“By furies! he recognized me! It’s a good thing he’s gone, Duval Dungarvon, alias Clifton Payson, for he might have given you trouble, and the best thing for you is to get out of here yourself.”
And so he did. The next day the villain took the train west.
Had one from the grave confronted Colonel Sanford he could not have been more startled than he was on seeing Duval Dungarvon. For fully an hour he sat in profound silence, which his young friends attributed to his feelings on leaving home, and the possible idea that he might never live to return to it again. Finally, however, he rallied and talked and joked in his usual humorous spirits.
After nearly two days’ ride the train rolled into Julesburg, where it stopped for a few minutes. But one person took the train at this point, and that person was Blufe Brandon, the renegade chief, his face completely disguised in a mass of false, grizzly whiskers.
The renegade passed from coach to coach, and finally seated himself on the seat behind Colonel Sanford, which happened to be vacant. Julesburg was left far behind, and away in the distance westward the dark range of the Black Hills loomed up against the glowing sky.
There being no way-stations, the train rolled rapidly on, never tiring, never halting, gliding into the dark cut, by roaring cañon, over the yawning gorge, beneath the beetling crag, through dismal tunnel—on, on until it had entered the environs of the Black Hills. Then the evil-eyed passenger from Julesburg glanced around, and, seeing no eye upon him, placed his hand in his pocket and drew therefrom a small packet which he at once tossed out at the window with considerable force. A dull report like that of a pistol; a lurid flash like that by a rocket, where the packet struck the earth, followed this act. But one person in the cars saw that flash, and that was he who produced it; but, far away up on a mountain peak, another pair of eyes saw and read the meaning of that flash, and immediately from the same hight a blazing arrow shot far up into the air, described a beautiful curve, and then fell to the earth again. Then, fully three miles further on toward the west, from the summit of another peak, a blue light might have been seen swinging to and fro, then standing still, then rolling through the air like a blazing hoop.
Suddenly, in rounding an abrupt curve, the glowing headlight flashed on a red flag standing in the center of the track. Instantly the wary engineer whistled down brakes, and in a moment the train stopped. At that instant a yell that fairly shook the old hills fell upon the ears of the passengers—a savage, blood-curdling yell, mingled with the clash of firearms.
It required but a single thought for the passengers to realize the terrible truth. The train had been stopped by a band of Indians!
Simultaneous with the yell of the Indians a loud, coarse voice cried out:
“Put out the lights; the train has been attacked by the Indians!”