The Mountain Divide

by Spearman, Frank H

  The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mountain Divide, by Frank H. Spearman

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  Title: The Mountain Divide

  Author: Frank H. Spearman

  Illustrator: Armand Both

  Release Date: August 10, 2009 [EBook #29656]

  Language: English

  *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOUNTAIN DIVIDE ***

  Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed

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  * * *

  THE MOUNTAIN DIVIDE

  * * *

  BOOKS BY FRANK H. SPEARMAN

  PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

  * * *

  ROBERT KIMBERLY. Illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg. 12mo Net $1.30

  WHISPERING SMITH. A Story of Rocky Mountain Life. Illustrated by N. C. Wyeth. 12mo $1.50

  THE DAUGHTER OF A MAGNATE. Illustrated. 12mo $1.50

  DOCTOR BRYSON. A Novel. 12mo $1.50

  * * *

  THE MOUNTAIN DIVIDE. Illustrated. 12mo Net $1.25

  * * *

  THE STRATEGY OF GREAT RAILROADS. With Maps. 12mo Net $1.50

  * * *

  AS BUCK’S STRAINING EYE FOLLOWED THE MOVEMENT,

  THE SECOND INDIAN STRUCK THE CLUB DOWN.

  * * *

  THE

  MOUNTAIN DIVIDE

  BY

  FRANK H. SPEARMAN

  ILLUSTRATED BY

  ARMAND BOTH

  CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

  NEW YORK :::::::::::::::::: 1912

  * * *

  Copyright, 1912, by

  CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

  * * *

  Published September, 1912

  * * *

  THIS STORY WITHOUT LOVE,

  IS NONE THE LESS LOVINGLY INSCRIBED

  TO

  MY YOUNGEST SON

  ARTHUR DUNNING SPEARMAN

  * * *

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  As Buck’s straining eye followed the movement, the second Indian struck the club down. Frontispiece

  It was only after a moment that the lineman could be seen to gain. 92

  “Let that gate alone or I’ll brain you,” he cried. 250

  For Scott to draw and fire was but one movement. 300

  * * *

  THE MOUNTAIN DIVIDE

  CHAPTER I

  Night had fallen and a warm rain drifting down from the mountains hung in a mist over the railroad yards and obscured the lights of Medicine Bend. Two men dismounting from their drooping horses at the foot of Front Street threw the reins to a man in waiting and made their way on foot across the muddy square to the building which served the new railroad as a station and as division head-quarters. In Medicine Bend, the town, the railroad, everything was new; and the broad, low pine building which they entered had not yet been painted.

  The public waiting-room was large, roughly framed, and lighted with hanging kerosene lamps. Within the room a door communicated with the agent’s office, and this was divided by a wooden railing into a freight office and a ticket and telegraph office.

  It could be seen, as the two men paused at the door of the inner room, that the first wore a military fatigue-cap, and his alert carriage as he threw open his cape-coat indicated the bearing of an American army officer. He was of medium height, and his features and eyes implied that the storms and winds of the plains and mountains were familiar friends. This was Park Stanley, charged at that time with the construction of the first transcontinental railroad.

  The agent’s office, which he and his companion now looked into, was half-filled with a crowd of frontiersmen, smoking, talking, disputing, asking questions, and crowding against the fence that railed off the private end of the room; while at the operator’s table next to the platform window a tall, spindling boy was trying in the confusion behind him to get a message off the wire.

  Stanley, eying the lad, noticed how thin his face was and what a bony frame spread out under the roundabout jacket that he appeared already to have outgrown. And he concluded this must be the new operator, Bucks, who for some days had been expected from the East.

  The receiver clicked insistently and Bucks endeavored to follow the message, but the babel of talking made it almost impossible. Stanley heard the boy appeal more than once for less noise, but his appeals were unheeded. He saw symptoms of fire in the operator’s eyes as the latter glared occasionally at the crowd behind him, but for what followed even Stanley was unprepared. Bucks threw down his pen and coming forward with angry impatience ordered the crowd out of the room.

  He pushed the foremost of the intruders back from the rail and followed up his commands by opening the wicket gate and driving those ahead of him toward the door of the waiting-room. “Get out where you belong,” he repeated, urging the crowd on. Stanley turned to the man at his side. “I will go upstairs to write my message. This must be the new boy, Bob,” he added; “he acts as if he might make things go.”

  His companion, Bob Scott, smiled as he followed Stanley out upon the platform and up the narrow stairway leading to the division offices. But Bob Scott was conservative. He never spoke above an undertone and naturally took the conservative side: “If he only doesn’t make them go too fast, Colonel,” was his comment.

  A tall young man, spare but almost gigantic in stature, standing back in one corner of the agent’s office as the men about him were hustled along, likewise regarded Bucks with surprise as he saw him start single-handed to expel the intruders. This was the mountain telegraph lineman, Bill Dancing, as simple as he was strong, and ready at any time to be surprised, but not often disconcerted. In this instance, however, he was amazed, for almost before he realized it the energetic operator was hustling him out with the others.

  When Bucks thought the room cleared he turned to go back to his table, but he saw that one man had been overlooked. This man was still sitting on a stool in the farthest corner of the dimly lighted room. The spindling operator without hesitation walked over to him and laid his hand on the man’s shoulder. Dancing, looking back through the door, held his breath.

  “Move out of here, please,” said Bucks, “into the public waiting-room.” The man rose with the utmost politeness. “Sorry to be in your way,” he returned mildly, though there was a note not quite pleasant in his voice.

  “Your place is outside,” continued the operator. “I can’t do anything with a mob in here all talking at once.”

  “I haven’t done my talking yet,” suggested the man, with a shade of significance. This, however, was lost on Bucks, who looked sharply at the stool from which the man had risen.

  “I think this stool is mine,” said he, picking it up and examining it. “It is mine,” he added, after a moment’s inspection. “Please move on.”

  “Perhaps before I go,” returned the man with the same unpleasant irony, “you will tell me whether you have an express package here for Harvey Levake.”

  “Of course I will, Harvey,” responded the operator in a matter-of-fact way. “Just wait a minute.”

  Levake’s lips stretched into a ghost of a smile, and his white-lashed gray eyes contracted with an effort at amiability.

  The operator, going inside the railing, ran over the express way-bills which, not yet entered up, lay on the freight desk.

  “There is a package here for you,” he announced a moment later, and turning to a heap of parcels thrown under the desk he searched among them until h
e found and produced the one he sought.

  “Here it is––a box of cartridges.”

  “What are the charges?” asked the man.

  “Four dollars and sixty cents.”

  The man laid down a twenty-dollar bank-bill. The operator hesitated: “I haven’t the change.”

  Levake showed no sympathy: “That is not my fault,” he returned.

  The operator looked at him: “Do you want the package to-night?”

  “If I didn’t, do you suppose I would waste an hour here waiting for it?”

  The boy considered a moment and made a decision, but it chanced to be the wrong decision. “Take the package along. Bring me the charges in the morning.”

  Levake made no response beyond a further glance at the boy somewhat contemptuous; but he said nothing and picking up his package walked out. No one opposed him. Indeed, had the operator been interested he would have noticed with what marked alacrity every man, as he passed through the waiting-room, got out of Levake’s way. Dancing, standing at the door and with his hair on end, awaited the close of the incident. He now re-entered the inner office and shut the waiting-room door behind him with an audible bang. Bucks, who had returned to his table, looked around. “Well, who are you?” he demanded as he regarded Dancing. “And what are you doing here?”

  “Who are you?” retorted Dancing bluntly. “And what are you doing here?”

  “My name is Bucks and I am the new night operator.”

  “You look new. And you act all-fired new. My name is Bill Dancing and I am the telegraph lineman.”

  “Why, you are the man I am looking for.”

  “So I thought, when you pushed me out of here with the rest of your visitors.”

  “Why didn’t you speak up, Bill?” demanded Bucks calmly.

  A quizzical expression passed over Dancing’s face. “I didn’t want to break the calm. When I see a man walking around a powder magazine I hate to do anything that might set it off.

  “So your name is Bucks,” continued Dancing, as he walked through the wicket and threw his wet hat among the way-bills on the freight desk. “Well, Mr. Bucks, do you know what was most likely to happen to you any minute before you got through with that crowd, just now?”

  “No, I don’t know. Why?” asked Bucks, busy with his messages.

  “Have you ever seen a shooting mix-up in Medicine Bend?” demanded Dancing in a tone of calculated indifference.

  “No,” answered Bucks in decided but off-hand manner, “I never saw a shooting mix-up anywhere.”

  “Never got shot up just for fun?” persisted Dancing. “Do you know,” he continued without waiting for an answer, “who that polite man was, the last one you shouldered out of here?” Dancing pointed as he spoke to the corner from which Levake had risen, but the operator, straightening out the papers before him, did not look around.

  “No, Bill, I don’t know anybody here. You see I am a stranger.”

  “I see you are a stranger,” echoed Dancing. “Let me tell you something, then, will you?”

  “Tell it quick, Bill.”

  “There is no cemetery in this town.”

  “I have understood it is very healthy, Bill,” returned the operator.

  “Not for everybody.” Bill Dancing paused to let the words sink in, as his big eyes fixed upon the young operator’s eyes. “Not for everybody––sometimes not for strangers. Strangers have to get used to it. There is a river here,” added the lineman sententiously. “It’s pretty swift, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you have got to be careful how you do things out in this country.”

  “But, Bill,” persisted the lad, “if there is going to be any business done in this office we have got to have order, haven’t we?” The lineman snorted and the operator saw that his appeal had fallen flat. “My batteries, Bill,” he added, changing the subject, “are no good at all. I sent for you because I want you to go over them now, to-night, and start me right. What are you going to do?”

  Dancing had begun to poke at the ashes in the stove. “Build a fire,” he returned, looking about for material. He gathered up what waste paper was at hand, pushed it into the stove, and catching up the way-bills from the desk, threw them in on the paper and began to feel in his wet pockets for matches.

  “Hold on,” cried Bucks. “What do you mean? You must be crazy!” he exclaimed, running to the stove and pulling the way-bills out.

  “Not half so crazy as you are,” replied Dancing undisturbed. “I’m only trying to show you how crazy you are. Burning up way-bills isn’t a circumstance to what you did just now. You are the looniest operator I ever saw.” As he looked at Bucks he extended his finger impressively. “When you laid your hand on that man’s shoulder to-night––the one sitting on your stool––I wouldn’t have given ten cents for your life.”

  Bucks regarded him with astonishment. “Why so?”

  “He’s the meanest man between here and Fort Bridger,” asserted Dancing. “He’d think no more of shooting you than I would of scratching a match.” Bucks stared at the comparison. “He is the worst scoundrel in this country and partners with Seagrue and John Rebstock in everything that’s going on, and even they are afraid of him.”

  Dancing stopped for breath. “Talk about my making a fire out of way-bills! When I saw you lay your hand on that man, I stopped breathing––can’t breathe just right yet,” he muttered, pulling at his shirt collar. “Do you know why you didn’t get killed?”

  “Why, no, Bill, not exactly,” confessed Bucks in embarrassment.

  “Because Levake was out of cartridges. I heard him tell Rebstock so when they walked past me.”

  “Thank you for posting me. How should I know he was Seagrue’s partner, or who Rebstock is? Let’s make a bargain. I will be more careful in clearing out the office, and you be more careful about building fires. There’s wood in the baggage-room. I couldn’t get out to get it for fear the crowd would steal the tickets.”

  “Well, you are ‘out’ four dollars and sixty cents charges on the cartridges,” continued Dancing, “and you had better say nothing about it. If you ever ask Levake for the money he will kill you.”

  Bucks looked rebellious. “It’s only right for him to pay the charges. I shall ask him for them the next time I see him. And what is more he will have to pay, I don’t care whose partner he is.”

  Dancing now regarded the operator with unconcealed impatience. “I suppose there are more where you came from,” he muttered. “They will need a lot of them here, if they carry on like that. How old are you?” he demanded of Bucks abruptly.

  “Seventeen.”

  “How long have you been in this country?”

  Bucks looked at the clock. “About five hours, Bill.”

  “Reckon time close, don’t you?”

  “Have to, Bill, in the railroad business.”

  Dancing reflected a moment. “Five hours,” he repeated. “If you don’t get killed within the next five you may live to be a useful citizen of Medicine Bend. Where are you from, and how did you happen to come away out here on the plains?”

  “I am from Pittsburgh. I had to quit school and go to work.”

  “Where did you go to school?”

  “Well, I didn’t go–––”

  “Quit before you went, did you?”

  “I mean, I was preparing for Van Dyne College. One of my brothers teaches there. I couldn’t start there after I lost my father––he was killed in the Wilderness Campaign, Bill. But when I can earn money enough, I am going back to Van Dyne and take an engineering course.”

  “Got it all figured out, have you?”

  “Then I heard they were building the Union Pacific, and I knew something about telegraphing––Jim Foster and I had a line from the house to the barn.”

  “Had a line from the house to the barn, eh?” chuckled Dancing.

  “So I bought a railroad ticket to Des Moines from Pittsburgh and staged it to Omaha, and Gener
al Park gave me a job right away and sent me out on the first train to take this office, nights. I didn’t even know where Medicine Bend was.”

  “Don’t believe you know yet. Now that’s right, I don’t believe you know yet. You’re a good boy, but you talk too much.”

  “How old are you, Bill?”

  “I am twenty.”

  “Twenty!” echoed Bucks, as if that were not very much, either.

  “Twenty!” repeated the lineman. “But,” he added, drawing himself up in his tremendous stature, with dignity, “I have been on the plains driving wagons and building telegraph lines for seven years–––”

  “Seven years!” echoed Bucks, now genuinely admiring his companion.

  “My father was a Forty-niner. I was a line foreman when I was seventeen, for Edward Creighton, and we put the first telegraph line through from the Missouri River to the Pacific,” continued Dancing, ready to back his words with blows if necessary.

  “You are an old-timer,” cried Bucks enviously. “Any good rabbit-shooting around here, Bill?”

  “Rabbit-shooting?” echoed Dancing in scorn. “The only rabbits they shoot around here, young fellow, are Pittsburgh rabbits, that don’t keep their ears hid proper. When we go hunting, we go antelope-hunting, buffalo-hunting, grizzly-bear hunting, elk-hunting. Now I don’t say I don’t like you and I don’t say you won’t do. What I say is, you talk too much. I’ll tell you what I’ve learned. I’ve learned not to say too much at a time. And when I say it, I don’t say it very loud. And if you don’t get killed, in advance, you will learn the same thing in the same way I learned it. Where are your blamed batteries?”