"How can I get orders without a man or a wire at the station?" burst in Cullin, grasping at straws. "How can I get authority to take this man along? He's liable to arrest anyhow for tampering with the signals."
And then another voice was interjected, another disputant stepped quickly forward, and Toomey checked himself in the first breath of an impassioned outburst; his black hand suddenly shot half-way up to the cap-visor, then came down with a jerk; his heels had clicked together and his knees straightened out, then as suddenly went limp. The new-comer had sprung up the steps. The form was slender and sinewy. Hands, face, and dress were black with soot, but the young voice was deep and the ring of accustomed command was in every word. "That's your cue, Mr. Cullin. Arrest him and fetch him along." Then turning to Toomey: "There's no one at the cab. Better get back, quick!" he added. And Toomey went.
Big Ben gave one look and, without a word, waddled after his fireman. The tears that stood in old Shiner's eyes dashed away at the brush of a sleeve. A light of astonishment, comprehension, relief suddenly gleamed in their place. The sergeant stared for a moment, looked blankly at his men, then side-stepped for another long gaze at the new-comer's face. Cullin turned sharply, resentful at first at the tone of authority, wrath in his heart and rebuke on his tongue, but then came sudden reminder of Anthony's card—the card the strange young fellow had presented only when needed to convince, the card he had been so sagacious as to retain, the card that proclaimed him a friend of the powers and a person to be considered. Moreover, the friend and person had suggested a means by which actual surrender to the situation might appear as virtual and moral victory. One more look at Shiner and then Shiner settled it. "I submit to arrest, Mr. Cullin. Let me go with you—and settle."
"Get aboard the caboose," was the gruff answer, and, all apparent meekness, Shiner obeyed. "Not you," added Cullin, as Shiner's saddle-bag-bearing friend would have followed. "Give me the bags," said Shiner, "and you look to—" A significant glance at the signal told the rest. Cullin followed it with his eyes, saw the arm still lowered to the "stop," knew that it should not be left there, and for a moment held back.
"He'll fix it," said Shiner, from the platform of the caboose, while his eyes sought the face of the tall young fellow at Cullin's back. Cullin strode to the corner of the office and followed the ranchman with curious eyes. That sun-tanned, bow-legged person straddled down the back steps, his big spurs jingling, a high boot-heel catching on next to the lowermost and pitching him forward. He clamped his broadbrim on his head with one hand and steadied his holster with the other, straightened up with half-stifled expletive, and the next minute was swarming up the slender iron rungs of the signal-ladder. "He's got to prop it up where it belongs," said the sergeant. "Reckon he must have shot the wire that held it." And of a truth the wire was severed. But when Cullin turned back to his train with the mystery cleared, the sight and sound of new commotion blocked his own signal to start.
Two horsemen, on foam-spattered broncos, were spurring vehemently down the road from the eastward ridge. Two others were trailing exhaustedly two hundred lengths behind, only just feebly popping over the divide. And to these persons both his prisoner and his prisoner's advocate, who were clasping hands as he whirled and saw them, were now signalling cheer and encouragement. Ten cars ahead, at the cab, Big Ben and Toomey, too, were leaning far out and eagerly watching the chase; the sergeant and his men, wondering much at the sight, but professionally impassive, strode to the end of the platform for better view, then all of a sudden began to shout and swing their caps, and before Cullin could recover from his surprise the foremost rider, tall, spare, with long, grizzled mustache and fiery eyes, threw himself from saddle and came bounding up the steps. He was surrounded in an instant, only one man hanging back. The slender young fellow in the grimy cap and overalls quietly stepped into the dark interior of the caboose.
In the glare of the unclouded sunshine, breathing hard from his exertion, his hand grasped successively by Shiner and the three soldiers, the veteran trooper told his hurried tale, while, one after another, his followers, wellnigh exhausted, labored after him, and finally rolled stiffly to terra firma at the station, their wretched livery mounts, with dripping, quivering flanks and drooping heads, stood straddling close at hand, too utterly used up to stagger away.
Nolan's story was brief but explicit. Somebody in the swarm that overwhelmed the Narrow Gauge train the previous night had crept back to town after midnight and started the story that young Breifogle had been slugged by the gang. By early morning it got to the father's ears. With the sheriff and some friends he had driven down in the wake of No. 4, found plenty of men who could tell of the mobbing, but none who could tell of his son. The miners had scattered; the few passengers also, glad that they were not "wanted" by that infuriated crowd. It was then after sunrise, and, almost crazed by anxiety and wrath, Breifogle had hurried back to Argenta. His first thought seemed to be vengeance on Nolan, whom rumor declared the ringleader of his son's assailants, and a warrant was out for his arrest, even as the big Mogul was rolling into the yard, with its dingy-brown train of freight-cars and the battered body of that luckless youth, Nolan's assailant at Silver Shield.
The first full peril of his situation broke upon Nolan the instant the news was rushed to him. Innocent of any part in the assault though he was—ignorant of it, in fact, until dawn—he well knew that every artifice would be played against him, and that all the power, the means, and methods of the Breifogle clique would be lavishly used. Long imprisonment would be sure, harsh trial certain, acquittal improbable, hanging almost a certainty.
"Away with you! Get back to the mines and the mountains!" was the instant warning, and without the loss of a minute, mounted on such horses as his friends could hire, he and three of his trustiest followers had galloped away. They thought the sheriff was at their heels when the Fast Freight came thundering after them, but hailed, with amaze and joy, the signal from the tender, and, feeling sure the train would await them here, had spurred on to the station.