“All lite; I cook plenty.”
The rain had increased again, and Honey advised them against attempting to go to Pinnacle City. It was not difficult to convince them. Sleepy’s tooth did not ache any more, and their clothes were beginning to dry; so they followed Honey down to the dry bunk-house and went to bed.
It did not take the rain long to extinguish the fire at the bridge, and after an examination the train crews decided that it was still safe. Many of the timbers were badly charred, and but for the heavy rain which followed the wind, the whole bridge would have been doomed.
The cattle-train, minus two of the cowhands, proceeded slowly to Pinnacle City, where it took the siding. It would spend several hours there, watering stock, and the man in charge expected Hashknife and Sleepy to put in an appearance before leaving time.
The passenger train drew in at the station, possibly an hour late. The wires being down, it was impossible for them to get orders. The heavy rain swept the wooden platform, but the depot agent trundled out some express packages. The express car door was partly open, but there was no messenger.
The agent climbed into the car, and the first thing that greeted his eye was the through safe, almost in the centre of the car, its door torn open. A single car light burned in the upper end of the car, and it was there that the agent found the messenger, bound hand and foot.
Running back to the depot, the agent told what he had found, and the train crew hurried to the car, while another man went to get an officer. In the waiting room of the depot the express messenger told what he knew of the robbery. A man had struck him over the head, and he was a trifle hazy about what had happened.
The man had boarded the car at Kelo. The messenger said he had received several packages from the agent at Kelo, and had gone to place them before closing the door. The wind was blowing a gale, and he did not hear the man come in. In fact he merely surmised that the man got on at Kelo, because as far as he knew there was no other man than himself on the car when they stopped at Kelo.
At any rate the man had forced him at the point of a revolver to close and lock the door, and had made him sit down and wait for the train to pull out. There was quite a long delay, and the bandit seemed rather nervous.
In fact he grew so nervous that he knocked the messenger unconscious with his gun, and the messenger didn’t know that the safe had been blown open. He dimly remembered a loud noise, but was in no shape to find out what it was. Anyway, the robber had bound and placed him behind some trunks out of the way of the explosion.