down from the train, looked swiftly around him, stooped, scuttled swiftly to the track-side and dropped down the embankment to the riverside below. He pulled a peculiar peaked coonskin cap low over his forehead and started running towards the rear of the train.
Colonel Claremont, despite his pronounced and very recently acquired limp – he had been one of the heavier sleepers and the contact his right hip had made with the floor had been nothing if not violent – was the first to reach the driving cab. With some difficulty he pulled himself up to the footplate.
'What the devil do you mean, Banlon, by scaring us all out of our wits like that?'
'Sorry, sir.' Banlon was very stiff, very proper, very correct. 'Company's emergency regulations. Control failure. The retaining nut–'
'Never mind that.' Claremont tenderly rubbed his aching hip. 'How long will it take to fix? All damned night, I suppose.'
Banlon permitted himself the faint smile of the expert. 'Five minutes, no more.'
While Banlon was bringing his expertise to bear, the running figure with the coonskin cap stopped abruptly at the base of a telegraph pole. He looked back the way he had come : the rear of the train was at least sixty yards away. Apparently satisfied, the man produced a long belt, passed it around himself and the pole and swiftly began to climb. Arrived at the top, he produced from his pocket a pair of wire-cutters with which he rapidly snipped through the telegraph wires on the side of the insulators remote from the train. The wires dropped away into the gloom and, almost as quickly, the man slid down to the ground.
On the footplate Banlon straightened, spanner still in hand. Claremont said: 'Fixed?'
Banlon raised a grimy hand to cover a prodigious yawn. 'Fixed.'
Claremont spared some of the concern for his aching hip. He said : 'You sure you're fit to drive for the rest of the night?'
'Hot coffee. That's all we need – and we have all the means and the makings right here in the cab. But if you could have Jackson and me spelled tomorrow–'
'I'll see to that.' Claremont spoke curtly, not from any animosity he held towards Banlon, it was merely that the pain in his hip was clamouring for his attention again. He climbed stiffly down to the track-side, made his way down the left side of the train and climbed as stiffly up the iron steps towards the entrance to the leading coach. The train slowly got under way again. As it did so, the coonskin-hatted figure appeared over the embankment to the right of the now moving train, glanced fore and aft, moved quickly forward and swung aboard the rear end of the third coach.
FOUR
Dawn came and it came late, as dawn does in mountain valleys so late in the year and in those altitudes. The distant peaks of the previous evening were now invisible, even although measurably closer; the grey and total opacity of the sky ahead – to the west, that was – was indication enough that, not many miles away, snow was falling. And, as could be seen from the gentle swaying of the snow-clad pine-tops, the morning wind was steadily freshening. Some of the pools in the river, where the water was almost still, had ice reaching out from both banks to meet almost in the middle. The mountain winter was at hand.
Henry, the steward, was stoking the already glowing stove in the officers' day coach when Colonel Claremont entered from the passageway, passing the recumbent and apparently sleeping form of Deakin without so much as a glance. Claremont, his limp of the previous night apparently now no more than a memory, rubbed his hands briskly together.
'A bitter morning, Henry.'
'It's all that, sir. Breakfast? Carlos has it all ready.'
Claremont crossed to the window, drew the curtain, rubbed the misted glass and peered out unenthusiastically. He shook his head.
'Later. Looks as if the weather is breaking up. Before it does, I'd like to speak to Reese City and Fort Humboldt first. Go fetch Telegraphist Ferguson, will you? Tell him to bring his equipment here.'
Henry made to leave, then stood to one side as the Governor, O'Brien and Pearce entered. Pearce moved towards Deakin, shook him roughly and began to untie his knots.
'Good morning, good morning.' Claremont was radiating his customary efficiency. 'Just about to raise Fort Humboldt and Reese City. The telegraphist will be here shortly.'
O'Brien said : 'Stop the train, sir?'
'If you please.'
O'Brien opened the door, moved out on to the front platform, closed the door behind him and pulled an overhead cord. A second or two later Banlon looked out from his cab and peered backwards to see O'Brien moving his right arm up and down. Banlon gestured in return and disappeared. The train began to slow. O'Brien re-entered and clapped his hands against his shoulders.
'Jesus! It's cold outside.'
'Merely an invigorating nip, my dear O'Brien,' Claremont said with the hearty disapproval of one who has yet to poke his nose outside. He looked at Deakin, now engaged in massaging his freed hands, then at Pearce. 'Where do you want to keep this fellow, Marshal? I can have Sergeant Bellew mount an armed guard on him.'
'No disrespect to Bellew, sir. But with a man so handy with matches and kerosene and explosives – and I should imagine that it would be an odd troop train that didn't carry a goodish supply of all three of those – well, I'd rather keep a personal eye on him.'
Claremont nodded briefly, then turned his attention towards two soldiers who had just knocked and entered. Telegraphist Ferguson was carrying a collapsible table, a coil of cable, and a small case containing his writing material. Behind him his assistant, a young trooper called Brown, was lugging the bulky transmitter. Claremont said: 'As soon as you're ready.'
Two minutes later Telegraphist Ferguson was ready. He was perched on the arm of a sofa, and from the telegraph set before him a lead passed through a minimally opened crack in the window. With his handkerchief, Claremont rubbed the misted window and peered out. The lead looped up to the top of a telegraph pole from which Brown was supported by a belt. Brown finished whatever adjustment he was making, then turned and waved a hand. Claremont turned to Ferguson. 'Right. The Fort first.'
Ferguson tapped out a call-up signal three times in succession. Almost at once, through his earphones, could be heard the faint chatter of Morse. Ferguson eased back his earphones and said: 'A minute, sir. They're fetching Colonel Fairchild.'
While they were waiting Marica entered, closely followed by the Rev. Peabody. Peabody was wearing his graveside expression and looked as if he had passed a very bad night. Marica glanced first, without expression, at Deakin, then, interrogatively, at her uncle.
'We're in touch with Fort Humboldt, my dear,' the Governor said. 'We should have the latest report in a minute.'
Faintly, the renewed sound of Morse could be heard from the earphones. Ferguson wrote, rapidly but neatly, tore a sheet from his pad and handed it to Claremont.
More than a day's journey away over the mountains, eight men sat or stood in the telegraphy room in Fort Humboldt. The central and unquestionably the dominating figure in the room lounged in a swivel chair behind a rather splendid leather-topped mahogany table, with both his filthy riding boots resting squarely on top of the desk. The spurs which he needlessly affected had left the leather top in several degrees less than mint condition, a consideration that apparently left the wearer unmoved. His general appearance attested to the first impression that there was little of the aesthetic about him. Even seated, it could be seen that he was a tall figure, bulky and broadshouldered, with a ragged deerskin jacket pulled back to reveal a sagging belt weighted down by a pair of Peacemaker Colts. Above the jacket and below a stetson that had been old while the jacket was still in its first youth, a high-boned face, hooked nose, cold eyes of a washed-out grey and a week's growth of beard overlaying a naturally swarthy complexion gave one the impression of being in the presence of a ruthless desperado, which was, in fact, a pretty apt description for Sepp Calhoun.
A man dressed in United States Cavalry uniform was seated by the side of Calhoun's table, while several feet
