There is no telling how long a man of Harper's age and past habits might have maintained the crushing strength of that hold, even though rage had given him the vigor of bygone youth; but the red-stubbled man, gurgling and wriggling to be free, began to die of suffocation before the grip weakened. To save himself he let go of the gunbutt, and the gun fell and bounced out of sight under a seat. Bearing down with both hands and all his might and weight upon Harper's right wrist, he tore the other's clasp off his throat and staggered back, drawing the breath with sobbing sounds back into his bursting lungs. He would have got away then if he could, and he turned as though to flee the length of the car and escape by the rear door.
The way was barred, by whooping, panting old men, hornet-hot. Everybody took a hand or tried to. The color-bearer shoved the staff of the flag between his legs and half tripped him, and as he regained his feet Sergeant Jimmy Bagby, jumping on a seat to get at him over the bobbing heads of his comrades, dealt him a glancing, clumsy blow on the shoulder with the muzzle of his old musket. Major Covington and Judge Priest were still right on him, bearing their not inconsiderable bulk down upon his shoulders.
He could have fought a path through these hampering forces. Wrestling and striking out, he half shoved, half threw them aside; but there was no evading the gaunt old man who bore down on him from the other direction. The look on the face of the old warlock daunted him. He yelled just once, a wordless howl of fear and desperation, and the yell was smothered back into his throat as Harper coiled down on him like a python, fettering with his long arms the shorter, thicker arms of the thief, crushing his ribs in, smothering him, killing him with a frightful tightening pressure. Locked fast in Harper's embrace, he went down on his back underneath; and now—all this taking place much faster than it has taken me to write it or you to read it—the old man reared himself up. He put his booted foot squarely on the contorted face of the yeggman and twisted the heel brutally, like a man crushing a worm, and mashed the thief's face to pulp. Then he seized him by the collar of his shirt, dragged him like so much carrion back the length of the car, the others making a way for him, and, with a last mighty heave, tossed him off the rear platform and stood watching him as he flopped and rolled slackly down the steep grade of the right-of-way to the gully at the bottom.
All this young Jeff and Uncle Zach witnessed, and at the last they began cheering. As they cheered there was a whistle of the air and the cars began to move—slowly at first, with hard jerks on the couplings; and then smoother and faster as the wheels took hold on the rails', and the track-joints began to click-clack in regular rhythm. And, as the train slid away, those forward who mustered up the hardihood to peer out of the windows saw one man—a red-haired, half-bald one—wriggling feebly at the foot of the cut, and another one struggling to his feet uncertainly, meanwhile holding his hands to his stunned head; and, still farther along, a third, who fled nimbly up the bank and into the undergrowth beyond, without a backward glance. Seemingly, all told, there had been only three men concerned in the abortive holdup.
Throughout its short length the train sizzled with excitement and rang with the cries of some to go on and of others to go back and make prisoners of the two crippled yeggs; but the conductor, like a wise conductor, signaled the engineer to make all speed ahead, being glad enough to have saved his train and his passengers whole. On his way through to take an inventory of possible damage and to ascertain the cause of things, he was delayed in the day-coach by the necessity of calming a hysterical country woman, so he missed the best part of what was beginning to start in the decorated rear coach.
There Mrs. McLaurin and tall Miss Lyon were emerging from their fainting fits, and little Rita Covington, now that the danger was over and past, wept in a protecting crook of her father's arm. Judge Priest's Jeff was salvaging a big revolver, with one chamber fired, from under a seat. Eight or nine old men were surrounding old Press Harper, all talking at once, and all striving to pat him on the bade with clumsy, caressing slaps. And out on the rear platform, side by side, stood Sergeant Jimmy Bagby and Corporal Jake Smedley; the corporal was wildly waving his silk flag, now unfurled to show the blue St. Andrew's cross, white-starred on a red background, waving it first up and down and then back and forth with all the strength of his arms, until the silk square popped and whistled in the air of the rushing train; the sergeant was going through the motions of loading and aiming and firing his ancient rusted musket. And at each imaginary discharge both of them, in a cracked duet, cheered for Jefferson Davis and the Southern Confederacy!
Just about then the locomotive started whistling for the Junction; outlying sheds and shanties, a section house and a water-tank or so began to flitter by. At the first blast of the whistle all the lingering fire of battle and victory faded out of Harper's face and he sat down heavily in a seat, fumbling at the inner breast pocket of his coat. There was a bloody smear high up on his cheek and blood dripped from the ball of his split thumb.
“Boys, there's some fight left in us yet,” exulted Captain Shelby Woodward, “and nobody knows it better than those two scoundrels back yonder! We all took a hand—we all did what we could; but it was you, Press—it was you that licked 'em both—single-handed! Boys,” he roared, glancing about him, “won't this make a story for the reunion—and won't everybody there be making a fuss over old Press!” He stopped then—remembering.
“I don't go through with you,” said old Press, steadily enough. “I git off here. You fellers are goin' on through—but I git off here to wait for the other train.”
“You don't do no such of a thing!” broke in Judge Priest, his voice whanging like a bowstring. “Press Harper, you don't do no such of a thing. You give me them papers!” he demanded almost roughly. “You're goin' right on through to the reunion with the rest of us—that's where you're goin'. You set right where you are in this car, and let little Rita Covington wipe that there blood off your face and tie up that thumb of yours. Why, Press, we jest naturally couldn't get along without you at the reunion. Some of us are liable to celebrate a little too much and maybe git a mite overtaken, and we'll be needin' you to take care of us.