The Denver Express | Page 8

ten thousand dollars," sententiously remarked he, "that Sinclair's on that train. He's got both sand and brains. Goodnight," and he went to bed and slept the sleep of the just.

III
The sun never shone more brightly and the air was never more clear and bracing than when Sinclair helped his wife off the train at Pawnee Junction. The station-master's face fell as he saw the lady, but he saluted the engineer with as easy an air as he could assume, and watched for an opportunity to speak to him alone. Sinclair read the despatches with an unmoved countenance, and after a few minutes' reflection simply said: "All right. Be sure to keep the matter perfectly quiet." At breakfast he was distrait--so much so that his wife asked him what was the matter. Taking her aside, he at once showed her the telegrams.
"You see my duty," he said. "My only thought is about you, my dear child. Will you stay here?"
She simply replied, looking into his face without a tremor:
"My place is with you." Then the conductor called "All aboard," and the train once more started.
Sinclair asked Foster to join him in the smoking compartment and tell him the promised story, which the latter did. His rescue at Barker's, he frankly and gratefully said, had been the turning point in his life. In brief, he had "sworn off" from gambling and drinking, had found honest employment, and was doing well.
"I've two things to do now, Major," he added; "first, I must show my gratitude to you; and next"--he hesitated a little--"I want to find that poor girl that I left behind at Barker's. She was engaged to marry me, and when I came to think of it, and what a life I'd have made her lead, I hadn't the heart till now to look for her; but, seeing I'm on the right track, I'm going to find her, and get her to come with me. Her father's an--old scoundrel, but that ain't her fault, and I ain't going to marry him."
"Foster," quietly asked Sinclair, "do you know the Perry gang?"
The man's brow darkened.
"Know them?" said he. "I know them much too well. Perry is as ungodly a cutthroat as ever killed an emigrant in cold blood, and he's got in his gang nearly all those hounds that tried to hang me. Why do you ask, Major?"
Sinclair handed him the despatches. "You are the only man on the train to whom I have shown them," said he.
Foster read them slowly, his eyes lighting up as he did so. "Looks as if it was true," said he.
"Let me see! Fort ------. Yes, that's the --th infantry. Two of their boys were killed at Sidney last summer by some of the same gang, and the regiment's sworn vengeance. Major, if this story's on the square, that crowd's goose is cooked, and don't you forget it! I say, you must give me a hand in."
"Foster," said Sinclair, "I am going to put responsibility on your shoulders. I have no doubt that, if we be attacked, the soldiers will dispose of the gang; but I must take all possible precautions for the safety of the passengers. We must not alarm them. They can be made to think that the troops are going on a scout, and only a certain number of resolute men need be told of what we expect. Can you, late this afternoon, go through the cars, and pick them out? I will then put you in charge of the passenger cars, and you can post your men on the platforms to act in case of need. My place will be ahead.''
"Major, you can depend on me," was Foster's reply. "I'll go through the train and have my eye on some boys of the right sort, and that's got their shooting-irons with them."
Through the hours of that day on rolled the train, still over the crisp buffalo grass, across the well-worn buffalo trails, past the prairie-dog villages. The passengers chatted, dozed, played cards, read, all unconscious, with the exception of three, of the coming conflict between the good and the evil forces bearing on their fate; of the fell preparations making for their disaster; of the grim preparations making to avert such disaster; of all of which the little wires alongside of them had been talking back and forth. Watkins had telegraphed that he still saw no reason to doubt the good faith of his warning, and Sinclair had reported his receipt of authority and his acceptance thereof. Meanwhile, also, there had been set in motion a measure of that power to which appeal is so reluctantly made in time of peace.
At Fort ------, a lonely post on the plains, the orders had that morning been issued for twenty men under Lieutenant Halsey to parade