Part 11 (1/2)

Sammy Durgan waited. The train came nearer and nearer--and then Sammy Durgan c.o.c.ked his head in a puzzled way and stared through the cut. He couldn't see anything, of course, for the curve, but from the sound she had stopped just beyond the cut.

”Now, what the devil is she stopping there for?” inquired Sammy Durgan of the universe in an injured tone.

He started along through the cut. And then Sammy Durgan stopped himself--as though he were rooted to the earth--and a sort of grayish white began to creep over his face. Came echoing through the cut a shout, a yell, another, a chorus of them--then a shot, another shot, a fusilade of them--and then a din mingling the oaths, the yells, and the shots into a hideous babel that rang terror in Sammy Durgan's ears.

Sammy Durgan promptly sidled in and hugged up against the rock wall that towered above him. Here he hesitated an instant, then he crept cautiously forward. Where he could not see, it was axiomatic that he could not be seen; and where he could not be seen, it was equally logical that he would be safe.

Sammy Durgan's face, quite white now, was puckered as it had never been puckered before, and his lips moved in a kind of twitching, jerky way as he crept along. Then suddenly, a voice, that seemed nearer than the others, but which from the acoustic properties of the cut he could not quite locate, bawled out fiercely over the confusion, prefaced with an oath:

”Get that express car door open, and be d.a.m.ned quick about it! Go on, shoot along the side of the train every time you see a head in a window!”

Sammy Durgan's mouth went dry, and his heart lost a beat, then went to pounding like a trip-hammer. Labatt and the Big Cloud _Daily Sentinel_ hadn't drawn any exaggerated picture. A hold-up--in broad daylight!

”Holy Mither!” whispered Sammy Durgan.

He crept farther forward, very cautiously--still farther--and then he lay full length, crouched against the rock wall at the end of the cut.

He could see now, and the red hair of Sammy Durgan kind of straggled down damp over his forehead, and his little black eyes lost their pupils.

It was a pa.s.senger train; one side of it quite hidden by the sharp curve of the track, the other side presented almost full on to Sammy Durgan's view--the whole length of it. And Sammy Durgan, gasping, stared. Not ten yards away from the mouth of the cut a huge pile of ties were laid across the rails, with the pilot of the stalled engine almost nosing them. Down the embankment, a very steep embankment where the Dam River swirled along, marched there evidently at the revolver's point, the engine crew stood with their hands up in the air--at the revolver's point with a masked man behind it. Along the length of the train, two or three more masked men were shooting past the windows in curt intimation to the pa.s.sengers that the safest thing they could do was to stay where they were; and farther down, by the rear coach, the conductor and two brakemen, like their mates of the engine crew, held their hands steadfastly above their heads as another bandit covered them with his weapon. And through the open door of the express car Sammy Durgan could see bobbing heads and straining backs, and the express company's safe being worked across the floor preparatory to heaving it out on the ground.

It takes long to tell it--Sammy Durgan got it all as a second flies.

And something, a bitter something, seemed to be gnawing at Sammy Durgan's vitals.

”Holy Mither!” he mumbled miserably. ”'Tis an emergency, all right--but 'tis not the right kind of an emergency. What could any one man do against a lot of bloodthirsty, desperate devils like that, that'd sooner cut your throat than look at you!”

Sammy Durgan's hand inadvertently rubbed against his right-hand coat pocket--and his revolver. He drew it out mechanically, and it seemed to put new life into Sammy Durgan, for, as he stared again at the scene before him, Sammy Durgan quivered with a sudden, fierce elation.

”I was wrong,” said Sammy Durgan grimly. ”'Tis the right kind of an emergency, after all--and 'tis the man that uses his head and rises to one that counts. I'll show 'em, Maria, and Regan, and the rest of 'em!

Begorra, it can be done! 'Tis no one 'll notice me while I'm getting to the engine and climbing in on the other side, and, by glory, if I back her out quick enough them thieving h.e.l.lions in the express car can either jump for it or ride back to the arms of authority at the next station--but the safe 'll be there, and 'twill be Sammy Durgan that kept it there!”

But Sammy Durgan still lay on the ground and stared--while the safe was being pushed to the express car door, and one edge of it already protruded out from the car.

”Go on, Sammy Durgan!” urged Sammy Durgan anxiously to himself. ”Don't you be skeered, Sammy, you got a revolver. 'Tis yourself, and not Maria, that'll do the locking of the doors hereafter, and 'tis Regan you can pa.s.s with fine contempt. Think of that, Sammy Durgan! And all for a bit of a run that'll not take the time of a batting of an eyelash, and with no one to notice you doing it. 'Tis a clever plan you've devised, Sammy Durgan--it is that. Go on, Sammy; go on!”

Sammy Durgan wriggled a little on the ground, c.o.c.ked his revolver--and wriggled a little more.

”I will!” said Sammy Durgan with a sudden pinnacling of determination--and he sprang to his feet.

Some loosened shale rattled down behind him. Sammy Durgan dashed through the mouth of the cut--and then for a moment all was a sort of chaos to Sammy Durgan. From the narrow edge of the embankment, just clear of the cut, a man stepped suddenly out. Sammy Durgan collided with him, his c.o.c.ked revolver went off, and, jerked from his grasp by the shock, sailed riverwards through the air, while, echoing its report from the express car door, a man screamed wildly and grabbed at a bullet-shattered wrist; and the man with whom Sammy Durgan had collided, having but precarious footing at best, reeled back from the impact, smashed into another man behind him, and with a crash both rolled down the almost perpendicular embankment. Followed a splash and a spout of water as they struck the river--and from every side a tornado of yells and curses.

”'Tis my finis.h.!.+” moaned Sammy Durgan--but his feet were flying.

”I--I've done it now! If I ran back up the cut they'd chase me and finish me--'tis my finish, anyway, but the engine 'll be the only chance I got.”

Sammy Durgan streaked across the track, hurdled, tumbled, fell, and sprawled over the pile of ties, recovered himself, regained his feet, and made a frantic spring through the gangway and into the cab.

With a sweep Sammy Durgan shot the reversing lever over into the back notch, and with a single yank he wrenched the throttle wide. There was nothing of the craftsman in engine-handling about Sammy Durgan at that instant--only hurry. The engine, from a pa.s.sive, indolent and inanimate thing, seemed to rise straight up in the air like an aroused and infuriated beast that had been stung. With one mad plunge it backed cras.h.i.+ng into the buffer plates of the express car behind it, backed again, and once again, and the tinkle of breaking gla.s.s sort of ricochetted along the train as one car after another added its quota of shattered window panes, while the drivers, slipping on the rails, roared around like gigantic and insensate pinwheels.

Sammy Durgan s.n.a.t.c.hed at the cab frame for support--and then with a yell he s.n.a.t.c.hed at a shovel. A masked face showed in the gangway.

Sammy Durgan brought the flat of the shovel down on the top of the man's head.