Part 19 (1/2)
The man, hatless and coatless and evidently trying to escape from some one, was so panic-stricken that his eyes bulged from their sockets, and his beard was so awry that it was a moment before Bucks recognized his old acquaintance Dan Baggs.
”They are after me, Bucks,” cried Baggs, closing the door in desperation. ”They will kill me--hide me or they'll kill me.”
Before the operator could ask a question in explanation, almost before the words were out of the frightened engineman's mouth, and with Bucks pointing with his poker to the door, trying to tell Baggs to lock it, the door again flew open and Bucks saw the face of a Front Street confidence man bursting through it.
Bucks sprang forward to secure the door behind the intruder, but he was too late even for that. Half a dozen more men crowded into the room. To ask questions was useless; every one began talking at once.
Baggs, paralyzed with fear, cowered behind the stove and the confidence man, catching sight of him, tried to crowd through the wicket gate. As he sprang toward it, Bucks confronted him with his poker.
”Let that gate alone or I'll brain you,” he cried, hardly realizing what he was saying, but well resolved what to do.
The gambler, infuriated, pointed to Baggs. ”Throw that cur out here,”
he yelled.
Baggs, now less exposed to his enemies, summoned the small remnant of his own courage and began to abuse his pursuer.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”LET THAT GATE ALONE OR I'LL BRAIN YOU,” HE CRIED.]
Bucks, between the two men with his poker, tried to stop the din long enough to get information. He drew the enraged gambler into a controversy of words and used the interval to step to his key. As he did so, Baggs, catching up a monkey-wrench that Bucks ordinarily used on his letter-press, again defied his enemy.
It was only a momentary burst of courage, but it saved the situation.
Taking advantage of the instant, Bucks slipped the fingers of his left hand over the telegraph key and wired the despatchers upstairs for help. It was none too soon. The men, leaning against the railing, pushed it harder all along the line. It swayed with an ominous crack and the fastening gave way. Baggs cowered. His pursuers yelled, and with one more push the railing crashed forward and the confidence man sprang for the engineer. Baggs ran back to where Bucks stood before his table, and the latter, clutching his revolver, warned Baggs's pursuers not to lay a hand on him.
Defying the single-handed defender, the gambler whipped out his own pistol to put an end to the fight. It was the signal for his followers, and in another minute half a dozen guns covered Bucks and his companion.
Seconds meant minutes then. Bucks understood that only one shot was needed as the signal for his own destruction. What he did not quite realize was that the gambler confronting him and his victim read something in Bucks's eye that caused him to hesitate. He felt that if a shot were fired, whatever else happened, it would mean his own death at Bucks's hand. It was this that restrained him, and the instant saved the operator's life.
He heard the clattering of feet down the outside stairway, and the next moment through the open door on the run dashed Bill Dancing, swinging a piece of iron pipe as big as a crowbar. The yardmaster, Callahan, was at his heels, and the two, tearing their way through the room, struck without mercy.
The thugs crowded to the door. The narrow opening choked with men trying to dodge the blows rained upon them by Dancing and Callahan.
Before Baggs could rub his eyes the room was cleared, and half a dozen trainmen hastily summoned and led by a despatcher were engaged out upon the platform in a free fight with the Front Street ruffians.
Within the office, the despatcher found Bucks talking to Callahan, while Baggs was trying to explain to Bill Dancing how the confidence men had tried to inveigle him into a ”sh.e.l.l” game and, when they found they could not rob him of his month's pay in any other way, had knocked him down to pick his pockets.
Callahan, who knew the trouble-making element better than any of the railroad men, went up town to estimate the feeling after the fight, which was now being discussed by crowds everywhere along Front Street.
For every bruised and sore head marked by the punishment given by Dancing in the defence of Baggs a new enemy and an active one had been made.
Stanley came in late from the west and heard the story of the fight.
His comment was brief but significant. ”It will soon be getting so they won't wait for the railroad men to draw their pay. They will come down here,” said he ironically, ”to draw it for them.”
CHAPTER XX
A second and more serious disturbance followed close on the fight at the railroad station. A pa.s.senger alighting in the evening from a westbound train was set upon, robbed, and beaten into insensibility within ten feet of the train platform. A dozen other pa.s.sengers hastened to his a.s.sistance. They joined in repulsing his a.s.sailants and were beating them off when other thugs, reinforcing their fellows, attacked the pa.s.sengers and those railroad men that had hurried up to drive off the miscreants.
In the melee, a brakeman was shot through the head and a second pa.s.senger wounded. But the railroad men rallied and, returning the pistol fire, drove off the outlaws.
The train was hurried out of town and measures were taken at once to defend the railroad property for the night. Guards were set in the yards, and a patrol established about the roundhouse, the railroad hotel and the eating-house and freight-houses.