"NOT A WHIFF OF THE DRAUGHT COULD BE WASTED"[ToList]
Only two short, smooth miles ahead lay the low ridge that formed the eastern boundary of the old reservation. Beyond it, on the broad mesa, stood the buildings of the frontier garrison, once Geordie's home and refuge. The tall flag-staff came suddenly into view, and in less than four minutes they would be rushing by. Over forty miles to the hour were they flying now. Big Ben had just let out another notch as they swung into the two-mile tangent, when at the same instant he and Geordie caught sight of three or four black dots dimly bobbing in the midst of a little dust-cloud on the roadway far ahead, and almost at the same instant came from each the low cry, "There they are!"
Toomey dropped his shovel and glanced forward over Ben's burly shoulder, then, grabbing the vertical handrails on cab and tender, leaned out and gazed astern. The wagon road twisted over the bleak "divide" the train had just rounded, and, barring a team or two jogging slowly into town, was bare of traffic. "No chasers so far," he shouted, as he again stooped to his tools.
"No chasers but us could catch 'em," growled Ben. "We'll give 'em a toot of the whistle!" he shouted across to Geordie, and the steam blast shrieked through the keen morning air in obedience to the quick pull at the cord.
And now 705 was fairly flying, the green flags at the rear flattened like shingles in the whistling wind, and a cloud of mingled dust and smoke rolling furiously after the caboose. Big Ben had "pulled her wide open," and under full head of steam the powerful engine tore like a black meteor up the glistening track. In eagerness and excitement almost uncontrollable George Graham clung to his perch and gazed with all his eyes. Barely a mile ahead now spurred the fugitives, his old friend Nolan in their midst—Nolan whom he had come all those miles to see!
And then a strange thing happened. So far from finding reassurance, friendship, sympathy in the whistle blast, the riders had read the very opposite. So far from slackening speed and letting the signalling train come up on them, they had suddenly veered to the left, the south, and, bending low like jockies over their coursers' manes, they shot across the track, dived down into the pebbly bottom, and the next thing Geordie saw they were plunging breast-deep through the brown and heaving torrent, the waters foaming at their knees.
"Might 'a' known it!" bellowed Toomey, disgusted. "'Course they reason we've got the sheriff and posse aboard, and they're taking the short-cut to the—you know," he said, with a sudden significant gulp, to Geordie, and a warning glance at Ben. Even now that he had left the trooper habits months behind, Toomey could not forget or disregard trooper ethics. Ben might be friendly to Nolan, just as he claimed, but—would Ben keep other's secrets?
And even under his coat of coal and tan Geordie's face blazed suddenly. As a lad whom the troopers knew and loved and trusted, he could not help knowing in by-gone days of the ranch just south of the post—"Saints' Rest," they called it, laughingly—the shack owned and occupied by an old soldier with a numerous family: the rendezvous for many a revel, the resting-place of many a hunting-party, the refuge of many a home-bound squad of "the boys," before the days of the canteen that brought comfort and temperance into the army for the short but blessed spell of its existence—boys just back from an unhallowed frolic in town, and not yet sober enough to face their first sergeant and "the Old Man" at the orderly room. Oh, wonderful things were told of old Shiner and his ranch! In the eyes of some straitlaced commanders he had been little better than a receiver of stolen goods, a soldier Shylock who loaned moneys at usurious interest, a gambler who fleeced the trooper folk of their scanty pay, a dispenser of bad liquors and worse morals. Some truth there may have been in some of these tales, yet Shiner had been a strangely useful man. He supplied the post with milk and cream, butter and eggs, of better quality and lower price than could possibly be had in town. He knew the best hunting and fishing on the range. He had teams and "rigs" at all times at the service of officers and soldiers, when the post ambulance was forbidden by an unfeeling government. He had a corral and stockade that had more than once bidden stout defiance to both the law and the lawless. He had, so the fort children firmly believed, a subterranean passage from his stockade to the sentry-lines. He was hated by both sheriff and sutler in days when the latter lived and thrived; he overreached the one, undersold the other, and outwitted both. He befriended every soldier in a scrape, whether the offence were against the majestic letter of the civil law or only the unimportant spirit of the military. In the eyes of the few he was much of a sinner; in the eyes of the many no less of a saint; and, after careful casting up of accounts, the colonel of the —th Cavalry had declared Shiner far more good than bad, treated him accordingly, and won a surprised and devoted friend and ally. Another officer Shiner swore by was Dr. Graham, and for reasons similar to those of his fellow, and farther-distant, ranchman Ross.
Yet Geordie had often heard of mysterious doings at Shiner's that would not bear official investigation—had heard and kept silent. In those days Shiner dwelt close under the sheltering wing of a sympathetic garrison. Now, if still there, he must be living in the light, and for the first time it dawned upon Geordie that what he heard of Shiner in by-gone days and kept to himself, he could not hear and know and keep to himself now. It was one thing to be a garrison boy; it was another to be an officer in the army of the United States.
The instant that it dawned upon him that Nolan and his friends were heading across country for Shiner's old plant, riding hard in the belief that they were pursued by rail, it flashed upon him that he could not join Nolan there—indeed, he must, if a possible thing, guide or direct him elsewhere.