Part 7 (1/2)
”Along at _eleven_! Man alive, the sheriff will be here with a posse of forty long before that!”
”_Long_ before that!” almost screamed old s.h.i.+ner. ”Look, there, what you see! He's coming now!”
And then Geordie Graham, listening with beating heart within the open doorway of the caboose, could stand the strain no longer. The man he must see, the man on whom everything depended, the old friend whom he most trusted and believed in stood in sore peril. The cause for which he had come all these miles must fail so sure as Nolan slipped into the power of the adversary, even though grasped by the hand of the law. It was no time for ethics--no time for casuists. He let his voice out in the old tone of authority:
”You've no time to lose, Mr. Cullin. Arrest them, too, and come on!”
With wonderment in his eyes, with s.h.i.+ner whispering caution in his ear, ”Long” Nolan was hustled aboard the caboose just as the wheels began to turn, his breathless followers clambering after, while afar up the divide toward the east, by twos and threes, in eager pursuit, egged on by lavish promise of reward, the sheriff of Yampah, with a score of his men, spurred furiously on the trail of a train that, starting slowly and heavily, speedily gained headway and soon went thundering up the grade, ”leaving the wolves behind.”
CHAPTER X
FIRST SHOTS OF THE SUMMER
Half-way up the scarred slope of mountain-side, and opposite the mouth of a deep ravine, hung the crude wooden buildings and costly machinery of a modern mine. Zigzagging up the heights, the road that led to it from the ramshackle town in the valley was dotted with groups of rough-coated men, all plodding steadily onward. Perched on ”benches”
and shelves and dumps of blasted rock and fresh-heaped earth, similar though smaller cl.u.s.ters of buildings dotted the lower slopes, marring the grand outlines and sweeping curves of the great upheavals, cutting ugly gashes in the green and swelling billows, yet eagerly sought in the race for wealth and the greed for gold, because of the treasures they wrested from the bowels of the everlasting hills. Afar down the winding valley a turbid stream went frothing away to the foot-hills, telling of labor, turmoil, and strife. Beside it twisted and turned the railway that burrowed through the range barely five miles back of the town, and reappeared on the westward face of the Silver Bow, clinging dizzily to heights that looked down on rolling miles of pine, cedar, stunted oak, and almost primeval loneliness. The mineral wealth, said the experts, lay on the eastward side, and by thousands the miners were there, swarming like ants all over the surface seeking their golden gain.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SILVER s.h.i.+ELD]
And something was surely amiss at the mines when the chimneys of as many as six of the ”plants” gave forth no smoke, when the fires were out and the men adrift. Something had happened that called the craftsmen from a dozen other burrows to the aid of those at the new and lately thronging works, on that shoulder at the mouth of the gorge--the mine of the Silver s.h.i.+eld. Murder most foul, said the story, had been done in the name of the law. Armed guards of the property had shot down, it was said, a half-score of workmen, clamoring only for their pay and their rights. A son of the princ.i.p.al owner, so it was known, had ordered his men to fire. A son of an old soldier and settler, living in peace barely forty miles away, was one of the victims, for he had taken sides with Long Nolan, who without rhyme or reason had been discharged, and violently flung from the premises. There had been a wild rush on the guard, a volley, a recoil, a rally in force, and an outcry for vengeance. Then the guard had to shoot in earnest and self-defence, for their lives were at stake. Some of the men had gone to Argenta to plead with the owners, but most had remained to stir all hands within ten miles to the support of their fellows. The miscreant who had ordered ”fire” had escaped across to Miners' Joy, only to be dealt with by sympathizers on the Narrow Gauge; but the men who fired and who shot to kill were trapped like rats in a hole. Surrounded on every side, every avenue of escape now guarded, they and the luckless manager of the mine were cooped in their log fortification, with two lives and several serious wounds to answer for, and as the sun went westering this long summer's day they had two hours left in which to decide--come out and surrender or be burned out where they lay.
Half the village had gone to swell the ranks of the rioters; another half--slatternly women and unkempt children--swarmed in the single street and gazed upward at the heights. Every ledge about the threatened buildings was black with men, men furious with hate and mad with liquor, men needing only determined and resolute leaders to go in and finish their fearful work.
But here was their lack. The men they had counted on, one man in particular on whose account many of their number had braved the guard and threatened the owners--one man, Long Nolan himself, refused point blank to have aught to do with them or their plans. Another man, he whose son lay dying in the village, shot down by the guards, was there, sad-eyed yet stern-faced, to stay and dissuade them. The one train up from the East that day--the only one that could come, for now the road was blown out in a dozen places down the gorge--had brought with it Nolan and s.h.i.+ner, with two or three friends at their back, and Nolan and s.h.i.+ner, in spite of their wrongs, were pleading hard for peace, pleading so hard, so earnestly, that by 5 P.M. many a man, American born, had seen the force of their reasoning and had stepped back from the front.
But among the killed was a poor lad from the mountains of Bohemia.
Among the vengeful throng were swarms of foreigners who could understand little or nothing of what Nolan and his friends were saying, and who speedily would have scorned it could they have understood, for at five o'clock another speaker took the stand, a man of the people he called himself, a foreigner long on our sh.o.r.es, yet fluent in the language of the Slavs, and in ten minutes the torrent was turned. With terror in his eyes, a man who had long worked with Nolan, a foreigner, too, came running to the silent, anxious little group of Anglo-Saxons.
”Nolan--Nolan,” he cried. ”He says you was traitor! He says you was gone to Argenta and told all their secrets, and you was bought off--bribed--and you bring strangers to help you! He says you and they are just spies, an' now they come for _you_!”
One glance from where the little group were crouching, sheltered from possible shots from the buildings, yet between them and the throng, told Nolan and s.h.i.+ner the alarm was real, the words were true. Like so many maddened beasts, a gang of uncouth, unkempt, blood-thirsty beings were now crowding up the narrow roadway from the bench below.
”My G.o.d, Mr. Geordie!” cried Nolan, in sudden agony of spirit, ”I never once dreamed of this!”
It was, indeed, a moment of terror. Here, barely a dozen in all, were Nolan, s.h.i.+ner, George Graham, and a few of the more intelligent, the Americans, among the miners. There, possibly a hundred yards away, and to the number of at least three hundred, a throng of human brutes, utterly ignorant, superst.i.tious, credulous, craftily inspired, were now surging slowly forward up the heights. Two minutes would bring them about the little party in overwhelming strength. Flight anywhere downhill was impossible. The one refuge in sight was that beleaguered little clump of buildings just beyond them up the slope, garrisoned by a dozen desperate men who had shouted warning again and again, they'd shoot down the first man that showed a head above the rocks.
But desperate straits need desperate measures. All on a sudden a tall, slender youth, in the coa.r.s.e dress of a railway fireman, sprang from the midst of the pallid-faced group and, waving his handkerchief over his head, called back, ”Stay where you are one minute!” and then, without a second's falter or swerve, straight for the nearest building, a low, one-story log-house, the manager's office near the mouth of the mine, waving his white signal high as his arm could reach, and shouting, ”Don't fire--we are friends!” George Graham swiftly climbed for the upper level. One rifle flashed. One bullet whizzed over his head, but he reached the road, then, both arms extended, rushed straight for the door.
It was thrown open to admit him by c.a.w.ker, the manager, white-faced almost as they whom Geordie had left. ”Come out here!” cried Graham.
”See for yourself. Nolan, s.h.i.+ner, with those few lads, are all that have stood between you and the mob below. Every American is out of it.
They're coming to kill Nolan for turning against them. Call him up!
Call them all--There's barely a dozen. Then you've got just as many more to stand by you!”
And c.a.w.ker had sense to see and to realize. ”Call 'em yourself,” said he. ”Don't shoot, men! These are friends come to aid us!” he cried, running up and down in front of the loop-holes. ”Come on, Nolan and all of you,” he added, for Graham had gone bounding half-way back again, and, like so many goats, the threatened party came scrambling out of their shelter and up the steep incline, while afar down the hill-side rose a yell of baffled rage and vengeance.
”Hold the rest of them whatever you do!” shouted Geordie, again racing back. ”Don't let that gang over the edge or you're gone!” And again the brown barrels of the rifles thrust forth from the wooden walls and were turned on the bend of the road. Almost breathless, Long Nolan, and with him the little squad of adherents, came running up to the door.
”Inside, quick as you can!” shouted c.a.w.ker. ”We've got to give those blood-hounds a lesson.”