Boy's Cinema (1939-40)

Every Tuesday BOY'S CINEMA l\ They peered cautiously from behind the curtained windows o£ the caboose, and awaited the moment when the maraud- ing Indians who were plundering the wreclted train would reach their haven on that table he selected an expensive cigar. •• Campeau." Jeff now proceeded, " you ve been doing vour best to hamper the work on the Union Pacific Road, and I'm figur- ing the stick-up that was staged to-night was part of vour campaign. At the same time. I can't see what a tinhorn saloon- owner and gambler like you stands to gain in the long run by operating against the company. That's why I've formed a notion there's somebody high up behind you. and before you're much older you're going to tell me everything." Fiesta had gathered up the thong of his whip and was toying with it meaningly. Campeau eyed the Mexican askance for a moment, then darted an angry glance at Jeff. . '• Look here, Butler," he rasped, you ard this greasv cut-throat had better get out of my place! I don't know a thing about anv campaign against " •• Did vbu hear what Mr. Campeau called vou, Fiesta?" Jefl interposed. "He called vou a cut-throat." The Mexican nodded, grinning anew. "He knows me pretty well," he said in a significant tone, and with the words he plied his whip a second time. The rawhide lash hissed through the air, and, passing ominously close to Sid Cam- peau, snaked around the neck of the trophy that decorated the wall. Next instant Fiesta tugged violently on the stock-whip, and tore the stag's head from its moorings, bringing it thudding down on to the table. Still Campeau seemed indisposed to talk, and, contriving to put a bold face on the situation, he lit the cheroot he had taken out of the casket. Yet he had scarcely accomplished this—with slightly trembling hand—when Fiesta's whip flicked off the glowing end of the cigar neatly, and left the tattered remains of the weed dangling from the saloon-owner's blanched lips. That adroit and alarming deed proved too much for Campeau. Convinced that the next stroke of the thong would be directed against him with dire conse- quences, he broke down and talked—talked babblingly and abjectly until Jeff knew all there was to know regarding the plot to delay the progress of the Union Pacific. Some little time afterwards Campeau and all of his cronies, male and female, with the exception of Dick Allen, were run out of Cheyenne after witnessing the complete destruction of the Big Tent; and, although thev were probably in too em- bittered a mood to appreciate their good fortune, Campeau and his gunmen had good reason to be thankful that they suffered no hurt. For there were many in Cheyenne who considered a neck-tie party would have been in order as far as the masculine element in the saloon-owner's organisation was concei-ned. As for Dick Allen, it was due to Jeff's influence that he escaped summary dis- missal from the frontier town. And Dick and Mollie, now man and wife, were aboard a train that pulled out one day for Laramie, a settlement which lay several hours' journey further to the west and whither the line had been carried. Campeau and the riff-raff who had been chased out of Cheyenne were but fading memories by then in tlie minds of all who were connected with the railroad. But, in the words of Shakespeare, greatest of the poets, "the evil that men do lives after them," and that train which left for Laramie was destined to illustrate those words. Ever since the shooting of the Indian youth on the day Jeff had first tangled with Campeau's organisation, there had been sporadic uprisings on the part of the Redskins in the territory across which the Union Pacific Railroad was being laid, and half-way between Cheyenne and its destination the Laramie train was brought to a standstill in tragic fashion by a power- ful troop of vengeful Pawnees. A huge water-tank standing alongside the permanent way was uprooted by a num- ber of the Indians, and, crashing down on the tracks in the very path of the train, its fall resulted in the derailment of locomo- tive and coaches. Immediately afterwards a considerable force of Pawnees, who had been lying in ambush, started out from cover and began to fusillade those of the crew and passengers who had survived the collision, and who for the most part attempted to leave the train. Ere long all who had shown themselves had been ma.ssacred, and, when the grim work of murder had been done, the Red- skins proceeded to loot the wrecked coaches systematically, commencing with the foremost car. Unbeknown to them, however, three living palefaces were still aboard the train —in a' caboose that stood more or less intact at the tail-end of it. It was the caboose which was the home of Mollie Monahan, and it was occupied by Mollie, Dick Allen, and Jeff Butler, the last-named having been detailed to travel to Laramie and establish himself there, while for the present his colleagues Fiesta and Leach Overmile remained at Cheyenne. Unlike the rest of the train's inmates. Jeff and Mollie and Dick had been wise enough to keep under cover. Nevertheless, it seem.ed to them now that by doing so they had merely postponed death, for with the Indians engaged in ransacking the coaches, they felt certain that sooner or later the savages would enter the caboose, discover them, and give them short shrift. Meanwhile, although the Redskins ap- parently believed that all who had been aboard the train had perished, small groups of warriors were riding to and fro sentinel fashion, ready to pick off any hated paleface who might possibly be still alive, and who might try to effect an escape. Therefore Jeff, Dick and Mollie saw nothing for it but to stay where thev were until the caboose was on the point of being invaded, and then to give as good an account of themselves as they could before they were added to the toll of the dead. Jeff and Dick armed with rifles, Mollie vfith a revolver she had obtained, thev peered cautiously from behind the cur- tained windows of the caboose, and awaited the moment when the marauding Indians who were plundering the wi'ecked train would reach their haven. October 2?th, 1D3?.