CHAPTER XXI After the Explosion: some cheerful Talk with the Thieves, and a strange but welcome Message out of the Storm.

As I struggled to my feet out of the wreck I was so dazed that I had to lean against the wall to keep from falling. I felt something running down my face and at first wondered what it was; then I saw it was blood. One of my arms felt numb and I was afraid it was broken; and my hands were all torn and bruised. I could not see into the other building for the smoke and falling snow, but I could hear the groans and curses of the men. I thought that if any of them were able they might come to take revenge on me, and that I best go away, especially as I was helpless with the handcuffs still on my wrists. I managed to pull open the front door and ran to Taggart’s, thinking that I might get the handcuffs off in some way. 211

I found the box from which Pike had got them. There were two other pairs, with keys. I took the keys in my teeth and tried, but neither would fit mine. Then I went to the tin shop up-stairs. There was a file on the bench and I managed to get this into the vise and began rubbing the chain up and down on the edge of it. It was the hardest work I ever did, but I soon saw that I could get my hands free in time if I kept on. Once or twice I heard Pike shouting something and I could still hear Kaiser barking in the hotel.

I don’t know how long it took, but at last I got my hands separated, though of course the clasps were still tightly around my wrists. I looked out of the window and saw that the sleigh was in front of the bank with a pair of the outlaws’ horses hitched to it. I was afraid that the safe had been blown open with the first explosion and that they were getting the money after all. I ran out the back door and along behind the buildings to the hotel. Kaiser bounded around me, and Pawsy was again in her old place over the door.

I peeped through the cracks in the boards over one of the front windows. The whole 212 front of the bank was blown away, but I could just make out through the snow that the inner door of the safe was still closed. Two of the men were lying in the bottom of the sleigh, motionless, whether dead or alive I knew not. Pike was on the floor of the bank, propped up on one elbow, giving orders to the one they called Joe, who was helping the fifth man into the sleigh, who seemed badly wounded and sat in the bottom of the box.

Then Joe went back to help Pike. He took him by the arms and was dragging him toward the sleigh, when I suddenly made up my mind that I would keep Pike. I went to the closet and got Sours’s double-barreled shot-gun. I knew there was no weapon that they would fear so much at close range. I opened the door and walked out into the street with it.

“Just leave Pike right here,” I said. “I’ll take care of him. The rest of you go on.”

I guess they thought I was buried under the rubbish in the drug store, because I have seldom seen men more astonished. I walked up closer. Even Joe looked half wrecked, and his face was all blackened with powder. 213

“Hello, Jud,” called Pike. “You ain’t a-going to strike a man when he’s down, be you, Jud? I might ’a’ been harder on you many a time than I was, Jud.”

“No, I won’t hurt you, but you’ve got to stay, that’s all,” I said. “Help him over to the hotel and then go on with the others and don’t come back,” I added, looking at Joe.

There was nothing for him but to do as he was told, because I held the gun on them both, and they had heard the click as I drew back the hammers. Pike’s left leg seemed to be broken and he was all burned and blackened with the powder. I sent Joe for a mattress, which he put on the floor of the office and rolled Pike on it. Then he drove off with the others.

So that is the whole account of the second visit of the outlaws to Track’s End, just as it all happened, Saturday, March 19th.

“Now, Pike,” I said, after Joe had gone, “the first thing–out with that handcuff key!”

He took it from his pocket and gave it to me. I unlocked each of my bracelets. They left deep red marks around my wrists. Pike asked for a drink of water and I got it for him. I could see that he was in pain. 214

“You’ve played it on us again, Jud, I’ll be hanged if you ain’t,” he said to me. “What’d you have under that counter, Jud?”

“A can of blasting-powder,” I answered.

“Dangerous place to store it when there’s explosions, and kerosene lamps and hot stoves, and fires, and such truck around. It done us fellers up, and that’s a fact.”

“Well, I wasn’t trying to make you feel at home,” I replied. “How did you happen to be blowing open other folks’s safes?”

“Oh, it’s all right, Jud, it’s all right,” he said. “I ain’t finding no fault. Only I think you’d ’a’ done better to join us and get your share.”

Though I still felt pretty dizzy and weak I started out to look about town. I found that the inside door of the bank safe was still tight shut, though the outer one was blown off. The building was wrecked and the drug store was not in much better shape. I could see that the bank had been afire, but that Joe had put it out with water from the well.

Outside the barn I found Dick and Ned and the pony the Indian had taken, with three of the gang’s horses which had been left behind, huddled together trying to keep out of the 215 snow, which was still coming down at a great rate and was being swirled about by the wind. I let them in, and they were all very glad to get some feed, as were likewise the cow and chickens. I found that the Indian had pried open the back door with a crowbar from among the blacksmith’s tools.

Night was already coming on and I was so tired and sleepy that I could scarce keep up. So I made Pike as comfortable as I could, and went to bed and slept like a log.

The first thing I knew in the morning was that the storm had turned into a raging blizzard. It was not yet very cold, but the snow was drifting as fast as it had any time during the winter. I found Pike more comfortable. I had hoped for the train, but the storm discouraged me. I began to wonder what I was going to do with him. That his leg was broken was certain, and I almost wished that I had let him go with the others.

It was Sunday, and the first thing I did after breakfast was to write my regular letter to my mother, telling her all that had happened the past week; and it was a good deal. Then I started out to take another look around 216 town. My sleep had done me a world of good, though I still felt stiff and lame.

It was impossible to do much in the storm, but I covered up the bank safe with some blankets, and nailed boards over some windows in other buildings which had been broken by the explosion. I finally turned up at the depot and went in to see about the fire.

As I opened the door I was astonished to hear the telegraph instrument clicking. I knew the line was down and could not make out what it meant. I understood no more about telegraphing than Kaiser, but in visiting Tom Carr during the fall I had learned to know the call for Track’s End, which always sounded to me like clicket-ty-click-click, clicket-ty, over and over again till Tom opened the switch and answered. Well, as I stood listening I heard this call for Track’s End, clicket-ty-click-click, clicket-ty. Then I saw that the line must have been repaired; but if this were so a train must have come nearly through; otherwise the repairmen could not have reached the break, which, I remembered, Tom said was just beyond Siding No. 15, fourteen miles east of Track’s End. 217

I went to the table and sat down and listened to the steady clicking, the same thing, nothing but the call. It gave me a good feeling even if I didn’t know where it came from. I could not understand why any other office should be calling Track’s End, as they must all know the station was closed for the winter. Then it came to me that a train must be on the way, and somebody thought it had got here.

Just to see if I could, I reached over, opened the switch and tried giving the Track’s End call myself. Of course I did it very slowly, with a long pause between each click; but I thought I would show the fellow at the other end that Track’s End wasn’t quite dead after all. Then I closed the switch, and instantly was surprised to hear the call repeated, but just as slowly and in the same way that I had given it. It came this way two or three times, then I gave it as best I could, then it came the same way once more.

After this there was a long pause, and then it began to click something else, very slowly, dot, dash, dash, dot, and so forth, with a long stop between each. I picked up a pencil and marked it down, slowly, just as it came. 218 Every two or three clicks there was a very long pause, and I would put down a monstrous big mark, thinking it might be the end of a letter; and when it stopped this is what I had, just as I wrote it down (I have the paper to this day), though it might as well have been Greek for all I knew of its meaning:

After a minute or two it began again, but I soon saw that I was getting the same thing. 219 I leaned back in the chair and wished that I could read it. Then I sat up with sudden new interest, wondering if I could not find a copy of the Morse code somewhere and translate the message. It didn’t seem likely that Tom would have one, as he was an old operator; but I began rummaging among his books and papers just the same. I had not gone far when I turned up an envelope directed to him on which was some printing saying that it contained a pamphlet about books for telegraphers. I opened it, and on the first page, as a sort of trade-mark, was what I wanted. In ten minutes I had my message translated. It read: “Starving. Siding fifteen. Carr.”

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