I had a heavy load of passengers, probably two hundred in all, and after making my rounds, of course not disturbing the people in the sleepers, I went into the coach just ahead of the chair-car, and, with my train-box before me, sat down to count my tickets.
I had hardly finished my work when the door flew open, as though hurled by a violent gust of wind. Jim was behind it, with a pale, excited face. “Got a gun about you?” he asked, in a hoarse, frightened whisper.
“Why?” I asked, in astonishment.
“That Chinaman’s stabbed me!” he replied, looking furtively over his shoulder.
“Jim,” I said, getting up at once, “this thing may be serious, but it can’t be settled by indiscriminate shooting in a train-load of passengers. We’ve got to find another way.”
I must here interrupt my story for a moment to tell you what had actually happened. Jim, thinking the Celestial an easy conquest, started after him before the train was fairly under way. In those days chair-cars carried the time-honoured stove and wood-box, and the brakeman, putting one foot on the edge of the latter and the other on an opposite ledge, peered down over the transom and ordered the Chinaman to come out in language that admitted of no misinterpretation. And the Chinaman did come out, ducking fairly under Jim in his elevated position. As he ducked he slashed upward with a great curved hunting-knife. The slash caught the white man on the inside of the thigh, producing a wound that bled profusely and probably gave a deal of inconvenience, but which was not really dangerous.
Seeing Jim streaming with blood, and believing that the yellow man was actually running amok, I started for the door, first telling the passengers in that car to lie down on the floor if they heard any shooting going on beyond.
The train was making good speed, but as I stood on the platform I could hear the culprit jabbering about, “Fiftleen hundled dolla! Me got plenty monee!” He commanded his end of the car, from which practically all the passengers had retired panic-stricken. The only exceptions to the general decampment were a fine-looking young chap from Bunker Hill, Illinois, who sat in a forward chair reading a book, and an army officer’s wife with a little baby, bound for Salt Lake City—in the seat opposite. These were directly under the Chinaman’s eye, and whenever they attempted to move he waved them back with a ferocious gesture of his great glittering knife.
Going to the door, which was locked, I rapped sharply on it with my ticket-punch. I had no revolver with me, but I hoped to distract his attention. And I did! Turning, he saw me, and with his face distorted with an expression of the most hideous savagery he drew back his arm, and sent it and the knife through the glass, clear to the shoulder, the blade just missing me!
Without more ado I pulled the bell-cord and ran into the forward car, where I borrowed a big Colt’s revolver from a cowboy I knew. Then, returning to the platform, I waited until the train had almost stopped, and dropped to the ground, catching the rear platform of the chair-car as the wheels ground down to their final revolution.