The Coming of Cassidy, Clarence E. Mulford [best free novels .txt] 📗

“Me, too,” grumbled Red, staring out of the window. “Well, we’re moving again. It won’t be long now before we gets out of this.”

The card-game continued, the low-spoken terms being interspersed with casual comment; Hopalong exchanged infrequent remarks with

Red, while the brakeman and conductor stared out of the same window. There was noticeable an air of anxiety, and the fat man tried to read his magazine with his thoughts far from the printed page. He read and re-read a single paragraph several times without gaining the slightest knowledge of what it meant, while the dyspeptic passenger fidgeted more and more in his seat, like one sitting on hot coals, anxious and alert.

“We’re there now,” suddenly remarked the conductor, as the bank of a cut blanked out the view. “It was right here where it happened; the turn’s farther on.”

“How many cards did you draw, Skinny? ” asked Lanky.

“Three; drawin’ to a straight flush,” laughed the dealer.

“Here’s the turn! We’re through all right,” exclaimed the brakeman.

Suddenly there was a rumbling bump, a screeching of air-brakes and the grinding and rattle of couplings and pins as the train slowed down and stopped with a suddenness that snapped the passengers forward and back. The conductor and brakeman leaped to their feet, where the latter stood quietly during a moment of indecision.

A shot was heard and the conductor’s hand, raised quickly to the whistle-rope sent blast after blast shrieking over the land. A babel of shouting burst from the other coaches and, as the whistle shrieked without pause, a shot was heard close at hand and the conductor reeled suddenly and sank into a seat, limp and silent.

At the first jerk of the train the card-players threw the board from across their knees, scattering the cards over the floor, and crouching, gained the center of the aisle, intently peering through the windows, their Colts ready for instant use. Hopalong and Red were also in the aisle, and when the conductor had reeled Hopalong’s Colt exploded and the man outside threw up his arms and pitched forward.

“Good boy, Hopalong!” cried Skinny, who was fighting mad.

Hopalong wheeled and crouched, watching the door, and it was not long before a masked face appeared on the farther side of the glass. Hopalong fired and a splotch of red stained the white mask as the robber fell against the door and slid to the platform.

“Hear that shooting?” cried the brakeman. “They’re at the messenger. They’ll blow him up!”

“Come on, fellers!” cried Hopalong, leaping toward the door, closely followed by his friends.

They stepped over the obstruction on the platform and jumped to the ground on the side of the car farthest from the robbers.

“Shoot under the cars for legs,” whispered Skinny. “That’ll bring ‘em down where we can get ‘em.”

“Which is a good idea,” replied Red, dropping quickly and looking under the car.

“Somebody’s going to be surprised, all right,” exulted Hopalong.

The firing on the other side of the train was heavy, being for the purpose of terrifying the passengers and to forestall concerted resistance. The robbers could not distinguish between the many reports and did not know they were being opposed, or that two of their number were dead.

A whinny reached Hopalong’s ears and he located it in a small grove ahead of him: “Well, we know where th’ cayuses are in case they make a break.”

A white and scared face peered out of the cabwindow and Hopalong stopped his finger just in time, for the inquisitive man wore the cap of fireman.

“You idiot!” muttered the gunman, angrily. “Get back!” he ordered.

A pair of legs ran swiftly along the other side of the car and Red and Skinny fired instantly. The legs bent, their owner falling forward behind the rear truck, where he was screened from sight.

“They had it their own way before!” gritted Skinny. “Now we’ll see if they can stand th’ iron!”

By this time Hopalong and Red were crawling under the express-car and were so preoccupied that they did not notice the faint blue streak of smoke immediately over their heads. Then Red glanced up to see what it was that sizzed, saw the glowing end of a three-inch fuse, and blanched. It was death not to dare and his hand shot up and back, and the dynamite cartridge sailed far behind him to the edge of the embankment, where it hung on a bush.

“Good!” panted Hopalong. “We’ll pay ‘em for that!”

“They’re worse ‘n rustlers!”

They could hear the messenger running about over their heads, dragging and upending heavy objects against the doors of the car, and Hopalong laughed grimly:

“Luck’s with this messenger, all right.”

“It ought to be he’s a fighter.”

“Where are they? Have they tumbled to our game?”

“They’re waiting for the explosion, you chump.”

“Stay where you are then. Wait till they pome out to see what’s th’ matter with it.”

Red snorted: “Wait nothing!”

“All right, then; I’m with you. Get out of my way.”

“I’ve been in situations some peculiar, but this beats ‘em all,” Red chuckled, crawling forward.

The robber by the car truck revived enough to realize that something was radically wrong, and shouted a warning as he raised himself on his elbow to fire at Skinny but the alert puncher shot first.

As Hopalong and Red emerged from beneath the car and rose to their feet there was a terrific explosion and they were knocked to the ground, while a sudden, heavy shower of stones and earth rained down over everything. The two punchers were not hurt and they arose to their feet in time to see the engineer and fireman roll out of the cab and crawl along the track on their hands and knees, dazed and weakened by the concussion.

Suddenly, from one of the day-coaches, a masked man looked out, saw the two punchers, and cried:

“It’s all up! Save yourselves!”

As Hopalong and Red looked around, still dazed, he fired at them, the bullet singing past Hopalong’s ear. Red smothered a curse and reeled as his friend grasped him. A wound over his right eye was bleeding profusely and Hopalong’s face cleared of its look of anxiety when he realized that it was not serious.

“They creased you! Blamed near got you for keeps!” he cried, wiping away the blood with his sleeve.

Red, slightly stunned, opened his eyes and looked about confusedly. “Who done that? Where is he?”

“Don’t know, but I’ll shore find out,” Hopalong replied. “Can you stand alone?”

Red pushed himself free and leaned against the car for support: “Course I can! Git that cuss!”

When Skinny heard the robber shout the warning he wheeled and ran back, intently watching the windows and doors of the car for trouble.

“We’ll finish yore tally right here!” he muttered.

When he reached the smoker he turned and went towards the rear, where he found Lanky and Billy lying under the platform. Billy was looking back and guarding their rear, while his companion watched the clump of trees where the second herd of horses was known to be. Just as they were joined by their foreman, they saw two men run across the track, fifty yards distant, and into the grove, both going so rapidly as to give no chance for a shot at them.

“There they are!” shouted Skinny, opening fire on the grove.

At that instant Hopalong turned the rear platform and saw the brakeman leap out of the door with a Winchester in his hands. The puncher sprang up the steps, wrenched the rifle from its owner, and, tossing it to Skinny, cried: “Here, this is better!”

“Too late,” grunted the puncher, looking up, but Hopalong had become lost to sight among the rocks along the right of way. “If I only had this a minute ago!” he grumbled.

The men in the grove, now in the saddle, turned and opened fire on the group by the train, driving them back to shelter. Skinny, taking advantage of the cover afforded, ran towards the grove, ordering his friends to spread out and surround it; but it was too late, for at that minute galloping was heard and it grew rapidly fainter.

Red appeared at the end of the train: “Where’s th’ rest of the coyotes?”

“Two of ‘em got away,” Lanky replied.

“Ya-ho!” shouted Hopalong from the grove. “Don’t none of you fools shoot! I’m coming out. They plumb got away!”

“They near got you, Red,” Skinny cried.

“Nears don’t count,” Red laughed.

“Did you ever notice Hopalong when he’s fighting mad?” asked Lanky, grinning at the man who was leaving the woods. “He allus wears his sombrero hanging on one ear. Look at it now!”

“Who touched off that cannon some time back?” asked Billy.

“I did. It was an anti-gravity cartridge what I found sizzling on a rod under th’ floor of th’ express car,” replied Red.

“Why didn’t you pinch out th’ fuse ‘stead of blowing everything up, you half-breed?” Lanky asked.

“I reckon I was some hasty,” grinned Red.

“It blowed me under th’ car an’ my lid through a windy,” cried Billy. “An’ Skinny, he went up in th’ air like a shore-‘nough grasshopper.”

Hopalong joined them, grinning broadly: “Hey, reckon ridin’ in th’ cars ain’t so bad after all, is it?”

“Holy smoke!” cried Skinny. “What’s that a-popping?”

Hopalong, Colt in hand, leaped to the side of the train and looked along it, the others close behind him, and saw the fat man with his head and arm out of the window, blazing away into the air, which increased the panic in the coaches. Hopalong grinned and fired into the ground, and the fat man nearly dislocated parts of his anatomy by his hasty disappearance.

“Reckon he plumb forgot all about his fine, six-dollar gun till just now,” Skinny laughed.

“Oh, he’s making good,” Red replied. “He said he’d take a hand if anything busted loose. It’s a good thing he didn’t come to life while me an’ Hoppy was under his windy looking for laigs.”

“Reckon some of us better go in th’ cars an’ quiet th’ stampede,” Skinny remarked, mounting the steps, followed by Hopalong. “They’re shore loco!’

The uproar in the coach ceased abruptly when the two punchers stepped through the door, the inmates shrinking into their seats, frightened into silence. Skinny and his companion did not make a reassuring sight, for they were grimy with burned powder and dust, and Hopalong’s sleeve was stained with Red’s blood.

“Oh, my jewels, my pretty jewels,” sobbed a woman, staring at Skinny and wringing her hands.

“Ma’am, we shore don’t want yore jewelry,” replied Skinny, earnestly. “Ca’m yoreself; we don’t want nothin’.”

“I don’t want that!” growled Hopalong, pushing a wallet from him. “How many times do you want us to tell you we don’t want nothin’? We ain’t robbers; we licked th’ robbers.”

Suddenly he stooped and, grasping a pair of legs which protruded into the aisle obstructing the passage, straightened up and backed towards Red, who had just entered the car, dragging into sight a portly gentleman, who kicked and struggled and squealed, as he grabbed at the stanchions of seats to stay his progress. Red stepped aside between two seats and let his friend pass, and then leaned over and grasped the portly gentleman’s coat-collar. He tugged energetically and lifted the frightened man clear of the aisle and deposited him across the back of a seat, face down, where he hung balanced, yelling and kicking.

“Shut yore face, you cave-hunter!” cried Red in disgust. “Stop that infernal noise! You fat fellers make all yore noise after th’ fighting is all over!”

The man on the seat, suddenly realizing what a sight he made, rolled off his perch and sat up, now more angry than frightened. He glared at Red’s grinning face and sputtered:

“It’s