There was a tremendous commotion among the waiting engines. If there was one there were fifty big locomotives waiting to charivari the McWilliams Special. The wires had told the story in Denver long before, and as the Five-Nine sailed ponderously up the gridiron every mogul, every consolidated, every ten-wheeler, every hog, every switch-bumper, every air-hose screamed an uproarious welcome to Georgie Sinclair and the Sky-Scraper.
They had broken every record from McCloud to Denver, and all knew it; but as the McWilliams Special drew swiftly past, every last man in the yards stared at her cracked, peeled, blistered, haggard looks.
"What the deuce have you bit into?" cried the depot-master, as the Five-Nine swept splendidly up and stopped with her battered eye hard on the depot clock.
"Mattaback bridge is burned; had to crawl over on the stringers," answered Sinclair, coughing up a cinder.
"Where's McWilliams?"
"Back there sitting on his grief, I reckon."
While the crew went up to register, two big four-horse trucks backed up to the baggage-car, and in a minute a dozen men were rolling specie-kegs out of the door, which was smashed in, as being quicker than to tear open the barricades.
Sinclair, MacElroy, and Francis with his brakeman were surrounded by a crowd of railroad men. As they stood answering questions, a big prosperous-looking banker, with black rings under his eyes, pushed in towards them, accompanied by the lame fellow, who had missed the chance of a lifetime to die rich, and by Ferguson, who had told the story.
The banker shook hands with each one of the crews. "You've saved us, boys. We needed it. There's a mob of five thousand of the worst-scared people in America clamoring at the doors; and, by the eternal, now we're fixed for every one of them. Come up to the bank. I want you to ride right up with the coin, all of you."
It was an uncommonly queer occasion, but an uncommonly enthusiastic one. Fifty policemen made the escort and cleared the way for the trucks to pull up across the sidewalk, so the porters could lug the kegs of gold into the bank before the very eyes of the rattled depositors.