HOW FLANDERS KEPT HIS JOB.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11839, 17 December 1901, Page 3

HOW FLANDERS KEPT HIS JOB.

(Conclude'.;.) Six weeks had passed since Flanders' departure without word or sign from him. The chief, uneasy at his long absence, was wondering whether he had not been too harsh, too ready, to send him upon this mission, where death, in a sense, was wagered as the stakes. Now the best that Tower could do was to promise himself that on the following day he would send out a trailer to find what had become of the missing man. Down the main line at this moment the operator at Ouamo Siding, in solitary possession of the place, was deeply lamenting the chances that had set him down as the surveying monarch of all its loneliness. Outside, the face of the landscape glimmered in toe torturing heat; the air droned with the shrill voices of a myriad of insects and tho breeze, a veritable furnace breath, added to the inferno with the dust it drew up in its train. In desperation the operator set to filing points on his sounders and keys, but this only increased his torment; the rasp of the tool added to the manifold sounds from tiic superheated world outside, driving him to the brink of desperation. In disgust he threw down his file, shook the beads of hot sweat from his brow, 'ind was tapping a glass of tepid water from tho barrel in the corner, when a low voice broke in on his reflections. *' Say— there !" At the window beside the keyboard a hand was holding up the curtain, and underneath appeared a face, dust-stained, burned t<s a copper red, and set with two marvellously gleaming eyes. Startled, the operator dropped tho tin cup clattering to the floor and leaped to one side. The next instant he was with his back to the wall, a- pistol gleaming in the dull light of the shaded station. "What do you want?" he demanded, shrilly, and at this a broad grin transfigured the gleaming face at the window. "Well, I swan!" laughed the man. "The hot has got on yer nerves, sonny, ain't it? Put down that gun, you chuckle-healed brass-pounder. I ain't goin' to hurt yer." But the operator was too old a bird to be trapped. The man that had left the place before him had been trapped in just such a way and tied clown to his desk, the western mail had been flagged almost in front of tho siding, and the express and postal ears hat! been dynamited first and then rifled of their valuables. "Make a move if yer dare?" shrilled the operator, drawing a bead on the head in the window. "Don't yer dare!" In answer, the man tossed a scrap of paper through the window. "Quick — Rush that to the main office. Tell 'em to ' dupe' it to the chief—Towers, I mean. Get a hustle on, and then skedaddle out er here you hear me? Skedaddle! Vamoose lively, 'cause it'll be hotter here afore long than the hottest dog-days that Gehenna ever saw. But don't yer forgit to send that dispatch, or by Sam Houston you won't be wuth tho fat to fry a doughnut nex' time we run agether. Adios, sonny, and look out fur yerself."

The face vanished from the window, and the operator, a palsy upon him, still stood shaking against the wall. Outside, the sounds of the day resumed their droning intonation, the breeze sighed fitfully, and though he cracked his ears listening for some sign of stealthy attack, he became at last convinced that he 'was alone.

With his revolver still ready, he tip-toed across the floor, and snatched up the scrap of paper. Then, with a sharp glance about, he read, and at the next instant had jumped to ,his instrument. "G—x." "G— "G— he called, his hand banging the Key at frantic speed—" G— "G—x" "G—x."

Somewhere down tho lino, another station, noting the extreme baste of an operator notoriously slow cut in with the query: — " What's up?" Letter by letter, Guamo Siding- cursed him for his interference, the key rattled and shook with reiterated appeal—-" G—x" ■ ■ " G—x" " G— x."— -and then the main office answered. ■

Flattening tho paper before him, the operator hud his pistol upon it, and bent with vigour to his key. With eager hand he hammered the brass till the room rang with the staccato clicking, but at every other lettc: lie glanced fearfully over his shoulder. "Rush Supt," read the despatch, "and dupe to Towers, Chief of . Secret Service. Doe Burdle's gang will hold up western mail nine-forty-five east sido long trestle beyond Guamo Siding. Six in the gang. I make seven. Do not shoot man in white hat. That's me. " Flandebs. " P.S.Towers will explain sig." The operator added to this a message of his own. "This lets mo out. I'm going to scoot." Five minutes later, ivhen the uproar in the train despatcher's office had calmed a bit, tho wire was almost blistered by a cp.ll for Guamo Siding. But there was no answer; tho telegraph in the Siding station clicked in solitude, and far down the track a handcai clattered over the fishplates, a sweating man pumping at the levers, with his eyjs turned fearfully over his shoulder. "Guamo Siding's dead." called the despatcher's operator from his desk. " I can't raise him at all. He's lit out or they've got him, one or tho other. What's the orders for H M? He's cut in on tie board and got the news hot off the wire. Guess he's rattled some."

"H M" was Haney's Mill, the next station east of Guamo Siding. "Tell him to keep his mouth shut," roared the despatcher, snatching up the message from Guamo and rushing to the rail to meet the superintendent, who had burst through the doorway. "Here, read this, boss!" The despatcher thrust the message into the superintendent's hand, and then was buck at the operator's shoulder. Outside in the yard the western mail lay at the platform, a fresh engine backing down through the switch. " Hold her five minutes." the despatcher ordered, " and tell those deputies to hurry. Have you heard from Tower yet? Ring up on the 'phone there. Wo can't wait all night." But lower himself at this moment bustled into the office. "It's all right I" he cried. " Flanders is one of my men. He's a daisy. I thought they'd stretched him out. Your men ready? I'm going, too." j'ho despatches jumped from his chair and strode down the room. "Where's that idiot Piercy?" he demanded. "Ain't he ready yet?"

"He's coming, sir," was the answer. "Coming is he?" growled the despatches testily. "He's always coming, but he don t ever seem to get anywhere. 0, here you are. are you, Pierey?" , , The road detective bustled in, a crowd of deputies at his shoulder. *' What 3 the orders?" he asked. The desnatcher thrust the message 'mo his hand and then pushed him towards the door. "Read that, and git!" he cried. ' The old man anu Towers going, too. They. 11 tell you what to do." The armed men at Pierey's hack turned right about and the company trooped down the stairs. ''There'll be a hot time m Guamo to-night all right," mused the Cespatcher. "'Wish I was with 'em." Night had fallen .and the yard gleamed with switch lights like a field of fireflies when the western mail drove out into the open. Tower and the superintendent, armed with short-barrelled riot-guns, sat in the cab with the engineer. " Don't keep 'em waiting," the superintendent cautioned the oily man at the levers. "I wouldn't disappoint them for the world. ' The engineer nodded, and the locomotive, toiling with harsh breath up the long ascent, cleared the summit with a bound and ran rolling and swaying on the long, down grade. "Guamo's the first stop." laughed the superintendent. "Wego by their kiting, usually, but to-night we'll tackle the stretch sorter slow. I guess you'd better cut her down to half-speed, Bill"—this to the engineer—" when we leave the mill. I shouldn't wonder but they've arranged to chuck us off the iron, and it wouldn't do this brand-new engine a bit of good to Hop over in the ditch."

In the baggage car behind. Pierey. all excitement, bustled about, with his orders. Loner before they reached Haney's Mill he had the lights out and the doors open. Little heaps of buckshot cartridges lay within easy reach, and on the car platforms aft other deputies guarded the weakest flanks of the train. Then the locomotive whistledfirst, the long yard signal, then two short hoots.

"That's Guamo!" cried Pierey. "Get to your places, men ! And —don't shoot the man in the white hat!"

Ahead, in tho locomotive. Tower peered across the engineer's shoulder into the distance, scanning every foot of the iron bands glittering in tho shine of the headlight. "There's a curve ahead," tho engineer explained. "It won't show till we've rounded the—By thunder, there they are now!" A black monument of railroad ties, crested by a red lantern, stood in the middle of the track. In the broad angle of light, they saw—for an instanta figure, ghost-like in the palo glow, standing staring upon the approaching train. Then it, was gone; the brake shoes bit with loud complaining upon the wheels: the ears shocked together, their buffers clanking, and with a heave on her springs the engine came to a halt. "Hands up!" roared a voice out of the darkness beside the track. Hands up A dim shapo disclosed itself, a menacing figure with a rifio pointed at blank range into tho cab. For a moment there was no answer — noise save the snuffling gurgle of the air-pump; then a voice rang down the line, "It's a brown hat he wears, boys!" A stream of fire spurted from the cab, and tho silence exploded with a crash. The night roared with the echo, and a scream of anguish pierced the thunders of the detonation.

Then the stillness fell again for an instant, broken only by the sobbing measure of the pump; the cry of anguish had died with its giver, and peace seemed assured, when there was a sudden rush of footsteps. "Fire!" cried a voice.

A volley rattled from the cars. The air whistled with the questing load, and cry upon cry followed. Shot, too, answered across tho gloom—a voice screamed a. warning to flight; tho coaches in the rear resounded with a frightened uproar, and a man in a white hat beside the right-of-way sat waiting indifferently for the noiso to end. "If yer as much as wink. Doc Burdle," ho cautioned, "I'll scatter yer brains from one end or the map to the other." A curse answered the warning, for the man in the white hat sat upon the chest of the other, a pistol held to his head. "Yer hound!" the outlaw cried. "Ye've

played it well —hain't yer? God help yer, yer dog, when I'm clear er this!" "But yer won't lie clear, Doc," was the easy answer. "It's been a hot chase to land yer,, but it's'did, ole man. Easy there, now. No inoneky shines, or —" He pressed the cold rim of the revolver muzzle into the other's ear, and with a suggestive wrigglo of the weapon made his meaning clearer. Tho shots had died away, but the uproar continued. "Flanders! O, Flanders!" a voice roared from the engine. "Here, sir!" answered tho man in the white hat. Tho outlaw writhed again. " Ah-r, let, me go, won't yer! I'll make it wulh while —there's a lot put by. Won't yer?" "What!" roared Flanders. "Let. yer go to be writin* things to the papers? Not much, Doc. Yer come, near to makin' me lose the job wunst, ole man, and I'll not take chances agin. Lie easy, now." "Flanders! Flanders!" cried the voice of Tower again. "Here, sir," he answered meekly. " Well, come in here, then," Tower cried, testily. . " Can't, sir. I've got someone with me. "Got what':" "Got Doc Burdle, sir." A half-dozen lanterns came flickering on a run towards him. "Hello, chief," said Flanders. " Fva filled that hand—got a full house, too. Make ves. acquainted with' Chief Tower. Doc Burdle—Doc—Chief: Chief—Doc." Then, as they clamped the handcuffs on the outlaw's wrists, Flanders arose and wiped his brow. " Guess I squared myself," he muttered. " And now," said tho chief, when he confronted Flanders in the baggage car, "perhaps you'll explain all this." " Ain't much to 'explain, chief," Flanders answered. "I jus' got next to the Doc, and when the shootin' played up lively, give him a clip on the car and sat on Ids chest when ho come to." "But how in thunder did you get next to him?" demanded the chief. _ "Real easy, chief. Eronin', Mr. Pierey.' For an instant the detectivo stared at Flanders; then, with a menacing gesture, leaped to his feet. The superintendent clutched him by the collar. "What's this mean?" ho growled.

"Mean!" roared Piercy. "Why, it was this blanked outlaw here that hit me in the face at Seed City, and wrecked all the* windows in the oar. Why, I'd 'a' given my job to 've met him wuust out there in the bush. J reckon, then, yer'd never taken him alive."

Flanders turned to his chief, his face transfigured with merriment, but Tower stared in astonishment. " Outlawwhat d'ye mean, Piercy. This is no outlaw—it's Flanders, one of my men."

Piercy's face fell, and Flanders laughed aloud.

"Yer see, chief," he explained. "I needed a good excuse to get off at Seed City. If I'd just dropped in there without a good reason, why, some 'er them guns might 'a rattled a charge of buckshot agin my ribs. So I sorter got Piercy, hero, to throw me off. He did his best, too, but I had it in for him, yer know, and made time fly. "Then, yer see, when I was shook off at the station, why, the Doe and his gang took right natch orally to me—see? They let me in on the hull thing, and what I got on to'll give us the right to go down there and run in tho whole outfit from A to Z. Jiay, chief, guess my job's good yet, ain't it? "Good? Why!" 'and the chief fell to laughing uproariously.