The dope in their journal boxes had caught fire from the terrific friction aroused by the spinning axles. Sheets of flame shot out on either side of the dynamite cars, adding the hazard of fire to that of concussion. Huck shook his head as he watched.
“Even if I get ‘em stopped, it’ll be a miracle if I get that fire out in time,” he muttered. He glanced anxiously ahead, gauging the distance to the deadly curve at the bridge.
The dynamite cars were still closing up, but not so swiftly. Gradually the speed-relation between the two strings became static. Chuck began cautiously to wind up chain on the brake wheel rod. Brake shoes screeched against the wheels; the speed of the materials cars slackened a trifle. And as it slackened, the thundering runaways crept slowly nearer and nearer.
Not quite slowly enough. Huck eased off on the brake wheel a little. The dynamite cars were leaping toward him. His own cars did not respond as readily to the loosened brakes as he had expected. He twirled the brake wheel madly, heard the jangle of the loosened chain, felt the car beneath him hurtle forward to the pull of those in front. Then he was knocked sprawling by the crash of the dynamite cars striking coupler to coupler with the rearmost materials car. Huck held his breath for the explosion—that did not come.
With redoubled speed the lengthened string shot forward. Huck leaped to his feet and frantically twisted the brake wheel until it would turn no more. He raced along the swaying catwalk, leaped across the space separating the reeling cars and twisted another wheel. He had escaped one deadly danger, but another was racing toward him. Already he could see the taller cliffs that marked the narrow gut where Dominguez Creek joined with the hurrying Apishapa, where the rails curved with dizzy sharpness to leap onto the bridge.
He tightened the wheel of the third car to the last notch, turned and sped back the way he had come. He coughed and his eyes stung from the acrid smoke as he leaped onto the foremost dynamite car and spun the brake wheel. Dizzily he reeled back, braked the second car, and then the third. Then he stumbled forward again until he was perched on the foremost materials car, watching the jutting cliffs that marked the curve rush toward him.
Rocking, swaying, lurching, with a screeching of wheels and a mighty squalling of brakes, the string rolled toward the bridge. The flanges of the front wheels hit the curve, and Huck felt them climb. His teeth ground together and his nails bit deep into the flesh of his palms. Then with a clang the wheels fell back upon the rails. He scrambled and clutched as the car swung dizzily around the curve. An instant later it rumbled out onto the bridge, the others, shrieking protest, still following at frightful speed.
Huck breathed deep relief as the string straightened out on the bridge. Then his breath caught in a gasp. Directly ahead a plume of black smoke was rising into the wintry air. Less than a thousand yards distant stood the wreck train, summoned by Lank Mason by telegraph from Esmeralda. There it stood, at what it considered a safe distance from the expected explosion on the far side of the bridge. Toward it roared the runaways, answering to the brakes clamped against the wheels, but still traveling at dangerous speed.
As the dynamite rushed toward it, the wreck train boiled with action. Men leaped from the camp cars and fled madly from the tracks. The plume of black smoke shot upward in a prodigious column streaked with milky swords of steam. Above the rumble of the wheels the roar of the exhaust came to Huck’s ears.
The engine’s huge drivers spun, grinding flakes of steel and showers of sparks from the rails. They caught, held, spun again. They caught once more, held. Arose a mighty jangle of couplings. The wreck train began to move backward, slowly at first, gathering speed with every turn of the wheels. The exhaust roared and thundered, shooting up clots of fire and clouds of smoke, the siderods clanged, the drivers screeched against the iron. She was moving fast when the runaways hit with a jangling crash.
Again Huck Bannon held his breath as he clung to the reeling catwalk. And once again the impact was not quite severe enough to set off the carefully stored and bolstered dynamite.
The engineer of the wreck train closed his throttle and began applying his brakes. Before the jostling string had stopped moving, Huck Brannon was down the ladder and on the ground, roaring instructions to the panicky wreckers.
In obedience to his bellowed commands, men came running with buckets of water which they sloshed on the flames eating their way through the sides and bottoms of the cars. The white-faced engineer of the wrecker coupled on a long length of sprinkling hose and together they got the fire under control.
XIX
Turn About
Utterly weary, Huck Brannon sat on a boulder and watched the wreckers beat out the last sparks and prepare to run the dynamite cars back to the siding, so they could proceed to the scene of the wreck.
But Huck was not thinking of the wreck at that moment, nor of his own hairbreadth escapes from death. Moodily he stared straight ahead of him, his black brows drawn together. Finally he arose, stretched his arms above his head and shook himself like a great dog.
“Mountain Indians, hell!” he growled under his breath. “Those hellions that gunned me back there were white men made up to look like Indians—or I’m a sheepherder! The Indians may be in on this shindig, all right, but they’re sure not alone!”
Huck rode into town the following day and discovered that Jaggers Dunn had doubled his force of track walkers on the new line and had ordered them armed. He also learned that Cale Coleman had opened a mine twenty miles up the river from Esmeralda.
“Yes, he’s got coal,” said Jaggers Dunn when Chuck dropped in to talk things over. “It’s nothing like stuff you are getting out—not much better than black lignite and with a high sulphur content—but it’s marketable in certain sections. His percentage of profit will be small, I figure, because of the distance he will have to ship, but it’ll be plenty to pay him to operate. My opinion is that most of the coal which will be developed in this district sooner or later will be more of the type the Coleman mine is working, with perhaps a fair output of good bituminous. Your working is unique to the district, I believe.”
“Just as the silver output of the old mine was unique,” Huck observed. “Judging from what fragments we found, it was almost pure silver—high grade native metal. Must have been a high old time around that section a few million years ago when all that compression was going on.”
“Yes, a flow of molten masses which formed the igneous rocks of the district was responsible, I presume,” said Dunn. “No,” he replied to a question Huck asked, “no, we won’t buy any coal from Coleman—at least not as long as you can supply us; there is no comparison in quality. And, by the way, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to step up your production as soon as you are able. I had a little talk with the directors and it has been thought wise to supply the Plains and Western Divisions with Lost Padre coal, if it can be obtained in sufficient quantities.”
Huck left the empire builder’s office highly elated; and immediately put in an order for supplementary equipment and hired additional hands.
And on the desolate slopes above Dominguez Canyon the drums whispered threateningly and the evil hill gods chuckled in their icy fastnesses upon the mountain tops.
The early morning sun, golden and yellow, was poking its ray-arms over the mountainous ridges and towering purple cliffs that lay like a linked chain around the Apishapa River Valley when Huck and Sue edged their way through the slash the north gap made on entering the valley.
They reined in and stood their horses, silent before the mighty spectacle of the sunrise breaking over the huge, almost oval valley. Beneath them, sinuous and slithering, ran the silver-streaked Apishapa River. Their eyes followed its winding course until it slipped through a gorge at the far end of the valley, and disappeared from sight.
“It’s lovely here, Huck,” said Sue, lips parted, eyes glistening.
“It’s mighty fine,” Huck agreed. “I sure—” He opened his mouth to say something further; but hesitated and decided agains
t it.
“What is it, Huck?”
“Nothing,” he replied, feeling her eyes on his face. “I was just going to say again how pretty this valley is,” he added lamely.
“What a cattleman couldn’t do with this spread,” said Sue, almost to herself. But the words rang in Huck’s ears.
“Yes,” muttered Huck under his breath. “I sure could.”
“What?”
“Huh?” ejaculated Huck, afraid that Sue had heard him. “Nothing. Talking to myself.”
She laughed. “Don’t let anyone hear you, Huck,” she said. “They might think you escaped from an asylum.”
“Maybe they’d be right,” Huck muttered to himself. Then aloud: “I’ve got a lot of things on my mind.”
He felt her eyes on him again, but avoided looking at her. Since that day at the river bank when he had yielded to a mad impulse—the same impulse called forth by seeing her that day when she first arrived in Esmeralda—he had avoided not only looking at her, but being alone with her.
He cursed himself again, now, for having suggested to her this morning that they ride out to the Apishapa River Valley. He hardly knew then why he had made the suggestion. But now it was clear to him. Perfectly clear.
He wanted her to see—and approve—the spread that he one day would own. Yes, he told himself, he would one day own it—and maybe in the not-too-distant future. The minute he had laid eyes on it when he first came there, he knew that this was what he had been looking for. This was the spread he’d been seeking. This valley held the object of his search.
Through the corner of his eyes he stole a look at her. But she seemed far from guessing at his secret. Slim and erect, she was sitting her horse, her eyes focused on the valley bed. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes held a deep and inward gleam. He was reminded of the day they rode the herd up to Stevens Gulch to shove them aboard the train headed for Kansas City. The day that he had said good-bye to her—without knowing it, of course.
She had the same look on her face then; the same look of shyness, mixed with eagerness. Suddenly she turned to him.
“I’m glad you brought me here, Huck,” she said. “It’s beautiful. I oughtn’t say it—but it’s as good to look at as the Bar X spread. Maybe even better.”
“That’s hard on the Bar X, Sue,” said Huck, glad to get off the subject. “I reckon your father wouldn’t be pleased to hear you say that.”
“I don’t know,” she replied seriously. “I think even Dad would agree with me.”
“Not Doyle,” cried Huck. “For him the Bar X spread is the most beautiful thing this side of heaven—and I calculate I’d think the same if I stood in his boots.”
“But what do you think of the Apishapa Valley, Huck?” asked Sue softly.
Her head was turned so he couldn’t see what she was driving at—if anything.
“I figure,” he said casually, “it’s the likeliest looking spread my eyes have set on in a year of Sundays.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” she said, still without turning her head, “to hear one day that some smart business man bought up this valley, and stocked it with cattle. They would grow big and fat here. They’ve got water, plenty of good grass, likely looking spots to winter in—why, the valley has everything.”
A darting pang of fear knifed through Huck at the possibility voiced by Sue—that someone would take this spread away from him before he could claim it. He grew angry as he realized she was right—and knew that he couldn’t do anything about it, for the time being at least. There were other obligations to be met first. Maybe in a few months or so. He shrugged his shoulders to drive away presentiments. Yet the fear had taken root and began to grow.
“Yes,” he admitted. “This valley’s got everything.”
“It would be a pity,” continued Sue, softly yet relentlessly, “if the wrong party got hold of it. Cale Coleman, for instance.”
He almost growled as he turned swiftly toward her. Yet she seemed innocent of any guile as she gazed fixedly on some far point down below, alongside the Apishapa River that chased a stream of silver through the valley.
Lank Mason had told him that about a month past, during a visit made by him and Sue to Esmeralda to pick up some supplies and provender for the kitchen, they had encountered Coleman. The latter had gazed with undisguised admiration at Sue, although he said nothing to either of them.
In the interim, Sue had learned something of Coleman’s character and needed no persuasion to stay away from the richest man in Esmeralda, for she had taken an instinctive dislike to him.
Suddenly Huck smiled. She was smart, all right. But he could see through her game. She was trying to get a rise out of him. However, two could play at that game. So when he spoke, it was with an easy air of nonchalance.
“Yes,” he said. “You’re dead right. It sure would be a pity if an hombre like Coleman got hold of this valley.”
Now she turned to gaze at him. But her expression was unfathomable.
“If I remember correctly,” she said, “I think I knew a cowboy once who would be mighty interested in this spread.”
“Who?”
“Someone who used to work for my dad,” she replied. “Can’t seem to recollect his name, but he was awfully anxious to own a piece of his own land—to stock it, and raise—”
“Yes,” Huck interrupted her. “I know who you mean. I know the man. Only he got mixed into the mining business and kind of forgot all about being a cowboy. He got so busy, I reckon he forgot about everything else, too.”
He saw Sue turn her face quickly to one side as though she had been attracted by the flight of a bird, or the echo of rock falling down the mountainside. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw a shadow pass over her face. Perhaps it was only a cloud that momentarily hid the sun from the earth.
“I think we ought to start back to camp,” Sue said. “Mrs. Donovan is going to need me.”
“Okay,” agreed Huck. “Let’s go.”
Slowly they turned their horses, almost with reluctance it seemed, and headed back through the north gap. Not once, however, did either turn back to look at the Apishapa River Valley.
XX
Spring Rains
Spring arrived, and brought with it the drenching rains of Spring. Dominguez Canyon was choked with swirling mist through which the level lances of water drove with icy force. Tight gray buds were swelling and bursting on bush and shrub, the pines were a fresher green and emerald tendrils reached like questing witch fingers from the brown stalks of the vines.
Dominguez Creek, a rushing brown flood, boomed down the side wall of the canyon and hurried to join the bustling Apishapa. The streaming black sides of a string of loaded coal cars on the siding near the mine mouth glistened wetly in the flicker of light from the gaunt buildings that housed the pumps, boiler and winding engine.
The cabins of the miners were dark; for tired men were taking well earned rest. Suddenly, however, light flickered in one set on the bank of the old creek bed and at no great distance from the railroad tracks.
“Huck,” a voice called inside the cabin, “them hellions is at it again!”
Huck Brannon glanced at his watch, saw it was little more than an hour before time to get up, and slipped on his clothes before joining Lank Mason at the window. Leaning out beside the miner, the cool drops of the rain bathing his face, he listened to the throb and mutter of the unseen drums.
“Lively t’night,” Lank grunted. “Sound clost, too.”
Suddenly the mutter ceased, then broke forth again in a staccato roll from the north. A deeptoned mutter answered in the west, then silence broken only by the swish of the rain, the muffled pound of angry water and the monotonous clank of the pumps.
“What’s that?” exclaimed Lank, leaning far out the window.
“Sounded like an explosion of some kind,” said Huck, straining his ears to listen, “and what’s that?”
Above the clanking of the pumps sounded a rolling mutter that
steadily grew in volume—a hissing, rushing mutter that was almost instantly a rising roar.
“Water!” exclaimed Huck. “Lot’s of it! Coming fast! What the—”
His voice was suddenly drowned by a booming thunder and a tremendous liquid crashing. Over the end wall of the canyon boiled a frothing flood that cascaded down the face of the cliff, wiped out the mouth of the mine and smashed and scattered equipment. Huck saw the lights of the winding engine house blotted out as by a giant hand.
With a prodigious crackling the flimsy little building went to pieces that were tossed away on the flood that rolled down the old bed of Dominguez Creek. Water was frothing around the cabin, gushing over the sill. The yells of the terrified miners sounded through the tumult. Half-clad men poured from the cabins, shouting profane questions in many languages.
“Cloudburst!” howled Lank Mason. “Cloudburst back in the hills!”
“Cloudburst, hell!” Brannon roared. “Get some clothes on. Get outa here! We’ve got to save the pumphouse! The water’s rising around it and it’ll go like the winding engine house in another minute! If those pumps are smashed the lower levels will fill up and it’ll take weeks to pump ‘em out again! C’mon before we’re sunk!”
Grabbing a lantern and lighting it, he rushed from the cabin. An instant later he was roaring directions to the bewildered miners.
Under the dynamic driving force of the cowboy’s personality, order quickly replaced chaos. The miners, reassured by the confidence in his voice, responded quickly. Lank Mason’s half-dozen hardrock men remembered that they were trusted foremen and stock owners in the mine and began functioning with their customary efficiency.
“Grab car movers and get those cars of coal down here opposite the pumphouse,” Huck told them. “Knock open the dump doors and let the coal run out. Bank it between the cars and up against their sides. That’ll shut off the water from the pump house. Buttress the coal with rocks and beams.”
The Cowpuncher Page 13
