The Victorian Villains Megapack (64 page)

Inside Jack’s compartment in the first Pullman sat the four members of our party playing cards, now on the best of terms. They had long since given up condoling upon the weather, and had settled down to making the best of it with cards, chess-board, and books. Between McGinnis and the prisoner flowed an unending stream of anecdotes and adventures. It could not be denied that the erstwhile bank president was a man of much culture and wide reading. He had studied for the bar, and from time to time astounded Dockbridge by
the acuteness of his mental processes. This was the afternoon of the second day, and they were just completing their thirteenth rubber of whist.

The snow fell thicker as the light waned; soon the lamps were lighted and the shades were drawn. The through passengers on the train were few, and the good-natured conductor had adopted the party for the trip.

“We’re ’most at the top o’ the pass,” he remarked, as he paused to inspect Jack’s hand over his shoulder. “Should ha’ made it an hour ago but for this blank snow. I never saw it so thick. Too bad you’ve missed the whole range, and tomorrow morning we’ll be at Souris, and then nothin’ but prairie all across Dakota. When you wake up, the mountains’ll be two hundred miles west of you. Hard luck!”

“My trick,” said Andrews. “What’s that, conductor? Souris tomorrow morning? Any stops tonight?”

“Nope; clear down-hill track all the way. There’s a flag station an hour beyond the divide—Ferguson’s Gulch, and sometimes we stop for water at Red River. There’s no regular station there, and Jim wants to make up time, so I reckon we’ll make the run without stoppin’. Are you folks ready for dinner?”

The strain on the wheels suddenly relaxed, and it see
med as though the whole train sighed with relief. Ahead, the engine gave a succession of quick snorts, as if rejoicing at once more reaching a level. The train gathered head-way.

“She’s over the divide,” announced the conductor, taking a bite from the plug of tobacco carefully wrapped in his red silk handkerchief. “Now Jim can let her run.”

“What do you call the divide?” asked Peggy.

“The Lower Kootenay,” he answered. “Oh, it’s great here in summer! Finest thing in Canada, in my opinion.”

“In Canada!” exclaimed Dockbridge, with a start. “What do you mean? Are we in Canada?”

“You’ve been in Canada since three o’clock,” was the reply. “We cross the lower left-hand corner of Alberta—look on the map there in the folder. After makin’ the divide we drop right back into Montana. They couldn’t cross the Rockies at this point without leavin’ the States for a few miles.”

The conductor arose and unfolded the map.

“Ye see, here’s where we leave Clarke Fork, then we skirt this range, turn north, followin’ that river there, the north branch of the Flathead, and so over the line; then we turn and jam right through the range. Two hours from now you’ll be back
in the old U.S.”

Dockbridge had started to his feet and was staring intently at the map. It was only too true. They were in Canada.
In Canada!
And they were holding their prisoner without due process of law! The warrant of the Governors of New York and Washington were valueless in his Majesty’s Dominion. Did Andrews know? Jack pretended to study the map before him and glanced furtively across the table. Pat was scowling ferociously at the cards before him, and Andrews was lighting a cigarette. Apparently he had heard nothing—or had paid no attention to what the conductor was saying. With his brain in a whirl Dockbridge folded up the time-table and handed it back.

“Well, I’m getting ravenous,” he remarked.

Just then the porter appeared from the direction of the buffet carrying their evening meal.

“Same here,” echoed Andrews.

For an hour or more they lingered over the table, Andrews seeming in unusually good spirits. Dockbridge ceased to feel any uneasiness. He realized how easily he might have been trapped, but no harm was done in the present instance, for the minute section of Alberta which they traversed offered no opportunities for the securing of any legal process by which their prisoner could be released. Again, Andrews had not urged the route upon
them; that had been Peggy’s doing. And, moreover, was he not returning with them of his own free-will? No, it was absurd to have been so upset at such a trifling matter.

“What do you say to some more whist? You and I’ll be partners this time, Andrews.”

The things were cleared from the table and they began again. The speed of the train seemed to have increased, and the cars swayed from side to side as they sped down the grade. Peggy raised the shade and looked out. The pane was plastered with an ever-changing, kaleidoscopic crust of flakes that spat against it, dropped, clogged against the others, and sagged downward in a dense mass toward the sash. At the top of the glass the storm could be seen whirling down its myriads outside.

“What a night!” she ejaculated, as she pulled down the shade.

At that moment came a prolonged wail from the engine, followed by the quick clutch of the brakes. The wheels groaned and creaked, and the passengers tossed forward in their seats. Again the whistle shrieked. The train, carried onward by its momentum, ground its wheels against the brakes which strove to hold them back. Gradually they came to a stand-still.

The conductor rushed toward the door, and a brakeman hu
rried through with a lantern.

“Ferguson’s Gulch!” he shouted as he ran by. “Must ha’ signalled us!”

Dockbridge’s heart dropped a beat, and he glanced apprehensively toward Andrews. The latter was smiling, but the hand that held his cigar trembled a very little.

“You’re young yet, Dockbridge,” he remarked, with slightly tremulous sarcasm. “There are one or two things still for you to learn. One of them is that a United States warrant is useless in Canada. You hadn’t thought of that, eh?”

“
Warrant
is it? Shure this is all the warrant
I
want,” replied Pat, snapping a shining Colt from his pocket. “Plaze don’t git excited, me frind. P’r’aps ye don’t know it all, yerself. Wan move, an’ I’ll put six holes in yer carcus!”

Dockbridge grasped Peggy by the arm and drew her breathless to her feet. “What is it? What is it?” she gasped, clinging to him in the aisle. Jack reached over and released the shade. Outside in the darkness red lights swung to and fro. A blast of icy air poured into the car from the open door. He hurried out into the vestibule. The storm was sweeping by swiftly and silently, and absurdly the motto of his old bicycle club flashed into his mind, “Volociter et silenter.” The lamp above his head threw a yellow circle against
the vast night. He stumbled down the steps and clung to the rail, putting his head into the sleet. It stung his face like the tentacles of a sea-monster. In the foreground stood the conductor, already white with the snow, his lantern swinging to leeward in the wind, shouting to a man on horseback. Four other mounted figures, their steeds facing the blast, marked the point where the light ended and the night began again. Three train hands, each with a lantern, paced to and fro beside the car. Ahead could be heard the coughing of the engine. The man on horseback waved his hand in the direction of the train, flung himself heavily to the ground, tossed the reins to one of the others, and strode toward the car.

“Jones and Wilkes, hold the horses; Frazer and White, come along with me,” he directed over his shoulder. He pushed by Dockbridge and climbed into the car. The conductor followed.

“Where is the officer and his prisoner?” he demanded in a harsh voice.

“Inside, your Honor,” answered the conductor, shaking the snow from his coat. “This is Mr. Dockbridge, the District Attorney from New York.”

“Umph!” grunted the stranger. He was an immense man with a heavy jet-black beard and hair in thick curls all over his head. A broad-brimmed
sombrero cast a deep shadow over his features, heightening their natural unpleasantness. Two of the others now jumped upon the platform and entered the car, and Dockbridge saw that they wore some kind of uniform and that the lining of their overcoats was red. Peggy cowered to one side as the three strangers forced their way by her and paused at the door of the compartment.

“Is Mr. Andrews here?” inquired the one whom the others addressed as Judge.

“I am Mr. Andrews. This is the officer who holds me in custody.”

The Judge turned to one of his followers.

“Serve him!” he growled.

The one addressed took from beneath his coat a bundle of papers, and selecting one, handed it to McGinnis, who let it fall to the floor without a word.

“Put up that pistol!” continued the Judge.

At this moment Dockbridge, who had listened as if dazed to the colloquy, now mastered sufficient courage to assert himself.

“Here! What’s all this?” he exclaimed in as determined a manner as he could manage to assume. “What are you doing in my compartment with your wet feet? Who the devil are you, anyway?” He squeezed by his huge antagonist and took his stand
by McGinnis.

The conductor and the majority of the train hands had crowded into the passageway and filled the door with their dripping and astonished faces. The officer handed another paper to Dockbridge.

“This is Judge Peters, sir; and this paper is a writ of
habeas corpus
returnable forthwith, sir,” said the man.

Dockbridge glanced at the paper and saw that the officer’s statement was correct. The paper was a writ ordering him to produce the body of Samuel Andrews before the Honorable Elijah Peters, Judge of the Supreme Court of Alberta,
forthwith
, and show cause why said Andrews should not be set at liberty. He was trapped. It could not be denied.

“Is this Judge Peters?” he inquired politely of the man with the black beard, who had taken off his hat and seated himself upon the sofa.

“I am,” returned the other curtly. “And I now pronounce this car a court, and direct you to release your prisoner as detained by you without lawful authority.”

He leaned forward and shook his finger threateningly at McGinnis. “Put up that pistol!”

McGinnis looked at Dockbridge.

“Put it up, Pat,” directed the latter. “There’s no occasion for pistols.” He winked at Peggy. “Pardon
my lack of courtesy in addressing you, Judge Peters, when you first entered. I was unaware, of course, to whom it was that I spoke.”

The Judge shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly.

“I’m naturally taken somewhat by surprise, and hardly feel that I can do justice to my own position in the matter at such short notice. However, as the court is now in session, I can only ask the privilege of arguing the matter before your Honor. If I might be permitted to do so, I would suggest that the hearing take place in some larger space than this compartment, in which my wife desires speedily to retire.” He looked inquiringly toward the Court.

“That’s right, Jedge,” spoke up the conductor. “Don’t keep the lady out of her room. You can hold court in the baggage-car.”

The black-bearded man grumblingly arose to his feet, leaving a large pool of water in the middle of the floor.

“As you choose. Bring along the prisoner, and be quick about it. I’ve got to ride fifteen miles tonight.”

The crowd streamed down the aisle and into the baggage-car in front. McGinnis followed with Andrews.

“Shall I come along, Jack?” whispered his wife.

“No, st
ay here. I’m afraid we’re beaten. I shall only spar for time, and try to invent some way out of it.”

Peggy sadly watched his disappearing form. What a disgusting anticlimax! She reviled herself for being the one who had forced the selection of the Montana route. It was all her fault. When a man’s married his troubles begin! Jack would lose his job, and then where would they be? She had gotten him into the fix, and now she would do her best to get him out of it. She threw on his fur coat and cap and followed into the baggage-car. The Judge had seated himself on a trunk. Jack stood at his right with the warrant in his hand. A single lantern cast a fitful glare over the two, around whom crowded the passengers and train hands. Peggy heard her husband’s somewhat immature voice stating the circumstances of the wreck of the Boodle Bank. The Judge seemed not uninterested. The crowd was getting larger every moment. Passengers kept coming in in every kind of dishabille, and last of all the engineer and fireman entered by the forward door. Outside, the huge engine hissed and throbbed as if impatient of the delay. Peggy slipped unseen behind a pile of trunks, snapped the big padlock through the staples of the door, then, hurrying back t
o the compartment, rummaged until she found Jack’s box of cigars. Arming herself with these and with her copy of “Moore on Extradition,” she made her way back to the baggage-car.

“Yes, yes, I know all that!” the Judge was saying. “But that’s all immaterial. It ain’t what he did. It’s what right you’ve got to hold him in the Dominion of Canada on a warrant from a governor of one of the United States. Show me that, or I’ll discharge the prisoner here and now.”

“Excuse me, please,” exclaimed Peggy, forcing her way through the throng into the open space under the lamp, “I thought you might like to smoke. Lawyers all like to smoke.”

There was an immediate response from the Court.

“Well, I don’t care if I do,” remarked the Judge more genially. “Confounded cold out there in the snow waiting for the train. Thank y’.”

He handed back the box, and Peggy passed it to the engineer and told him to “send it along.” Then she whispered in her husband’s ear:

“Read him that chapter on ‘International Relations.’ Keep it going for ten minutes, and we’ll win out, yet. I’ve got a scheme.”

Dockbridge took the book, opened it deliberately, and lighted a cigar for himself. Peggy pushed back through the spectators to the sleeping-car
. Only a solitary brakeman remained outside in the snow, stamping and swinging his arms.

“Halloo, Mr. Sanders,” said Peggy, “you ought to go in and hear the argument. They’re having a regular smoke talk. It’s so thick I can’t breathe. They’re giving away cigars. I should think you would freeze.”

“Well, I’m froze already,” answered Sanders. “I reckon I’ll go in and hear the fun. Is that straight about the cigars?”