The Mountain Divide

The surgeon understood that it was Levake’s purpose to engage him in a dispute and kill him if he could. Arnold, moreover, was hot-tempered and made no concealment of his feelings toward any man. For this reason, despite his realization of danger, he was an easy prey.

To the final taunt of the outlaw the surgeon made rather a sharp answer and quickened his pace, to walk away from his unpleasant companion. But Levake would not be shaken off, and as the two were passing a deserted restaurant he ordered the surgeon to halt. Arnold turned without shrinking. Levake had already drawn his pistol and his victim concluded he was to be killed then and there, but he resolved to tell the outlaw what he thought of him.

“I understand your game perfectly, Levake,” he said after he had raked him terrifically. “Now, if you are going to shoot, do it. You haven’t long to live yourself–make sure of that.”

“No man can threaten me and live,” retorted Levake harshly.

“I came up here, an unarmed man, on an errand of mercy.”

“I didn’t send for you.”

“You would kill me just as quick if you had, Levake. What are you hesitating about? If you are going to shoot, shoot.”

Throwing back his right arm, and fingering the trigger of his revolver as a panther lashes his tail before springing, Levake stepped back and to one side. As he did so, with the fearless surgeon still facing him, a man stepped from behind the screen door of the deserted restaurant. It was Bob Scott.

The old and deadly feud between the Indian and the outlaw brought them now, for the first time in months, face to face. In spite of his iron nerve Levake started. Scott, slightly stooped and wearing the familiar slouch hat and shabby coat in which he was always seen, regarded his enemy with a smile.

So sudden was his appearance that Levake could not for an instant control himself. If there was a man in the whole mountain country that Levake could be said to be afraid of, it was the mild-mannered, mild-spoken Indian scout. Where Scott had come from, how he had got through the pickets posted by Levake himself–these questions, for which he could find no answer, disquieted the murderer.

Arnold, reprieved from death as by a miracle, stood like a statue. Levake, with his hand on his pistol, had halted, petrified, at the sight of Scott.

The latter, eying the murderer with an expression that might have been mistaken for friendly, had not Levake known there could be no friendship among decent men for him, broke the silence: “Levake, I have a warrant for you.”

The words seemed to shake the spell from the outlaw’s nerves. He answered with his usual coolness: “You’ve waited a good while to serve it.”

“I’ve been a little busy for a few days, Levake,” returned Scott, with the same even tone. “I kind of lost track of you.” But his words again disconcerted Levake. The few men who now watched the scene and knew what was coming stood breathless.

Levake, moistening his dry lips, spoke carefully: “I don’t want any trouble with you here,” he said. “When this town fight is over, bring your warrant around and I’ll talk to you.”

“No,” returned Scott, undisturbed, “I might lose track of you again. You can come right along with me, Levake.”

With incredible quickness the outlaw, half-turning to cover Scott, fired. The cat-like agility of the Indian answered the move in the instant it was made. Scott was, in fact, the first scout from whom mountain men learned to fire a revolver without aiming it and it was not without reason that Levake sought no encounter with him. For Scott to draw and fire was but one movement, and hating Levake as a monster, the Indian had long been ready to meet him as he met him now, when he should be forced to face him fairly.

A fusillade of shots rang down the street. The air between the two men, feinting like boxers in their deadly duel, filled with whitish smoke. Arnold, stunned by the suddenness of the encounter, jumped out of range. In the next moment he saw Levake sink to the sidewalk. Scott, springing upon him like a cat, knelt with one hand already on his throat; with the other he wrung a second revolver from Levake’s hand. The surgeon ran to the two men.

Levake, panting, lay desperately wounded, as Scott slowly released his grip upon him. The Indian rose as the surgeon approached, but Levake, his eyes wide open, lay still.

“You are wounded, Bob,” cried Arnold, tearing the stained sleeve of Scott’s coat from his shoulder. The scout shook his head.

“We’re in danger here,” he replied, glancing hurriedly up the street. “We must get this fellow away.”

The two picked the wounded man from the ground and started quickly down street with him. The shooting, now so frequent all over the town, had attracted little attention outside the few that had witnessed the swift duel, and the two railroad men made good progress with their burden before the alarm was spread. But the surgeon saw that the strain was telling on Scott, whose shoulder was bleeding freely. He had even ordered his companion to drop his burden and run, when he heard a shout and saw Bill Dancing running across from the barricade to their aid.

Half a dozen of the rioters, shouting threats and imprecations, were hastening down Front Street after Levake and his captors to rescue their prisoner. Scott, reloading his revolver as Dancing relieved him of his end of the burden, stood free to cover the retreat. He fired a warning shot at the nearest of their pursuers. A scattering pistol fire at long range followed. But the railroad men crossed the square in safety, and the big lineman, with Levake in his arms, carried him single-handed into the barricade.

The surgeon and Bob Scott followed close. Bucks was first to meet the wounded scout, and the railroad men, jubilant at Levake’s capture, ran to Scott and bore him down with rough welcome. Levake was laid upon a bench in the station and Scott followed to his side. Arnold, joining the scout, made ready to dress the wound in his shoulder.

“See to Levake first, doctor,” said Scott, “he needs it the most.”

As he spoke, Dancing hurried into the room. “Bob, the car shops are on fire.”

Scott ran to the east window. It was true. The rioters, supplied with oil and torches, had made their way in the darkness through Callahan’s picket line near the river and set fire to the shops.

Stanley was eating a hasty supper in the despatchers’ office.

Within a few minutes the blaze could be seen from all the east windows of the station. Almost at the same moment, through the north windows fire was seen breaking out in one of the big stores in Front Street. As Stanley rose from his midnight meal, Atkinson ran in with word that a band of rioters, well armed, had attacked a train of boarding-cars defended by the roundhouse men.

The sky, bright again with the flame of conflagration, made a huge dome of red, lighting the railroad yards across which men were now hurrying to make fresh dispositions for the emergency.

The vigilante leaders saw impending, in the Front Street fire, the ruin of their business property. There were no longer men enough left to fight the flames and guard the fire-fighters. A point had been reached in which life and property were no longer taken into account, and efforts to restore law and order were facing complete failure. It was then that the most radical of all measures, the last resort of organized society in its resolve to defend itself, was discussed. The vigilantes, as well as the railroad men, now realized that but one measure remained for saving Medicine Bend and that was the extermination of the outlaws themselves.

CHAPTER XXIV

The men in the barricade were lined up for orders. Ammunition was passed and volunteers were called to form a charging party. The vigilantes formed in the glare of the burning shops.

From the head-quarters of the rioters in Front Street came scattering shots and cries as a huge volume of sparks shot up into the black sky. Ten men under Hawk and ten under Dancing made the supporting party for the vigilantes, who asked only that a line of retreat be kept open. This Stanley had undertaken to provide. Atkinson, making a wide détour back of the station, led his men down the railroad tracks and, reaching a point where concealment was no longer possible, double-quicked up Fort Street and charged with his party across the little park.

They had already been seen. A line of men, posted behind the places that line Front Street at that point, opened fire. It was the worst possible answer to make to men in the temper of the scattered line that swept up the street in the glare of the burning buildings. Wounded men dropped out of the charge, but those that went on carried with them a more implacable determination. Re-forming their line under cover of the cedars at the corner of Fort Street, they directed an effective fire into the dance halls adjoining, and the rioters hiding within scurried from them like rats.

But the vigilantes were intent first of all on capturing and burning the hall known as the Three Horses, and the rioters rallied to its defence. As the place was assailed, the doors were barred and a sharp fire was poured through the windows. The assailants were driven back. Bill Dancing, heated and stubborn, refused to retreat and, picking up a sledge dropped by a fleeing vigilante, attacked the barred doors single-handed.

The street, swept by the bullets of the fray, rang with the splitting blows of the heavy hammer, as the lineman, his long hair flying from his forehead, swung at the thick panels. Within, the gamblers tried to shoot him from the windows, but he stood close and his friends kept up a constant supporting fire that drove the defenders back.

From above they hurled chairs and tables down on Dancing, but his head seemed furniture-proof, and scorning to waste time in dodging he hammered away, undaunted, until he splintered the panels and the stout lock-stiles gave. The vigilantes, running up, tore through the door chains with crowbars and rushed the building.

The fight in the big room lasted only a moment. The rioters crowded toward the rear and escaped as best they could. Vigilantes with torches made short work of the rest of it. Dancing stove in a cask of alcohol, and as the attacking party ran out of the front door a torch was flung back into the spreading pool.

A great burst of fire lighted the street. The next moment the long building was in flames.

Emboldened by this success and driving the outlaws from their further retreats, the vigilantes fired one after another of the gaudy places that lined the upper street. Met by close shooting at every turn, the rioters were driven up the hill and fighting desperately were pursued to cover by men now as savage as themselves. The scattered clashes were brief and deadly. The whole upper town was on fire. Men fleeing for their lives skulked in the shadows of the side streets and the constant scattering report of fire-arms added to the terrors of the night.

Hour after hour the conflagration raged and day broke at last on the smoking ruins of the town of Medicine Bend. The work of the vigilantes had been mercilessly thorough. Along the railroad track stiffened bodies hanging from the cross-bars of telegraph poles in the gloom of the breaking day told a ghastly story of justice summarily administered to the worst of the offenders. In the gloom of the smoking streets stragglers roamed unmolested among the ruins; for of the outlaws, killed or hunted out of the town, none were now left to oppose the free passage of any one from end to end of Medicine Bend.

CHAPTER XXV

The victory was dear, but none murmured at its cost. Medicine Bend for once had been purged of its parasites.

At the railroad head-quarters Stanley, before daylight, was directing the resumption of operations so interrupted by the three days of anarchism on the mountain division. New men were added every hour to the pay-roll, and the smaller tradesmen of the town, ruined by the riots, were given positions to keep them until the town could be rebuilt.

The pressure on the operating department increased twofold with the resumption of traffic. Winter was now upon the mountains, but construction could not be stopped for winter. The enormous prizes for extending the line through the Rockies to meet the rival railroad heading east from California, spurred the builders to every effort to lengthen their mileage, and something unheard of was attempted, namely, mountain railroad-building in midwinter.

Levake, the leader among the mountain outlaws, was nursed back to life by the surgeon he had so nearly murdered. But his respite was a brief one. When new officers of the law were elected in Medicine Bend, the murderer was tried for one of his many crimes and paid on the scaffold the penalty of his cold-blooded cruelty. Rebstock, the fox, and his companion Seagrue escaped the exterminating raid of the vigilantes but fought shy of Medicine Bend for long afterward.

A few days after the riots Stanley sent for Bucks, who was holding a key among the operators downstairs, to come to his office.

“How long have you been a telegraph operator, Bucks?” he asked.

Bucks laughed in some embarrassment. “Since I was about twelve years old, sir.”