside the switch, and turned it, just as the engine dashes to it, not so as to side-track it, but only half way, to dash it over ties and snow-drifts to destruction.

As the locomotive pa.s.ses, Kruger, who has his pistol in his hand, turns it from the direction of Lawrence and the flying locomotive straight at the breast of the boy at the switch, and fires upon him! And Buck Powers, giving a shriek, staggers and falls into a snow-bank, reddening it with his blood.

But even as Buck does so, he is avenged. The locomotive, plunging forward off the track into the drifting snow, topples over, and though the engineer and fireman jump free, Kruger, with his eye in grim triumph on the dying boy, is thrown beneath the ponderous ma.s.s of iron, that topples over him, crus.h.i.+ng his body, and sending his soul to where the souls of the Danites go.

The engineer and fireman clamber out of the snow-drift unharmed, though shaken up. Three of the Mormon _posse_ who have been with Kruger come out of the snow unarmed, for their Winchesters are buried deep in a white bank; and Lawrence, knowing they are helpless, makes the engineer run his locomotive back to the switch. Springing out, he has the boy in his arms in a minute, and getting into the cab, he holds Buck Powers to his breast, while his locomotive goes on its way unhindered now, though followed by the curses of its Mormon pursuers.

Then Erma whispers to Harry, ”What chance?” But he shakes his head, for he knows what those gray-blue lips mean--he has seen them too often on battlefields.

As he does so, the boy, whose face has already grown pallid, and upon whose forehead the dew of death is standing, gasps: ”I saved ye, Miss Beauty!--Didn't I do the trick like--like a Chicago railroad man?”

”Yes,” sobs the girl, bending over him. ”What can I do for you?”

”The Cap won't be jealous--just give me one kiss--that's all. I've never been kissed--by--a--beautiful--young lady.”

And two sweet lips come to his, that are already cold, and he gasps: ”You're pretty as a Chicago girl--that's where I'm goin'!”

And delirium coming on him, he laughs; for his old life is coming back to him! And the railroad, and the city that he loves so well and is so proud of, getting into his mind, he cries: ”I'm braking on the Burlington again, an' we're bound for Chicago. Hoop! we're at the Rock Island crossin'--we've whistled first an' got the right o' way. C. B. & Q.'s always ahead!--Two long toots and two short toots! Town whistle!

We're goin' into Aurorie an' out of it again. Now we whiz through Hinsdale an' Riverside!--I can see the lights of the city.--Engine has whistled for the Fort Wayne crossin'! Sixteenth Street! Slow down! The bell's beginning to ring--the lights are dancin'--Michigan Avenue! We're runnin' for the old Lake Street Station! I'm a-folding up the flags and takin' in the red lights--the bell's ringin' fainter--the whistle's blowin' for brakes--the wheels are goin' slower--slower--slower--the lights is dancin' about me--the wheels are stopped. The train is dead--the lights is goin' out! CHICAGO!!”

And with this cry, Buck Powers goes to Heaven.

Then Erma, bending over him, and wringing her hands, and tears dropping on his dead face, whispers: ”Let us take him to Chicago, Harry, and bury him in the city he loved so well!”

And so they do, some months afterward; and there he lies, entombed in that silent city of the dead, beside the waters of the blue lake, and that great city of the living. And no truer heart, nor n.o.bler soul, will ever tread the streets of that grand metropolis of the West, than that of this boy, who loved it so well, and who gave his life for grat.i.tude--now nor to come, even if it grows to have ten millions.

CHAPTER XIX.

ORANGE BLOSSOMS AMONG THE SNOW.

So holding the dead boy in his arms, the engineer contriving to do the firing, they journey slowly along the road to Bridger.

Here, finding telegraphic communication is still cut off with Evanston, they know it is safe to run on to Carter.

From the freight train at this point they fortunately get a man to do the firing of the locomotive, Lawrence paying him for the same.

The sun is rising as they pa.s.s the Carter tank, and the engineer tells them he thinks they have got coal enough, as they are on a down grade, to take them to Granger, for the snow is not so deep here as it was up the mountain.

Finding no orders have been received at this point, they keep on, and finally, about seven o'clock in the morning, they can see the pa.s.senger train from the East, side-tracked half a mile ahead of them at Granger.

”I can't take you any further--I have got no coal--and I don't know what the company will say to my doing what I have done!” mutters the engineer, who is now apparently anxious as to what the Union Pacific will think of his night's performance.

”Here's one hundred dollars!” remarks Lawrence.

”No, I did it because the young lady had been kind to my child!” and the man shakes his head.

”You must take it!” cries Harry. ”You will probably be laid off for last night's work!”

”What? For running away from road agents?”