Part 11 (2/2)

The gangway was clear again. There was life for it yet! The train was backing quickly now under the urgent, prodding bucks of the engine.

Sammy Durgan mopped at his face, his eyes warily on the gangways.

Another man made a running jump for it--again Sammy Durgan's shovel swung--and again the gangway was clear.

Shovel poised, lurching with the lurch of the cab, red hair flaming, half terrified and half defiant, eyes shooting first to one gangway and then the other, Sammy Durgan held the cab. A minute pa.s.sed with no renewal of attack. Sammy Durgan stole a quick glance over his shoulder through the cab gla.s.s up the track--and, with a triumphant shout, he flung the shovel clanging to the iron floor-plates, and, leaning far out of the gangway, shook his fist. Strewn out along the right of way masked men yelled and shouted and cursed, but Sammy Durgan was beyond their reach--and so was the express company's safe.

”Yah!” screamed Sammy Durgan, wildly derisive and also belligerent in the knowledge of his own safety. ”Yah! Yah! Yah! 'Twas me, ye b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.lions, that turned the trick on ye! 'Twas me, Sammy Durgan, and I'll have you know it! 'Twas----”

Sammy Durgan turned, as the express car opened, and Macy, the conductor, hatless and wild-eyed, appeared on the platform.

”'S'all right, Macy!” Sammy Durgan screeched rea.s.suringly. ”'S'all right--it's me, Sammy Durgan.”

Macy jumped from the platform to the tender, jumped over the water tank, and came down into the cab with an avalanche of coal. His mouth was twitching and jerking, but for a moment he could not speak--and then the words came like an explosion, and he shook his fist under Sammy Durgan's nose.

”You--you d.a.m.ned fathead!” he roared. ”What in the double-blanked, blankety-blanked son of blazes are you doing!”

”Fathead, yourself!” retorted Sammy Durgan promptly--and there was spice in the way Sammy Durgan said it. ”I'm doing what you hadn't the nerve or the head to do, Macy--unless mabbe you're in the gang yourself! I'm saving that safe back there in the express car, that's what I'm doing.”

”Saving nothing!” bellowed Macy crazily, as he slammed the throttle shut. ”There! Look there!” He reached for Sammy Durgan's head, and with both hands twisted it around, and fairly flattened Sammy Durgan's nose against the cab gla.s.s.

”What--what is it?” faltered Sammy Durgan, a little less a.s.sertively.

Macy was excitable. He danced upon the cab floor as though it were a hornets' nest.

”What is it!” he echoed in a scream. ”What is it! It's moving pictures, you tangle-brained, rusty-headed idiot! That's what it is!”

A sort of dull gray film seemed to spread itself over Sammy Durgan's face. Sammy Durgan stared through the cab gla.s.s. The track ahead was just disappearing from view as the engine backed around a curve, but what Sammy Durgan saw was enough--two dripping figures were salvaging a wrecked and bedragged photographic outfit on the river bank, close to the entrance of the cut where he had been in collision with them; an excited group of train bandits, without any masks now, were gesticulating around the marooned engineer and fireman; and in the middle distance, squatting on a rail, a man, coatless, his s.h.i.+rt sleeve rolled up, was making horrible grimaces as a companion bandaged his wrist.

Macy's laugh rang hollow--it wasn't exactly a laugh.

”I don't know how much it costs,” stuttered the conductor demoniacally, ”but there's about four million dollars' worth of film they're fis.h.i.+ng out of the river there, and they paid a thousand dollars for the train and thirty-five minutes between stations to clear Number Forty, and there's about eight thousand car windows gone, and one vestibule and two platforms in splinters, and a man shot through the wrist, and if that crowd up there ever get their hands on you they'll----”

”I think,” said Sammy Durgan hurriedly, ”that I'll get off.”

He edged back to the gangway and peered out. The friendly bend of the road hid the ”outlaws.” The train was almost at a standstill--and Sammy Durgan jumped. Not on the river side--on the other side. Sammy Durgan's destination was somewhere deep in the wooded growth that clothed the towering mountain before him.

There is an official record for cross-country mileage registered in the name of some one whose name is not Sammy Durgan--but it is not accurate. Sammy Durgan holds it. And it was far up on the mountain side that he finally crossed the tape and collapsed, breathless and gasping, on a tree stump. He sat there for quite a while, jabbing at his streaming face with the sleeve of his jumper; and there was trouble in Sammy Durgan's eyes, and plaint in his voice when at last he spoke.

”Twenty-five dollars reward,” said Sammy Durgan wistfully. ”And 'twas as good as in my pocket, and now 'tis gone. 'Tis hard luck, cruel hard luck. It is that!”

Sammy Durgan's eyes roved around the woods about him and grew thoughtful.

”I was minded at the time,” said Sammy Durgan, ”that 'twas not the right kind of an emergency, and when he hears of it Regan will be displeased. And now what'll I do? 'Twill do no good to return to the section shanty, for they'll be telegraphing Donovan to fire Sammy Durgan. That's me--fire Sammy Durgan. 'Tis trouble dogs me and cruel hard luck--and all I'm asking for is a steady job and a chance.”

Sammy Durgan relapsed into mournful silence and contemplation for a spell--and then his face began to clear. Sammy Durgan's optimism was like the bobbing cork.

”'Tis another streak of cruel hard luck, of bitter, cruel hard luck I've had this day, but am I down and out for the likes of that?”

inquired Sammy Durgan defiantly of himself.

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