University of Virginia Library

24. CHAPTER XXIV
CONCLUSION

"How long are we to keep our hands up, Duff?" questioned Jeff.

"Quiet," hissed the gambler. "I'm listening."

"If it's for friends of ours," grimaced Rafe Bodson, "you needn't listen any longer. We haven't any friends in either crowd now."

"Quiet, I tell you!" snarled Duff.

No noise of moving automobiles came to the gambler's keen ears in the darkness of the night.

"Ready," faintly whispered Duff, giving Ashby a slight nudge.

"Shoot 'em?" whispered the mad hotel man.

"Yes; you hit Jeff. I'll take care of Rafe!"

Just then darkness fell upon the gambler. He was knocked flat and senseless by a blow of a fist from behind.

In the same instant a man leaped upon George Ashby, bearing him to earth.

Bang! The noise of the discharging shotgun broke on the night's stillness. Bang! crashed the other barrel.

The muzzle had been pointed skyward, however, and both charges of buckshot had been driven off into space, to fall to the earth many yards beyond.

"Reade! Hazelton!" choked Rafe Bodson, leaping forward. "You fellows certainly have grit! Here, Hazelton, let me help you with that loco (crazy) hotel man."

Jeff, in the meantime had rolled Jim Duff over on his back, then sat on him. When Duff returned to consciousness he found himself gazing into the muzzle of an automatic revolver.

Harry and Bodson made a quick, sure job of tying Ashby's wrists with a cord that Rafe supplied.

"You think you've stopped me, don't you?" snarled the hotel man, wild with rage.

"We stopped you in time to keep you from shooting down two men who were at your mercy," retorted Harry sternly.

"What's that?" gasped Rafe.

"They were going to shoot you with your hands in the air," Tom declared.

"That's another of your lies, Reade," snarled the gambler.

"It's you who are doing the lying, Duff," rejoined Tom stiffly. "I came to my senses just in time to hear you tell Ashby to kill one man while you killed the other."

"So that was the game, was it?" said Jeff.

"No, it wasn't," snapped Jim Duff.

"Shut up," ordered Jeff unbelievingly. "Duff, we've seen enough of you to-night to know that an Apache has ten times as much honor as you have, and a rattlesnake has twenty times as much decency. You lying, miserable, white-livered, smooth-tongued, poisonous reptile in human form. If you open your mouth to say another word you'll have me so wild that I'll pull the trigger of this automatic before I intend to do so."

"Thank goodness you had become conscious too, Harry!" breathed Tom fervently. "I don't believe I could have knocked both men over in time to prevent a killing. I managed to get my hands free just in time to get on the job."

"I had known for some moments what was going on around me," Hazelton replied. "But I was lying with my eyes closed, and keeping mighty quiet. I was trying to hear your breathing, so I could decide whether you had come to your senses, when all of a sudden you sat up and freed my hands. Ugh!" he added with disgust, as he reached up and slipped the remnant of rawhide noose from around his neck.

"What'll we do with this snake and, his weak-minded brother?" asked Jeff dryly. "Tie 'em up and ship 'em into Paloma?"

"Fire off your revolver two or three times," suggested Tom, who had caught a faint, far away sound of an automobile. "That may bring a machine over here."

"You shoot, Rafe," urge Moore. "I'll want to keep my weapon handy for this crooked card-sharp."

Rafe obligingly emptied one of his revolvers into the air. From a distance came the honk of an automobile horn, as though in answer to the signal shots. Soon the noise of an automobile engine became more distinct. Finally the body of a large car loomed up in the darkness. A few shouts brought the car to the spot.

"This you, Mr. Reade?" called the joy voice of Superintendent Hawkins. "And Hazelton, safe, also?"

All five seats in this car were occupied. Six more men had to be crowded in somehow, after Jim Duff had been tied with his hands behind him. Most of them had to stand.

"Back to Paloma, as fast as you can go with safety," ordered Mr. Hawkins, as soon as all were inside. "Gracious, but there'll be a joyful demonstration back in camp as soon as the good word is received."

As the car sped along over the desert the story was told of how the pursuit had been made.

It was Mr. Hawkins who had tried to wire from camp into town, calling for cars and posses to go in pursuit of the raiders.

As Tom had imagined at the outset, the raiders had cut the railroad telegraph wire. Discovering this, Mr. Hawkins had leaped on to the bare back of a horse at camp and had covered the distance at a gallop.

Men had been quickly rounded up within the very few minutes that were needed in getting the cars out and ready to run. There were hundreds of men in Paloma who had grown to despise Duff and all the evil crew behind the gambler.

From the outset the leaders of the posse, on hearing, of the direction first taken by the fleeing raiders, had calculated on the gully as the probable place of halting.

While the posse was still on the way out to the gully, and at some distance away, the sound of Ashby's discharging gun had reached them. Reasoning that the raiders would probably place a guard only on the town end of the gully, the posse had made a wide detour, so as to approach the gully from the westward. Leaving the cars at a considerable distance, the pursuers, with Mr. Hawkins at their head, had made quick time on foot.

In the fighting that had followed five men of the posse had been hit, though none dangerously. These wounded men, after the fight, had been sent back to Paloma in one of the automobiles.

"We saw some of the raiders fall during the lighting," said Mr. Hawkins, "but their friends made a quick retreat and got all hands back to their horses. We felt sure they didn't have you, Mr. Reade and Mr. Hazelton, so we let the raiders slip away and spent our time in trying to find where you had been taken or if you had escaped. Well, it's all right now!"

As the automobile party approached the town, searchlights from other cars showed the remaining pursuers had heard the signals sounded by the horn of the first automobile and were returning.

As the returning men entered the outlaying streets the little town was found to be anything

but a quiet community. Despite the early morning hour, the streets were crowded.

"Where's the chief of police?" inquired Mr. Hawkins, as the first car entered the town and pulled up.

"I'll find him for you, Cap," offered a man on horseback.

"If you will be so good."

As the horseman galloped away Hawkins signed to the others to step out.

"Duff, we're not going to be troubled with your company much longer," smiled Hawkins.

Tom and Harry had already leaped down to the sidewalk when the gambler was helped to alight. Duff's hands were still behind his back though, unknown to his captors, he had succeeded in working them free.

With a stealthy movement the gambler suddenly reached forward, drawing a revolver from another man's holster.

Ere the owner was aware of the loss of the weapon Duff took full aim at Tom Reade.

Crack!

It was the pistol of a deputy sheriff that spoke first. That officer had been the only one to detect the gambler's action, and he had fired instantly.

Jim Duff sank, to the sidewalk, groaning while the deputy sheriff dryly explained the cause of

his firing. A loaded revolver was still gripped in Duff's right hand, though the gambler was too weak and in too much pain to fire.

Dr. Furniss' office was near by, and the young physician, sharing in the popular excitement, was awake. He came out on the run, bending over the wounded man to examine him. "Duff," said Dr. Furniss gravely, after a brief examination, "I deem it my duty to tell you that you've dealt your last card. Have you any wishes to express before we move you?"

"I—want to—talk to—Reade," groaned the injured man.

"Certainly," replied Tom, when the request was repeated to him. Stepping softly to where the gambler lay on the sidewalk, Reade bent over him.

"Duff," said Reade gravely, "you and I haven't always been the best of friends, but I can say honestly that I'm sorry to see you in this plight. I hope that you may recover, yet get some happiness out of life."

But the gambler's eyes blazed with ferocity.

"Don't waste any soft soap on me, Reade," he said slowly, and with many pauses. "The Doc is a fool. I'm going to get well, and there will be just one happiness ahead of me. That will be to find you, wherever you may be, and to what I tried to do to you to-night."

"Can't you forget that sort of thing, Duff?" asked Tom gravely. "Not that I'm afraid of you; you've seen enough of me to-night to know that I'm not afraid of you. But I'm afraid for you. You're close to eternity, Duff, and I'd like to see you go to your death with a calm, hopeful, decent mind. I'd like to see you go with a hope of a better life hereafter."

"Don't give me any of your canting talk, Reade," snarled the gambler weakly.

"I'm not going to do so," sighed Tom, rising. "I'm afraid it would be useless. Try to remember, Duff, that I allow myself to have no hard feelings against you. If you possibly can recover I shall be glad to hear that you've done so."

Then Tom stepped over to Dr. Furniss' side, whispering to him:

"Doc, you'll see to it that some clergyman is called, won't you? Any clergyman that is the most likely to reach the heart and the soul of a hardened fellow like Jim Duff."

Dr. Furniss nodded. Men appeared with an old door that was to be used as a stretcher. On this the gambler was placed, and the physician gave him such immediate attention as could be supplied on the sidewalk, for Jim Duff had been shot through the right lung. Then the bearers lifted the door, bearing the gambler

back to the now gloomy Mansion House, the doctor following. Ashby, who had been strangely quiet after the shooting, was taken to the local police station and placed in a cell.

Just after the two had been taken care of, and while the crowd still lingered, a young man pushed his way through to the center of the crowd.

"I heard that Jim Duff had returned to town," began the young man. The speaker was Clarence Farnsworth, the foolish young easterner who had been sadly fleeced by the gambler.

"Yes; Duff came back," said Mr. Hawkins, quietly.

"Where is he?" asked Farnsworth. "I must leave in the morning, and I owe Duff seven hundred dollars. I want to pay it to him."

"Money you lost gambling with Duff?" questioned Hawkins.

"It's a debt of honor that I owe Mr. Duff," Farnsworth replied, flushing considerably.

"Son, take one little hint from me," continued Hawkins. "No money ever lost to a gambler in card playing is a debt of honor. It's merely the liability of a chump and a fool. No gambler ever uses any real honor. Men of honor work for the money that they need or want. Duff had a smooth way of talking,

an agreeable manner with his profitable victims, but he never had a shred of honor. It isn't possible to be a gambler and a man of honor. If you've seven hundred dollars that you lost to Duff at cards, put it in your pocket and get out of Paloma as soon as you can. Duff won't need the money, anyway. He's down at the Mansion House, dying of a bullet wound that he got through his last piece of trickery. I hate to speak harshly of a dying man, but I'd like to see you get a grain or two of common sense into your head, boy."

Again Farnsworth flushed, but three or four seasoned Arizona men who stood near by added their advice, in line with that of Mr. Hawkins. Clarence soon edged away.

An hour after daylight Jim Duff died. Dr. Furniss and the others who were with the gambler at the last were unable to state that Duff had offered any expression of regret for his evil life, or for his last wicked acts.

Jim Duff died as he had lived.

George Ashby was sent to an asylum and his property sold for his benefit. After a year he was discharged as cured. He has vanished, swallowed up in some other community, and nothing more has been heard of him.

Trailed by detectives of a fire insurance company, Frank Danes was soon caught and brought

back to Arizona. He was fairly convicted of having set the old Cactus House on fire, though he could not be persuaded to admit himself an agent of the Colthwaite Company. Fred Ransom, the other agent, is believed to be still in the employ of the Colthwaite Company's "gloom department."

Mr. Hawkins is still in the employ of the A., G. & N. M. So are foremen Bell, Rivers and Mendoza.

Tim Griggs proved himself so thoroughly while foreman at the building of the new rail-road hotel in Paloma, that he has gone on to other and better work. Griggs is now a prosperous man, and, best of all, he has his little daughter with him.

Lessee Carter has flourished in the new railroad hotel. Rafe Bodson and Jeff Moore are his clerks.

The day came when Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton were able to apply the final and most severe test to the roadbed that ran across the Man-killer quicksand. Their work was finished, and finished splendidly, adding another great triumph to their record as young engineers.

"These hot countries are fine, for a while," grunted Harry Hazelton, as the young engineers left Paloma in a special Pullman car that General Manager Ellsworth had sent for their use.

"They are fine, in fact; but one gets tired of working on a blistering desert. I hope our next long undertaking will be in a country where ice grows as one of the natural fruits."

"Greenland, for instance?" smiled Tom Reade.

"Alaska, at all events," responded Harry hopefully.

"Do you know where I'm figuring on making my next stop?" Tom inquired.

"Where?"

"In good old Gridley, the town where we were born, boy! I'm fairly aching for a sight of the good old town. Will you go with me?"

"For a few weeks, yes," Harry agreed. "But after that little rest?"

"After our visit to the good old home town," Tom Reade replied, "we'll go anywhere on earth where a good, big chance for engineering offers. Harry, we've yet nearly all of our work ahead of us to do if we're ever going to be real, Class A engineers!"

That our young engineers found still greater work awaiting them will be discovered in the next volume in this series, which is published under the title, "The Young Engineers in Nevada; or, Seeking Fortune on the Turn of a Pick."

In this narrative we find our young friends

wholly away from railroad work, but engaged in an even greater undertaking. The adventures awaiting them were more exciting than any they had yet encountered. Fame and fortune, too, offered a greater opportunity. How the young engineers embraced the opportunity will be made plain to our readers.

THE END