Top-Notch Magazine/Volume 14/Number 3/Signals Against Him/Chapter 3

VER since the through line had acquired that hundred-and-fifty-mile stretch of privately owned road, a dozen years back, it had been pleasantly referred to as the Jerkwater Division. And for this there were at least two excellent reasons:

The miners and cattlemen who had conspired to build it, so that their ore might get to the smelters and their stock to the Eastern markets, had saved first cost at the expense of good engineering, and the results were dizzy grades and curves that would have given a boa constrictor the headache. At one end of the strictly local enterprise was the Junction, while the other end struggled as far as Jerkwater in the hills, and there, lacking the sinews of war, had given up the fight and elected to stay.

That first building was lost in the mists of antiquity, and only legends remained of mine owners forced to the wall and ranchers dropped into bankruptcy by an ill-considered venture. It takes money to build even a one-horse railroad in the rough country—more money than the combined resources of the section were able to command. And it was hard to borrow on such collateral. Shrewd financiers in the seats of capital saw nothing alluring in a contraption of rails and ties that began Somewhere and rambled aimlessly off into Nowhere. But the road was built, neither well nor wisely, time and place considered, and finally it had been absorbed by the trunk line in a way that was strictly legitimate but which left the stockholders small cause for congratulation.

The trunk line, it appeared, had had its eye on the proposition from the start, and had patiently waited like a designing hawk over a chicken yard. By extending westward to Burt's Gap, a void was filled between the main road and a branch, capable of cutting several hours from a coast-to-coast schedule. And hours count in a government mail contract.

For years the construction department had been expending its energies on the first wild dream of the local enthusiasts. Curves were being straightened, tunnels bored, bridges flung across cañons, and kinks obliterated as much as possible by a prodigal expenditure of time and money. Some day, it was hoped and believed, the Jerkwater Division would absorb all the through business of the main line, instead of merely a part of it, as now. Meanwhile, the rebuilding went on, and the twelve loads of steel, behind which. Harding was to travel to Divide, were being rushed to the engineers in charge of the work.

Extra West waited in the Crook City yards for the local passenger to come down the mountain. This happened at nine o'clock, and Extra West pulled out of Crook with a clear track to Divide.

There were two boxes back of the twelve flats of steel, and a pusher back of the waycar. The waycar was doing twelve miles an hour as Harding hopped aboard from the station platform. He walked inside and found Chris Davy, cheek by jowl with two other passengers in leather caps and reefer jackets, sitting on one of the side benches. The hind-end brakeman, second in command, was overhead somewhere.

Davy stared as at an apparition. One of the others exploded an oath, for which there seemed no cause whatever, and he and his companion turned their backs.

“Get out of here!” shouted Davy, starting to his feet and advancing with an agile set of the legs that kept him upright against the slew of the car.

“I'm going to Divide,” returned Harding, surprised at this gratuitous display of ill nature, “and Trawl said I could ride with you. He told me he'd speak to you about it.”

“Well, he didn't, and I'm not hungry for your company. I want to feel tolerably sure of getting over the mountain, and it's a cinch something will go crosswise if you're aboard. Get out of this doghouse peaceably, or I'll throw you out. I've troubles enough of my own without being loaded up with you.”

As a boss hostler Davy was always crabbed and always sour. Getting a freight run had not tended to sweeten his temper. But the mere fact that Harding was in the waycar under instructions from Trawl, whether or not those instructions were known to Davy, was no warrant for his present mood.

“I'm going to ride to the top of the hill, Davy,” returned Harding firmly, “because I was given the right by the superintendent. Maybe he forget to tell you—I don't know about that; but I do know that now I'm here I'm going to stay here till we get to Divide.”

“You're going to get off,” yelled the irate conductor, “that's what you're going to do!”

They were not doing over fifteen posts, and the switch lights in the Crook City yards were hardly lost in the gloom. Harding could have dropped off without much trouble and counted the ties back to division headquarters.

A word to Trawl over the telephone would then have adjusted matters satisfactorily for a ride up the mountain on a way freight in the morning. But a principle was involved. Harding was entitled to passage on that extra, and he was going to have it.

There was a suspicion in his mind that Davy had received verbal instructions from the superintendent and was deliberately disregarding them. If this were really the case, then Trawl's respect for Harding would hardly increase if he allowed himself to be bullyragged and forced off the extra. Of course, Davy would come in for a reprimand, in such a matter, but of the two Harding felt that he himself would be the heavier loser. His mounting spirit of defiance counseled him to stand his ground.

Chris Davy could not be called a drinking man, but Harding had always known that he would take a glass occasionally. So long as he did not indulge to excess, or in a manner to interfere with his duties, the officials of the division had nothing to say. Just now it was evident that he had enough aboard to make his temper, if not his judgment, a bit unsteady.

Harding backed up against the cupola ladder in the middle of the car and waited for Davy to make the next move. The conductor came on, the fires of wrath kindling in his eyes.

“Keep your hands off me!” called Harding warningly.

Davy swore, and reached out to grab him. The other struck the clutching hands aside with a vigorous sweep of his right arm. The conductor uttered another imprecation, collected himself, and let drive with his right fist.

A lurch of the waycar, at the right moment, assisted by a deft dodge on the part of Harding, caused the fist to miss its target and smash against a rung of the ladder. A yell of pain was wrenched from Davy's lips, but the mishap merely made him the more savage.

“Here's where I even up with you for what happened two years ago at the roundhouse!” shouted Davy, and once more flung himself forward.

Harding's muscle and skill had not waned appreciably during the passing of the two years mentioned by Davy. The two men came together, and the conductor was beaten down by a stiff right-hander. As he tumbled, his head came in contact with the sharp edge of a locker. Half stunned, he rolled over upon the floor.

The two in the leather caps and reefer jackets had followed events with consuming interest Their sympathies were plainly with the conductor, and they now hastened forward to give him their aid. One of them tore open the front of his jacket and reached toward his hip.

“Kill him, Dan!” barked Davy, sitting upon the floor and peering around dazedly.

Harding measured the chances, and concluded that discretion would be the better part of valor. He would have his ride up the mountain, but he need not associate with the three in the waycar. Whirling about, he swarmed up the ladder and out of the window to the roof, expecting every moment to have his feet tickled by a flying bullet. There was no shooting, however, which proved that Davy's companions had more sense than Davy himself. Harding hoped that the rear-end brakeman would intercede in his behalf and put an end to the difficulty. But the brakeman was not in evidence.

The extra, at that moment, was plunging through Cardigan, a little station at the foot of the big hill. The station lights flung a brief glare over the tops of the waycar and the boxes, and if the brakeman had been on the three cars Harding could not have failed to see him.

Harding looked back at the cupola. A leather cap and a pair of wide shoulders were emerging through the window.

All Harding desired was peace and a lift up the hard mountain wall to the little home at Divide. The extra was plunging on into the gloom again, the engines snorting and the drivers biting into the sanded rails as they labored on the grade. Harding jumped the gap to the top of the first box car, then watched while a dark figure came cautiously after him.

“Say, you!” Harding shouted. “Keep out of this. It's none of your affair, anyhow, and Davy will have to explain his foolishness to the superintendent.”

If the man said anything in reply Harding did not hear it. The fellow kept coming on, and Harding retreated to the other end of the box and perched on the brake wheel.

The man kept his feet well as the train twisted around the ugly grades and rumbled over the trestles of its twenty-mile climb. If he was not a railroad man now, it seemed plain that he must have been one at some time or other in his career.

“You goin' to drop off?” he demanded, balancing himself on the toe-path.

“Not on this part of the right of way,” flung back Harding. “What do you take me for?”

Back of the first man another was coming. Harding could discern the second figure against the glow from the cupola, luridly backed by a stream of radiance as the fireman of the pusher opened his furnace door to feed the fires.

“I guess you'll drop, all right,” said the first man, in a tone that left no doubt of his intentions.

A struggle on the top of that lurching box car would fall little short of madness. And why was this stranger, who was a passenger and should have been an innocent bystander, so rabidly coming to the aid of Chris Davy? Here was a mystery beyond Harding's power to solve. But Harding would retreat no farther. If he must fight for his passage, he would take his enemies one at a time.

He left the brake wheel, and three steps brought him directly in front of the man who was strangely interested in getting him off the train. They grappled, were overset by a slew of the car, and fell with a crash on the roof. Then, had not Harding with one hand gripped the edge of the toe-path, they might have rolled to the edge and plunged to the rocks at the trackside.

“Hang on, Dan!” came huskily from the second figure, which was now coming over the last load. “I'll be with you in a brace of shakes, and, between us”

It was Davy. His words came faintly above the screech of the flanges on the rails and the rattle of the train and the throb and pant of the engines.

But he was not the only one to put in a sudden appearance. From forward, swinging a lantern, bounded the rear-end brakeman, attracted by the novelty of a set-to on the top of the swaying car.

“Here, let up on that!” he cried, flashing his lantern in the faces of the two at handgrips. “What in Sam Hill—say, do you both want to get killed? Well, if it ain't Hardluck Harding!”

“Pitch him off, Joe!” clamored Davy. “He hasn't any right on this train. I ordered him to leave before we were clear of the Crook City yards, and he jumped me and bowled me over.”

“Keep off, Chris!” ordered the brakeman. “Who's this bruiser that's mixing things up with Harding? What business has he got on the train? And, why in thunder”

“He's a friend of mine,” snapped Davy, “and he's here because he's trying to help me. Harding said the superintendent told him he could ride, but nothing was said to me. I haven't any use for that yap, anyhow.”

“Confound it!” muttered the brakeman, whom Harding had known a long time. “The old man told me Hardluck was to ride with us to-night, and I was to tell you. But I forgot it.”

“Told you, did he?” shouted Davy. “Well, who's bossing this freight? Why didn't he tell me?”

“You weren't around, I guess. Anyway, that's what Trawl said. If you hadn't been so blamed eager to get rid of him, I'd have dropped back and told you before we reached Divide.”

This information, so late in being delivered, changed the status of affairs materially. Davy retreated a few steps, and Harding released his antagonist and carefully drew away. The man in the leather cap got up sullenly, muttering to himself.

“Well, he can ride, if that's the way of it,” snorted Davy, “but he can't roost in the waycar. I've had more'n I can stand from him for one night. Come on, Dan.”

The conductor retraced his way cautiously to the lookout, the other man following him. When they had disappeared the brakeman slumped to his knees and began digging something out from under the boards of the toe-path—an object wedged between the boards and the car roof.

“Here's something you dropped, Hardluck,” said Joe, passing the object over.

“Half a sack of smoking,” laughed Harding, carelessly dropping the object into his pocket. “Nice, hospitable outfit you've got on this extra to-night.”

“Davy didn't want much of ah excuse to rough things up with you. He'll never forget what you done to him that time at the roundhouse. Blazes! He's a tough guy, anyhow; you ought to know that. Who's the lad that tackled you?”

“Never saw him before. Two passengers in the waycar, and this bruiser was one of them.”

“Davy's carrying the two against orders, then. But that's his lookout. It's no great hardship for you to ride out here, I guess.”

“It's a fine night and hot in the caboose—too hot!” and Harding laughed.