The Ranchman

by Charles Alden Seltzer

She saw Taylor as he stood for an instant looking down at the man after he came running forward to where the other lay; and she saw Taylor leap for the front door of the car, vanish through it, and slam it after him.

For an instant after that there was silence, during which she shuddered as she tried to keep her gaze from the thing that lay doubled oddly in the aisle.

And then she heard more shooting. It came from the direction of the engine—the staccato crashing of pistols; the shouts of men, their voices raised in anger.

Pressing her cheek against the window-pane, and looking forward toward the engine, she saw Taylor. With a gun in each hand, he was running down the little level between the track and the steep wall of the cut, toward her. She noted that his face still wore the mirthless grin that had been on it when he shot the train-robber in the car; though his eyes were alight with the lust of battle—that was all too plain—and she shivered. For Taylor, having killed one man, and grimly pursuing others, seemed to suggest the spirit of this grim, rugged country—the threat of death that seemed to linger on every hand.

She saw him snap a shot as he ran, bending far over to send the bullet under the car; she heard a pistol crash from the other side of the car; and then she saw Taylor go to his knees.

She gasped with horror and held to the window-sill, for she feared Taylor had been killed. But almost instantly she saw her error, for Taylor was on his hands and knees crawling when she could again concentrate her gaze; and she knew he was crawling under the car to catch the man who had shot from the other side.

Then Taylor disappeared, and she did not see him for a time. She heard shots, though; many of them; and then, after a great while, a silence. And during the silence she sat very still, her face white and her lips stiff, waiting.

The silence seemed to endure for an age; and then it was broken by the sound of voices, the opening of the door of the car, and the appearance of Taylor and some other men—several members of the train-crew; the express-messenger; the engineer, his right arm hanging limply—and two men, preceding the others, their hands bound, their faces sullen.

On Taylor’s face was the grin that had been on it all along. The girl wondered at the man’s marvelous self-control—for certainly during those moments of excitement and danger he must have been aware of the terrible risk he had been running. And then the thought struck her—she had not considered that phase of the situation before—that she must have screamed; that he had heard her, and had emerged from the smoking-room to protect her. She blushed, gratitude and a riot of other emotions overwhelming her, so that she leaned weakly back in the seat, succumbing to the inevitable reaction.

She did not look at Taylor again; she did not even see him as he walked toward the rear of the car, followed by the train-crew, and preceded by the two train-robbers he had captured.