CHAPTER XXXVII
DOWN BRAKES!
Just as Kathleen flung her head in baffled vexation, and Mallorystarted to slink back to Marjorie, with another defeat, there came anabrupt shock as if that gigantic child to whom our railroad trains aretoys, had reached down and laid violent hold on the Trans-American infull career.
Its smooth, swift flight became suddenly such a spasm of jars, shiversand thuds that Mallory cried:
"We're off the track."
He was sent flopping down the aisle like a bolster hurled through thecar. He brought up with a sickening slam across the seat into whichMarjorie had been jounced back with a breath-taking slam. And thenKathleen came flying backwards and landed in a heap on both of them.
Several of the other passengers were just returning from breakfast andthey were shot and scattered all over the car as if a great chain ofhuman beads had burst.
Women screamed, men yelled, and then while they were still strugglingagainst the seats and one another, the train came to a halt.
"Thank God, we stopped in time!" Mallory gasped, as he tried todisengage himself and Marjorie from Kathleen.
The passengers began to regain their courage with their equilibrium.Little Jimmie Wellington had flown the whole length of the car,clinging to his wife as if she were Francesca da Rimini, and he Paolo,flitting through Inferno. The flight ended at the stateroom door withsuch a thump that Mrs. Fosdick was sure a detective had come for herat last, and with a battering ram.
But when Jimmie got back breath enough to talk, he remembered thetrain-stopping excitement of the day before and called out:
"Has Mrs. Mallory lost that pup again?"
Everybody laughed uproariously at this. People will laugh at anythingor nothing when they have been frightened almost to death and suddenlyrelieved of anxiety.
Everybody was cracking a joke at Marjorie's expense. Everybody felt agood-natured grudge against her for being such a mystery. The car wasringing with hilarity, when the porter came stumbling in and paused atthe door, with eyes all white, hands waving frantically, and lipsflapping like flannel, in a vain effort to speak.
The passengers stopped laughing at Marjorie, to laugh at the porter.Ashton sang out:
"What's the matter with you, Porter? Are you trying to crow?"
Everybody roared at this, till the porter finally managed toarticulate:
"T-t-t-train rob-rob-robbers!"
Silence shut down as if the whole crowd had been smitten withparalysis. From somewhere outside and ahead came a pop-popping as offirecrackers. Everybody thought, "Revolvers!" The reports were mingledwith barbaric yells that turned the marrow in every bone to snow.
These regions are full of historic terror. All along the Nevada routethe conductor, the brakemen and old travelers had pointed out sceneafter scene where the Indians had slaked the thirst of the arid landwith white man's blood. Ashton, who had traveled this way many times,had made himself fascinatingly horrifying the evening before andruined several breakfasts that morning in the dining-car, by regalingthe passengers with stories of pioneer ordeals, men and womenmassacred in burning wagons, or dragged away to fiendish cruelty andobscene torture, staked out supine on burning wastes with eyelids cutoff, bound down within reach of rattlesnakes, subjected to everymisery that human deviltry could devise.
Ashton had brought his fellow passengers to a state of ecstaticexcitability, and, like many a recounter of burglar stories at night,had tuned his own nerves to high tension.
The violent stopping of the train, the heart-shaking yells and shotsoutside, found the passengers already apt to respond without delay tothe appeals of fright. After the first hush of dread, came thereaction to panic.
Each passenger showed his own panic in his own way. Ashton whirledround and round, like a horse with the blind staggers, then bolteddown the aisle, knocking aside men and women. He climbed on a seat,pulled down an upper berth, and, scrambling into it, tried to shut iton himself. Mrs. Whitcomb was so frightened that she assailed Ashtonwith fury and seizing his feet, dragged him back into the aisle, andbeat him with her fists, demanding that he protect her and save herfor Sammy's sake.
Mrs. Fosdick, rushing out of her stateroom and not finding herluscious-eyed husband, laid hold of Jimmie Wellington and ordered himto go to the rescue of her spouse. Mrs. Wellington tore her handsloose, crying: "Let him go, madam. He has a wife of his own todefend."
Jimmie was trying to pour out dying messages, and only sputtering,forgetting that he had put his watch in his mouth to hide it, thoughits chain was still attached to his waistcoat.
Anne Gattle, who had read much about Chinese atrocities tomissionaries, gave herself up to death, yet rejoiced greatly that shehad provided a timely man to lean on and should not have to enterParadise a spinster, providing she could manage to convert Ira in thenext few seconds, before it was everlastingly too late. She wasbegging her first heathen to join her in a gospel hymn. But Ira wasroaring curses like a pirate captain in a hurricane, and swearing thatthe villains should not rob him of his bride.
Mrs. Temple wrung her twitching hands and tried to drag her husband tohis knees, crying:
"Oh, Walter, Walter, won't you please say a prayer?--a good strongprayer?"
But the preacher was so confused that he answered: "What's the use ofprayer in an emergency like this?"
"Walter!" she shrieked.
"I'm on my va-vacation, you know," he stammered.
Marjorie was trying at the same time to compel Mallory to crawl undera seat and to find a place to hide Snoozleums, whom she was warningnot to say a word. Snoozleums, understanding only that his mistresswas in some distress, refused to stay in his basket and kept offeringhis services and his attentions.
Suddenly Marjorie realized that Kathleen was trying to faint inMallory's arms, and forgot everything else in a determined effort toprevent her.
After the first blood-sweat of abject fright had begun to cool, thepassengers came to realize that the invaders were not after lives, butloot. Then came a panic of miserly effort to conceal treasure.
Kathleen, finding herself banished from Mallory's protection, ran toMrs. Whitcomb, who had given Ashton up as a hopeless task.
"What shall we do, oh, what, oh what shall we do, dear Mrs.Wellington?" she cried.
"Don't you dare call me Mrs. Wellington!" Mrs. Whitcomb screamed; thenshe began to flutter. "But we'd better hide what we can. I hope therah-rah-robbers are ge-gentlemen-men."
She pushed a diamond locket containing a small portrait of Sammy intoher back hair, leaving part of the chain dangling. Then she tried tostuff a large handbag into her stocking.
Mrs. Fosdick found her husband at last, for he made a wild dash to herside, embraced her, called her his wife and defied all the powers ofNevada to tear them apart. He had a brilliant idea. In order to savehis fat wallet from capture, he tossed it through an open window. Itfell at the feet of one of the robbers as he ran along the side of thecar, shooting at such heads as were put out of windows. He picked itup and dropped it into the feed-bag he had swung at his side. Thenrunning on, he clambered over the brass rail of the observationplatform and entered the rear of the train, as his confederate,driving the conductor ahead of him, forged his way aft from the front,while a third masquerader aligned the engineer, the fireman, thebrakeman and the baggagemen.
Excuse Me! Page 38
