Bucky OConnor | Page 9

call for Tucson, preparatory to transmitting
the conductor's message to the division superintendent. His fingers
were just striking the first tap when a silken voice startled him.
"One moment, friend. No use being in a hurry."
The agent looked up and nearly fell from his stool. He was gazing into
the end of a revolver held carelessly in the hand of a masked man
leaning indolently on the counter.

"Whe--where did you come from?" the operator gasped.
"Kaintucky, but I been here a right smart spell. Why? You takin' the
census?" came the drawling answer.
"I didn't hear youse come in."
"I didn't hear you come in, either," the man behind the mask mocked.
But even as he spoke his manner changed, and crisp menace rang in his
voice. "Have you sent those messages yet?"
"Wha--what messages?"
"Those lying on your desk. I say, have you sent them?"
"Not yet."
"Hand them over here."
The operator passed them across the counter without demur.
"Now reach for the roof."
Up shot the station agent's hands. The bandit glanced over the written
sheets and commented aloud:
"Huh! One from the conductor and one from Mackenzie. I expected
those. But this one from Collins is ce'tainly a surprise party. I didn't
know he was on the train. Lucky for him I didn't, or mebbe I'd a-put his
light for good and all. Friend, I reckon we'll suppress these messages.
Military necessity, you understand." And with that he lightly tore up
the yellow sheets and tossed them away.
"The conductor will wire when he reaches Apache," the operator
suggested, not very boldly.
The outlaw rolled a cigarette deftly and borrowed a match. "He most
surely will. But Apache is seventy miles from here. That gives us an
extra hour and a half, and with us right now time is a heap more

valuable than money. You may tell Bucky O'Connor when you see him
that that extra hour and a half cinches our escape, and we weren't on the
anxious seat any without it."
It may have been true, as the train robber had just said, that time was
more valuable to him then than money, but if so he must have held the
latter of singularly little value. For he sat him down on the counter with
his back against the wall and his legs stretched full length in front of
him and glanced over the Tucson Star in leisurely fashion, while Pat's
arms still projected roofward.
The operator, beginning to get over his natural fright, could not
withhold a reluctant admiration of this man's aplomb. There was a
certain pantherish lightness about the outlaw's movements, a trim grace
of figure which yet suggested rippling muscles perfectly under control,
and a quiet wariness of eye more potent than words at repressing
insurgent impulses. Certainly if ever there was a cool customer and one
perfectly sure of himself, this was he.
"Not a thing in the Star to-day," Pat's visitor commented, as he flung it
away with a yawn. "I'll let a thousand dollars of the express company's
money that there will be something more interesting in it to-morrow."
"That's right," agreed the agent.
"But I won't be here to read it. My engagements take me south. I'll
make a present to the great Lieutenant O'Connor of the information.
We're headed south, tell him. And tell Mr. Sheriff Collins, too--happy
to entertain him if he happens our way. If it would rest your hands any
there's no law against putting them in your trousers pockets, my
friend."
From outside there came a short sharp whistle. The man on the counter
answered it, and slipped at once to the floor. The door opened, to let in
another masked form, but one how different from the first! Here was no
confidence almost insolent in its nonchalance. The figure was slight
and boyish, the manner deprecating, the brown eyes shy and shrinking
He was so obviously a novice at outlawry that fear sat heavy upon his

shoulders. When he spoke, almost in a whisper, his teeth chattered.
"All ready, sir."
"The wires are cut?" demanded his leader crisply.
"Yes, sir."
"On both sides?"
"On both sides."
His chief relieved the operator of the revolver in his desk, broke it,
emptied out the shells, and flung them through the window, then tossed
the weapon back to its owner.
"You'll not shoot yourself by accident now," he explained, and with
that he had followed his companion into the night.
There came to the station agent the sound of galloping horses, growing
fainter, until a heavy silence seemed to fill the night. He stole to the
door and locked it, pulled down the window blinds, and then reloaded
his revolver with feverish haste. This done, he sat down before his keys
with the