The Denver Express | Page 7

He unbolted a door, motioned her to enter,
closed and again bolted it, and also closed the ticket window. Then he
pointed to a chair, and the girl sat down and leaned eagerly forward.
"If they knew I was here," she said in a hoarse whisper, "my life
wouldn't be safe five minutes. I was waiting to tell you a terrible story,
and then I heard who was on the train due here tomorrow night. Mr.
Watkins, don't, for God's sake, ask me how I found out, but I hope to
die if I ain't telling you the living truth! They're going to wreck that
train--No. 17--at Dead Man's Crossing, fifteen miles east, and rob the
passengers and the express car. It's the worst gang in the country,
Perry's. They're going to throw the train off the track, the passengers
will be maimed and killed--and Mr. Sinclair and his wife on the cars!
Oh! my God! Mr. Watkins, send them warning!"
She stood upright, her face deadly pale, her hands clasped. Watkins
walked deliberately to the railroad map which hung on the wall and
scanned it. Then he resumed his seat, laid his pipe down, fixed his eyes
on the girl's face, and began to question her. At the same time his right
hand, with which he had held the pipe, found its way to the telegraph
key. None but an expert could have distinguished any change in the
clicking of the instrument, which had been almost incessant; but
Watkins had "called" the head office on the Missouri. In two minutes
the "sounder" rattled out "All right! What is it?"
Watkins went on with his questions, his eyes still fixed on the poor
girl's face, and all the time his fingers, as it were, playing with the key.
If he were imperturbable, so was not a man sitting at a receiving
instrument nearly five hundred miles away. He had "taken" but a few
words when he jumped from his chair and cried:
"Shut that door, and call the superintendent and be quick! Charley,
brace up--lively--and come and write this out!" With his wonderful

electric pen, the handle several hundreds of miles long, Watkins,
unknown to his interlocutor, was printing in the Morse alphabet this
startling message:
"Inform'n rec'd. Perry gang going to throw No. 17 off track near --xth
mile-post, this division, about nine to-morrow (Thursday) night, kill
passengers, and rob express and mail. Am alone here. No chance to
verify story, but believe it to be on square. Better make arrangements
from your end to block game. No Sheriff here now. Answer."
The superintendent, responding to the hasty summons, heard the
message before the clerk had time to write it out. His lips were closely
compressed as he put his own hand on the key and sent these laconic
sentences: "O. K. Keep perfectly dark. Will manage from this end."
Watkins, at Barker's, rose from his seat, opened the door a little way,
saw that the station was empty, and then said to the girl, brusquely, but
kindly:
"Sally, you've done the square thing, and saved that train. I'll take care
that you don't suffer and that you get well paid. Now come home with
me, and my wife will look out for you."
"Oh! no," cried the girl, shrinking back, "I must run away. You're
mighty kind, but I daren't go with you." Detecting a shade of doubt in
his eye, she added: "Don't be afeared; I'll die before they'll know I've
given them away to you!" and she disappeared in the darkness.
At the other end of the wire, the superintendent had quietly impressed
secrecy on his operator and clerk, ordered his fast mare harnessed, and
gone to his private office.
"Read that!" said he to his secretary. "It was about time for some
trouble of this kind, and now I'm going to let Uncle Sam take care of
his mails. If I don't get to the reservation before the General's turned in,
I shall have to wake him up. Wait for me, please."
The gray mare made the six miles to the military reservation in just half

an hour. The General was smoking his last cigar, and was alert in an
instant; and before the superintendent had finished the jorum of "hot
Scotch" hospitably tendered, the orders had gone by wire to the
commanding officer at Fort ------, some distance east of Barker's, and
been duly acknowledged.
Returning to the station, the superintendent remarked to the waiting
secretary:
"The General's all right. Of course we can't tell that this is not a sell;
but if those Perry hounds mean business they'll get all the fight they
want--and if they've got any souls--which I doubt--may the Lord have
mercy on them!"
He prepared several despatches, two of which were