Chapter XI: The Valor of Simon (2)

"I don't want any money!" he shrilled. Then, snatching away from them, he leaped the fence and tore through his tiny back garden. Inside his house he jerked the blinds shut over the outraged window and sagged down in a chair, shaking from head to foot.

"Now," he thought gloomily, "now--they'll tear up that spur. Now what you goin' to do, Henry Hornbone? You're a dad-blamed old fool."

But something seemed to warm him as he crept half-clothed into his bed.

"Gosh, that girl had little hands," he thought aloud. "Might 'a' killed her anyway. Might 'a' killed a lot of folks. Didn't kill 'em though. Didn't kill anybody."

The visitor who banged on Henry's old warped front door in the morning grew weary after a while and went around to the back. The knock on the back door meant nothing to Henry's sealed ears, but the jar came presently to his senses and he opened the closed shutters and thrust out his head. The grin was absent from his grizzled face. He glowered. He scowled till he saw that the intruder upon his doorstep was feminine and young, that she had red hair and little hands and feet that looked as though dancing were their chief mission in life. Then he grinned.

"Key's lost," he yelled suddenly, so that the girl jumped. "Can't git in."

She nodded and smiled. The smile and her dancing eyes and the glow of her hair were a combination as dazzling as winter sunshine. She had manifestly come prepared. She pulled a little pad and pencil from her pocket and wrote rapidly.

"Can you read?"

The furious disgust in Henry's eyes was answer enough. She thought him a plumb fool then!

"Sure, I can read," he shouted. "I ain't crazy. I'm just hard of hearing."

Eager apology was in her smile. She scribbled rapidly.

"You are a brave man," Henry read. "You saved the lives of eighty-four people."

He shook his head. "I ain't brave. I'm just an old fool."

She laughed at this, and it was as if the sun leaped up with a shout and a lot of nymphs and dryads and other ladies in diaphanous veils whirled in a mad dance on a hilltop.

"I am the new operator at Elsie." ran her next missive. "I have a pass for you from the president of the road. You can ride anywhere you want any time you like."

"Don't want to ride," grumbled Henry. "Don't want to go no place. Don't want nothing to do with your railroad--no time."

He remembered then that he had neglected to put on his outer shirt and that his red flannel undergarment was informal even for morning wear. So he pulled in his head like a sulky old turtle.

"Don't want nothing to do with your railroad," he repeated. "Never. No time!"

He clapped the shutters fast and locked them with a wooden pin. Presently he felt the pattering passage of her heels on the porch. She was going off and leaving him alone. Let 'em all go off and leave him alone.

He dressed slowly, climbing to the cold attic for his shoes. From the mail sack he rummaged the key and opened the back door. As it swung back, shrieking, a dozen vari-colored cats suddenly appeared from different places of waiting and streaked eagerly into the house. Henry clumped back, sopped bread in the sausage grease, congealed from the night before, soaked it in sweetened tea and set out half a dozen plates which instantly became the centers for a petal-like array of flashing pink tongues.

Then he trudged through the brief strip of garden left to him, tossed a handful of corn to a charging troup of guineas, and arrived at the fence. Down the track he could see a line of blue-clad laborers. The lift of their sledges and their flashing fall came to him soundlessly. They were tearing up the old spur.

He swung a leg over the fence and tramped on to the village, nodding to people whom he met. Women smiled at him, men gave him friendly nods. He was a personage. He had saved the Limited from a wreck. Something which survived in Henry's queer, cramped old soul laughed aloud. He was safe. Nobody in Elsie would suspect him. His war could go on. But now he would have to think of something new--now that they were tearing up the spur. He felt lost and empty. For eighteen years he had comforted the thwarted vindictiveness in him with plans for that colossal wreck. Now it was all ended. Days of toil which had gone into the sharpening of that wedge were wasted. Nobody had been killed though. That was something. He had never thought much about the people being killed. He was glad that there were no awful bloody bodies lying around in Elsie. Henry hated blood. He kept his chickens till they died of old age because he could not slay them.

At the station he surveyed the new length of platform with grim satisfaction. He had made the B. & A. a little trouble, anyway--paid them back a trifle for the outraging of his bit of garden. He tramped across the new planks marked the oozing pitch and the shining nail heads with the avidness of lonely people for inconsequential things. Then he felt eyes on his back. Deafness had made him supersensitive. He turned quickly, and in the window of the little bay where the telegraph instruments lurked under the green light, he saw the girl--the red-headed girl.

She was smiling at him. Something in Henry's twisted old nature warmed and thrilled. Women smiled at him often, the same smile they gave to lame dogs or harmless half-wits. But the girl's eyes were different. They held a frank friendliness which had no pity or evasion in it. She waved a hand at him. She was bending over a table and her hair was bound down by the elastic of a green eye-shade.

A freight pulled in then, and Henry moved off sullenly. But in the afternoon he came shambling back, a votive offering in his pocket. Grinning diffidently he laid this gift on the window sill, soothing its protests with swift, stubby old fingers--a yellow kitten with rascally circles of black about its eyes, a comical clown of a kitten which until this hour had been the cherished member of Henry's huge feline family.

"This here one's yours," he yelled, as the girl came hurrying to the window. "If he gets the fits you lemme know and I'll fetch you some catnip."

And he turned and sped away, his shoulders hunched, without a backward look.

Began for old Henry Hornbone an amazing friendship.

Every morning he shambled down to the station at Elsie with some sort of a present in his pocket. Sometimes it was a speckled guinea egg, warm from the nest. Sometimes a brown twig softly threaded with new pussy willows, and as spring warmed and the frost went out of the land he brought little wild strawberry blooms like gold beaded stars, now a single violet, once a white snail shell scoured to brilliance. And at dusk, when the night trick came on, the girl operator, whose name was Mary Hill, came often to the old house beside the track. Sometimes she carried a paper bag warm and greasy with hot doughnuts. Sometimes her offering was a piece of kidney for the cats. Often she brought only her smile, which became the one bit of glow in old Henry's drab, baffled existence.

She mended his socks, she impelled him by her frowns to scour his floors, to shave every day in his eagerness to please, to keep the cats off the table and his boots off his bed. He even bought a black necktie and a new hat to replace the greasy old relic which had served him for twenty years. Mary Hill, with her red head and her dancing eyes, which penetrated the frozen barrier of the silence which had so long kept the old man in desolate isolation, became to him a little of the mother that he missed and something of the daughter he had never had. There were people in Elsie who laughed. There were young men at Mary Hill's boarding-house who teased her about old Henry Hornbone. But most people understood. And Henry, toiling to make a cherry tree bloom beside the fence, forgot in his present content, his vengeful war on the B. & A.

And then came the strike.

To Henry the strike meant little. He sensed a little of it, through the things that he read in the badly printed weekly paper at Elsie, he understood the guards who tramped up and down the right of way warning him back whenever he threw a leg over the fence. But as the trouble grew more tense, as bridges went up in horrific explosions, as trains were wrecked mysteriously and engineers intimidated, Henry saw the strain of it reflected in the harassed eyes of Mary Hill. There was a young marine in the station now, whenever he tramped down in the mornings--a cocky youth with dark eyes and a proud scowl.

A day or two after that, Henry bought a heavy calibered revolver from the black-smith. That night he nailed a tobacco can on his woodshed, and when Mary Hill came by, he haled her in and made her practise shooting at the can till she could hit it three times out of six--till the palm of her hand was blistered by the heavy stock.

"They blew the bridge at Alapaha last night," she told him, as he rubbed melted resin on the blisters. Henry could understand much that she said by this time, if she spoke slowly and distinctly. He nodded.

"You keep this here and use it," he ordered, oiling the cylinder and loading it deftly. "Gun ain't no good if you're scart of it. And if that soldier down there gives you any sass you pop him over, too. I don't like the look of him, no time--he's too blame' smart."

A slow color crept over Mary Hill's face at this, and with it a crawling chill was communicated to old Henry's heart. There was a rift--tiny, almost imperceptible, yet appalling to the lonely old man to whom the friendship of this girl had come to be such a tremendous thing. Her eyes avoided his for an instant, then the dancing laughter came into them again. She laid the grim gun down on the back steps and snatched at the old man's hand. Henry knew what she wanted--to see that cherry tree. She had bought it for him from a fruit tree peddler and they had watched the opening of every bud. It ought to be in bloom today--every flower open. They hurried past the pie-plant row and the humming beehives. At the fence old Henry Hornbone halted, aghast. He wavered a bit, and then black, militant wrath darkened his face.

The little cherry tree was bent sideways, half stripped of its bark, wilted, trampled. And beside it, driven grimly into the ground was a very new white post, very blatantly lettered in black--"B. & A. RAILROAD. RIGHT OF WAY."

Henry had not sworn an oath since his closing ears had shut from him the sound of his own voice. But now he swore, shrilly, horribly. He sprang at the white post, wrenching and tugging at it, but it had been sledged into the soil by strong men. It did not budge a fraction. The girl's face was a pained mask of wretchedness. She had known that they were condemning a new right of way; that eventually, when the menace of the strike was removed, that the division was to be double-tracked, but she had not thought that it would mean this--the destruction of an old man's pitiful little interest, the ruthless slaughtering of the few simple things that made up life to old Henry, who was denied so much of life.

"Oh--shame! Shame!" she cried aloud. But old Henry did not hear. He was fairly dancing in his rage, he shook his fist at the blinking lines of track, he breathed dreadful threats. War was on again--relentless war against the B. & A. He hardly saw Mary Hill. He scarcely knew when she went away. He was busy with mallet and sledge battering that intruding post out of the ground. By dark he had loosened it and flung it over the fence on the right of way. And next morning he did not go down to the station. He worked doggedly all day, building a high barrier of barbed wire across the back of his place.

The road's lawyer battered at his front door in vain. The postman brought a letter containing a condemnation notice and a check, but the letter lay under the front door for three days before Henry found it. Then he dropped it in the kitchen stove without opening it, and renewed his grim vendetta.

The night the bridge at Hodges was destroyed he felt a gleeful satisfaction, as though he himself had planted the charge under the pillars. He tramped out to the wrecked bridge in the morning, avoiding the right of way cannily, gloating over every twisted rail and fallen cross-tie, grinning his grin which had taken on a warped and sinister grimness. When he came back the fence he had built so laboriously was down, flung carelessly over the beehives and against the shed. In his garden--what little the road had left to him--stood a tall, narrow, yellow building.

It was a block signal tower--two stories high, flashing red and green target lights from its gables, looped about with wires, with glass windows and a locked door and about its base a wide area of piled cinders.

There was a tower like it at Hodges--but here--here in his garden! Henry stared at it in incredible amazement, made numb by baffled wrath. There was a light in the top of the yellow tower, which had manifestly been built intact elsewhere, and set down on his ground by a maintenance crew. At the bottom, slumped on the threshold, smoking a cigarette, bulked the young guard whom he had seen in the station at Elsie--the sleek-haired, insolent lad who had brought a shy, warm blush into Mary Hill's face.

As Henry approached, this young soldier motioned him away, jauntily, with the butt of an Army Colt. Henry burst into a shrill, cackling invective. The young soldier laughed. Henry retreated, presently, a long procession of cats trailing after. But for once he was too troubled, too tremulous with fury to heed the purring friendliness of his yellow-eyed family. The cats lingered in astonishment, but Henry, sagged forward on his doorstep, his eyes fixed on that tall, sulphur-hued intruder with the red and green eye in his garden, paid no attention to them. For once a pampered tribe of feline pensioners went supperless, offended and aloof.

Half the night, while the spring frogs came out and fiddled and the switch-engines hooted up and down, unheard, Henry Hornbone sat at his back door smoldering. Then a reckless idea leaped at him out of the dark, making his slow blood tingle by its very audacity. The sight of the switch engine, panting idly like a fat old hippopotamus with one eye, on the siding beyond his outraged fence inspired a wild scheme for vengeance which drove every vestige of sleep from his tired brain.

"I'll learn 'em," he said aloud. "I'll learn 'em so they'll stay learnt! I got to get me a chain. I got to have a long chain and a wire cable. And I've got to get that feller away from there. I've got to--if I have to knock him in the head."

He remembered then where he had seen a tangled length of cable--down at Hodges where the bridge had been destroyed. It would be risky business getting it; there would be guards and they were touchy and apt to shoot. But somehow he'd work it. A stout wire cable, fastened swiftly around that block tower, a chain reaching to the tender of the switch engine--and the B. & A. would move that offending building from his land themselves!

It was a wild, fantastic plan, but the very difficulties it involved served to rouse old Henry from his lethargy of shocked rage. He pulled his hat low over his ears and slipped out the front way, following the right of way toward Hodges. He knew where the cable lay, tangled in the bottom of a ravine, where it was dark and propitious. Getting the young soldier away from the tower would be the problem. Henry considered various expedients, from setting his own house on fire to cold-blooded murder. He neared the scene of the wreck, where he could see the dangling ruin of the bridge bristling like a ship with lanterns. He could feel the down thud of hammers, as the hastily drafted maintenance crews attacked the wreckage. He crept close through a damp tangle of last year's grass, and it was then that he discovered the two men who, like himself approached cautiously. They kept just ahead of him, heads down, bodies low in the weeds.

He crawled after them, keeping back out of hearing, watching in the darkness to discover what they were up to. Strikers, he decided, since his over sensitive nose brought him no evidence that they were common, unwashed hoboes. They smelled clean--like tobacco and soap. A bit greasy, but without offense. Henry wriggled through the dry grass on their trail. They were making for a tool chest, set beside the track, he noted, and one of them presently stood boldly upright, walked to the chest, lifted something out of it, walked casually toward a group working about a flare, while the other waited, hidden.

In a few minutes the first marauder came sliding back, prone, and Henry lifted his head to see what it was they had pilfered. From the gingerly way they handled it, the caution with which they wormed back to the road, he knew--dynamite!

Forgetting his own errand, avid with childish curiosity, he followed the pair, keeping always out of sight, trailing them back to Elsie--back to his own street, back to his own house!

And here an amazing melodrama was enacted before his staring eyes, almost before he could think. He saw the sinister two slink through his garden, saw them hurl themselves upon the young guard, beheld a waving chaos of arms and legs, heard a thrown pistol clink upon the cinders--heard with his tense nerves and his straining faculties, though his sealed ears denied him tidings of the fight. Then he saw that one of the strikers held the guard prone, and that the other was burrowing swiftly under the yellow tower. It was at that moment that Henry saw another sight which turned him cold and numb and made him forget every grievance he had ever known against the B. & A. He saw a glint of red hair at the upper window of that block tower. He saw Mary Hill standing there--her body poised in terror. In one hand she held the pistol he had given her. In the other she clutched a frightened yellow kitten.

Like a wild old warlock Henry Hornbone hurled himself into the mélée. The dynamiters were strong men; they were desperate and they were armed with deadly brass knuckles and coupling pins. But Henry was armed with primitive rage, which goes a long way in a pitched battle. His head was barked, a fist had crashed into his teeth, a knee had found his stomach and he was feeling a strange lightness in his head--a sort of airiness which persisted in lifting him into the ether, persisted in weakening the dogged grip he had on a tough, whiskery neck. He felt himself giving in; he rallied and snatched great, aching breaths into his bursting lungs, pounding monotonously on a confusion of struggling legs with his stout old hobnailed boots, when he realized that another force had entered into the fray. A red-headed harpy, screaming and dancing, brandishing a big black pistol was circling the fight, dragging at the vindictive person who was endeavoring to choke the young soldier's breath out, battering futile fists upon unfeeling backs, sobbing in impotent wrath.

It was then that Henry dragged out of the tortured thinness of his throat a terrible, curdling scream.

"Bean him!" he yodeled, the yell cutting the air like a knife, "Bean both of 'em--with the gun."

And Mary Hill obeyed.

She beaned both of them with such efficiency that when the young soldier had struggled up and spit out his broken teeth and righted his outrageously disarranged apparel and found his gun, the whiskery pair of malcontents were still sprawled, unconsciously content, in the damp gloom of Henry's pie-plant row.

Henry himself sat up, conscious that certain very vital localities on his person had been woefully maltreated, sure that he would never be able to get a whole breath again, and if by chance he did, it would sure jolt his tortured ribs loose. But he grinned. The grin was jagged and a bit gory, but it persisted. And Mary Hill gave him a wavery, slightly tremulous smile. She still held the pistol, but Henry saw with admiration that she held it muzzle down, harmless but ready. She was a good one! And she might have been killed--blown to pieces like those ragged cross ties at Hodges! Henry struggled up.

"You better fetch somebody," he shouted at the young soldier, who was still a trifle bewildered. "You better fetch a gang to look after them two. I'll stay here till you get back."

The guard departed, having first carefully tied the dynamiters with Henry's clothesline. Mary Hill sat down beside Henry, the big gun balanced on her knee. Her cold, small fingers crept into his palm. She was little and dear, she might have been the mother that he missed or the daughter he had never had. The old man patted her wrist gently and a slow ache swelled within him, made up of loneliness and weariness. Then a new thought comforted him. She'd be there every day--in that tower, in his garden, the green eye-shade binding down her rebellious hair. He gave a tremendous sigh and his age-old war against the B. & A. perished in lusty middle age.

At this minute two-thirds of the village of Elsie surged into his garden.

Henry shambled up, jerked his suspenders straight, hunted his hat. Men were crowding round him--he saw mouths moving excitedly, hands waving. They beat him on the back, they shook his hand. But Henry pulled away.

"Lemme alone," he yelled at the curious who milled about him. "You lemme alone. I've gotta feed my cats!"

GRAINS SEND ROOTS MANY FEET INTO EARTH

Investigators for the Carnegie Institution of Washington have reported some interesting discoveries about the depth to which food plants send their roots. Trees and other perennials send tap-roots to a great distance into the earth, but that cereals, which start new from the seed each season, do the same, has not been generally understood. Professor John E. Weaver reports that in Nebraska wheat and oats were found to send roots down to a depth of from six to eight feet, while corn roots were found eight feet deep. New agricultural methods may result from these investigations.

HELICOPTERS MAY MAKE AIRPLANES OBSOLETE

The next big forward step in aviation will be the helicopter. Run to your Greek dictionary and look it up. "Helicon" means spiral or screw and "pteron" means wing. Get it? Orville Wright invented the word and predicted years ago that someone would invent the machine. An airplane--though it wouldn't be a "plane" at all and we'd have to call it a "flying machine" or something like that--which was able to rise into the air by means of "screw-wings" or devices like electric fans placed horizontally, could ascend from a space no bigger than the spread of its wings, and descend, if the machinery worked properly, in a similar space. Instead of a big landing field away out in the country, such machines could start out from a city roof or a suburban back yard. Both the British and the French governments, which pay much more attention to aviation than does ours, have offered prizes for helicopters capable of doing certain "stunts." The British specifications call for a machine that will rise 2,000 feet, carrying a pilot and fuel for an hour's flight; hover stationary in the air for half an hour, and fly horizontally at 60 miles an hour. Louis Brennan, the monorail inventor, claims to have built a machine covering these requirements. Pescara, an Argentine inventor, made a helicopter that would rise six feet carrying a passenger, and sold it to the French government.

FROM ONE TO ANOTHER

BY EARL C. McCAIN

_Author of "Desert Justice," etc._

THE PONY EXPRESS IS NO MORE; BUT THE WEST STILL PRODUCES HORSES OF
THAT NEVER-DIE BREED, AND MEN WHO DO NOT KNOW WHEN TO QUIT. HENCE
THIS RACE OVER THE SANTA FÉ TRAIL HAS ALL THE THRILLS OF THE OLD
DAYS--AND A FEW NEW ONES

John Dillon's first knowledge of the Pony Express Relay Race had come from reading the newspapers. It was to be held in celebration of the old Pony Express, and the horses taking part in it would follow the old Santa Fe Trail from St. Joseph, Mo., to Santa Fe, N. M., a distance of approximately eight hundred miles.

While the race was to be run by picked relay teams of horses, the real rivalry would be between the five big express companies, which had, in a way, sprung from the old Pony Express when it had been succeeded by the more modern methods of handling express and mail. Each of the express companies was organizing a team, and the honor of winning would go to the team that first delivered a registered package of express at Santa Fe.

The entire country was interested in the race, not only because of the traditions connected with the Pony Express, but because it was a sporting event of a different type. Dillon's interest was deeper than that. He was the owner of Sagamore, a magnificent black stallion that had already won fame as a long distance runner, and he had been expecting an offer to enter his horse in one of the teams ever since the race had been announced.

The day before he had received a telegram from John P. Hammond, president of the Dell-Argo Express Company, and he had come in from his foothill ranch to meet Hammond at the Brown hotel in Denver.

A casual observer, watching the two men as they shook hands in the hotel lobby, would probably have been struck by the similarity between them--even though they represented vastly different spheres of life. Hammond was the typical man of big business, well-groomed and modestly attired, his appearance even more distinguished by a faint tinge of gray in his hair.

Dillon was no larger than Hammond, yet he possessed the same marks of character strength. His weight would have been guessed at one hundred and forty pounds, and his eyes were steel-blue and sharp, surrounded by fine wrinkles--something that distinguishes the man who has lived on the sage-dotted mesas or the desert. The movement of his lithe body, as he stepped forward to meet Hammond, marked him as a man accustomed to a life in the saddle.

As might have been expected, Hammond came straight to the point.

"I represent the Dell-Argo Express Company, Mr. Dillon," he began, "and we are particularly anxious to win this race because our company was really the pioneer express company of the West. I understand you have a great horse, and my purpose in coming here is to offer you five thousand dollars to handle the Dell-Argo team and enter your own horse. The company will pay all expenses, and in addition, you will have a chance at the five thousand dollar purse."

"What other horses have you?"

"None, at this time. That will be in your hands. It is only fair to tell you that you may have trouble securing suitable horses for the race. Dan Mortley, who, I understand, bore a shady reputation in racing circles before he was made a superintendent of the Continental Express Company through the influence of a wealthy uncle, is managing their team. I'm sure that the Continental company wouldn't permit any crookedness in the race if they knew of it, but they're letting Mortley handle their team because he understands horse-racing, and are allowing him plenty of money. Frankly, I think Mortley intends to win by fair or foul means. He has already prevented us from getting several horses we wanted."

"How about the other express companies?"

"Oh, they will have teams entered, but it is generally believed that Mortley's team will make a walk-away of the race, since he already has engaged many of the best endurance runners in the country. Do you happen to know of any other horses that you can get?"

"Yes, two," Dillon stated, then with a smile added, "and that reminds me that I had better accept your offer at once."

"Good," Hammond replied. "I'll leave for St. Joseph tonight, to complete arrangements, and to secure some more horses for you. Get those two you mentioned, and better ship them as soon as possible. The race is to begin Thursday morning, April 3, the anniversary of the first trip of the Pony Express."

They discussed plans a few minutes longer, then with a Dell-Argo check for one thousand dollars in his pocket, Dillon left Hammond and hurried out to send a telegram.

Dillon had tried not to appear eager when accepting Hammond's offer and check, but the truth was that he was elated. For the first time in his life he was seriously in need of money and the offer had come at an opportune time.

A few months before he had happened upon what seemed a splendid buy on a herd of cattle--one so good that in order to close the deal he had mortgaged his ranch for ten thousand dollars. He had considered himself lucky in getting the cattle at such a price, and had planned on borrowing enough money on the herd to take up the note when it became due. Then had come a sudden epidemic of the foot and mouth disease that had wiped out most of his herd, and caused the Government agents to kill the remainder to prevent the disease from spreading.

Dillon had expected no trouble in renewing his mortgage when that came due, but to his surprise, the bank had refused this. In a final effort to save his ranch, Dillon had been forced to give another mortgage on his most valued possession--Sagamore. Two more efforts to raise money had failed, and now, unless he could take up the mortgage on Sagamore when it fell due, he would lose the horse. Under the circumstances, Hammond's offer was providential.

In telling Hammond that he knew of two horses for his team, Dillon's first thought had been of Patsy, a game little cow-horse that had raced Sagamore to the very finish in a former race. Patsy was owned by Laramie Jones, at Laramie, Wyoming, and Dillon sent a wire to Jones a few minutes after accepting Hammond's offer.

The second horse was Imperator, a great white stallion owned by Gus Workland, of Denver, and Dillon made a prompt visit to the Workland stables. Imperator was getting old, but he was dead game, and he had the ability to hold a good speed for a long distance. Dillon lost no time in making arrangements with Workland to ship the horse in plenty of time for the race.

Early the next morning Dillon received an answer to his wire to Jones, accepting his offer for the little cow-horse. Satisfied with the start he had made in gathering a team, Dillon returned to his ranch that noon. The following day he loaded Sagamore into the express car that was to take them to St. Joseph.

Hammond met Dillon and his horse upon their arrival in the city where the race was to start, but he brought disappointing news. In spite of his efforts, he had secured only two horses. One of these was Speedaway--one of the fastest horses of the year--but the other, a big bay called Pathfinder, was a horse that Dillon knew well. The bay horse could run for a time, but he simply lacked the endurance to match his courage in a long race.

"I have wired or seen at least twenty owners," Hammond stated, "but Mortley has beaten us to most of them. Besides the horses he intends to use, he has taken options on most of the other horses that would be suitable for this race."

Dillon nodded quietly, and Hammond, in a more optimistic tone, went on, "We'll have a chance, however, even with only five horses. The Continental is the only company that will have more than ten horses in their string, and the rest of the express companies have made arrangements with the railroads to move the horses and riders along the route as they finish each lap of the race."

Dillon couldn't exactly share Hammond's enthusiasm. He knew that very few horses can recover their strength and endurance while traveling in an express car. But he didn't mention his doubts. Instead, he talked with Hammond a few minutes longer, then went to see that his horse had been properly cared for.

Jones, with his little roan horse, arrived in St. Joseph that night and came to the hotel just as Dillon and Hammond had finished dinner. The same old quizzical smile that had won Dillon's friendship during a former race was on the Wyoming rider's face as he shook hands and was introduced to Hammond.

"I'm with you, all the way," Jones said, when Dillon had told him of the race and the handicap under which their team must run. "But we'll sure have to keep an eye on that Mortley gang. Mortley's crooked, even if he has got the confidence of the Continental officials. He had the nerve to try to bribe me to throw the race to their team in case we are near them at the finish."

"What did you say to him?" Hammond asked.

"I told him to go to hell."

Hammond and Dillon both smiled, then Jones continued.

"That ain't the worst of it, though. He found out you had leased Imperator, and he's taken the horse away from us. Workland's a hog for money, and Mortley offered him twice what you did and agreed to run the horse only the last lap of the race. Mortley boasted that he may not have to use Imperator at all, but he's willing to pay that money just to keep us from using the horse."

That news was a bitter disappointment to Dillon. He had reasoned that of his string only Sagamore, Speedaway and Imperator were capable of any great speed. Pathfinder might make a good showing, and he might not, while Patsy, while fast and game to the core, was, after all, only a cow-pony and hardly to be expected to more than hold his own against the Continental thoroughbreds.

Pathfinder and Speedaway arrived the day before the race was to begin, and Dillon began carrying out his plans. He sent Jones to Valley Falls with Patsy, a distance of fifty miles, and Pathfinder on to Topeka. He intended to start the race with Speedaway and hold Sagamore until the contest was well under way.

The starting time of the race had been set at seven o'clock the next morning, but Dillon was awakened long before that time by the ringing of his telephone. A voice over the wire told him that one of his horses had been injured, and he finished dressing as he ran to the stables where the horses were being kept.

He found several men gathered about one of his stalls when he arrived and learned that it was Speedaway the message had been about. The horse was limping from pain each time he stepped, and his right foreleg was badly swollen. Speedaway's rider, who had volunteered to sleep near the horse that night, exhibited a small piece of blood-stained piano-wire as he tried to explain.

"They must have got to Speedaway some time yesterday, because I rather thought he was favoring that foot a little when I exercised him last night. He woke me up by kicking his stall a little while ago, and when I examined his leg, I found this drawn tight around it, just under the fetlock. It had cut into the hide and caused the tendon to start swelling."

The anger that every lover of horses feels at seeing a noble animal injured--perhaps ruined for life--surged through Dillon as he examined Speedaway's leg. But he said nothing. The horse was out of the race for several days, he knew, but he realized the impossibility of finding the guilty person before the start of the contest. He found Sagamore uninjured, then called a veterinary to care for Speedaway and returned to his hotel to alter his plans.

Hammond was dismayed at the news of Speedaway's injury, and after breakfast, went to report the matter to the race officials. Dillon settled his account at the hotel, then returned to the stable and walked Sagamore to the open space surrounding a stone monument from which the race was to start.

Through the iron bars surrounding the memorial, Dillon read the inscription it bore: "Dedicated to the Pony Express, which started from this point April 3, 1860."

As Dillon dismounted in front of the railing Hammond came forward to meet him, carrying a small express pouch which bore a figure "3." This bag was to contain the registered parcel of express and would be passed from rider to rider of the Dell-Argo team, Hammond explained, and the figure would identify the team. Dillon, glancing at the other riders, noticed that each carried a similar pouch, though the bags bore different numbers.

"There's Mortley," Hammond remarked, indicating a sharp-faced, heavily-built man who had walked over to a slim sorrel horse. Dillon studied Mortley as the Continental team manager stood talking to the rider of the sorrel, and he decided that Jones' summary of Mortley had been correct. Mortley's face showed cunning and cruelty--the kind of a man who might injure a horse in order to win a race.

The contest had aroused nation-wide interest, and Sagamore, because of his great size and beauty, drew the attention of the crowd that had gathered to witness the start. The horse towered above the other animals waiting to enter the race, but his great body was evenly proportioned--the withers high and the muscles long and clean--hinting of the speed and endurance of which he was capable.

The mayor of the city and a grizzled old man, the latter once a Pony Express rider himself, had been selected as official starters of the race, and a hush fell upon the crowd as they arrived. The mayor climbed to the top of the monument, then called the express company officials and the riders closer as he made a short address, dealing with the history of the Pony Express and the significance of the occasion.

Outside the iron railing a clerk was seated at a table on which lay an open ledger, and in this, Dillon and the other riders wrote their names and the names of their horses. Then each rider was given a small, registered parcel, the horses were lined up before the railing, and at a signal from the old express rider, the race was on.

All five of the riders were experienced men, so there was no bolting of horses at the start. Instead, they cantered down the city streets to the outskirts, then picked up a bit more speed as they swung out upon the historic old trail. Realizing that Sagamore's great strength would probably be tested to the utmost before the race ended, Dillon held the big stallion back a trifle, though he could easily have taken the lead.

The great highway extends almost due west from St. Joseph for some distance, then dips gradually to the long bridge that spans the Missouri River. Sagamore's hoofs beat a lone rhythm as he followed the other horses across the bridge, then Dillon allowed him to lengthen his stride sufficiently to follow them closely. Near the outskirts of Atchison, the first change station, Dillon spoke to the big horse and let him speed up so as to reach the station on even terms with the other horses.

The other teams changed horses and riders at Atchison, but Dillon was to ride on through. He swung from the saddle to register his package and secure a drink for his horse, then resumed his ride. The rider of the Interstate team had been slow in getting away from the change station, and Dillon overtook him a few miles from the outskirts of the city.

A mile farther on Dillon and the Interstate rider came upon a bay gelding that had loosened a shoe and was striking his leg when he stepped. This horse belonged to the Overland team. The rider carried no tools, but Dillon did, and it required but a moment to remove the horse's front shoes. The bay, once the dangerous shoe had been removed, had good speed, and the three horses traveled together into Valley Falls, overtaking the National Express Company rider just before they reached the city limits.

Jones was waiting at the Valley Falls station with the game little roan and Dillon transferred the Dell-Argo package to him. Dillon stood watching a moment, as Jones, cowboy fashion, twisted in his saddle to wave, then he turned to Hammond, who had been waiting at the station.

"How's Speedaway?" he inquired, since Hammond had remained in St. Joseph for a short time after the start of the race.

"Out of the race, except perhaps at the very end. The tendon is badly swollen, but the veterinary hopes to have him in shape to run within three or four days. By the way, I had a talk with John Bristol, president of the Continental, before I left St. Joseph. He thinks we're mistaken about Mortley having anything to do with injuring Speedaway, but he assured me that he'll have the judges keep a close watch on Mortley the remainder of the race. He says that Mortley has spent a lot of company money and bet all the cash he could raise himself on the Continental team, but it's a certainty the company won't back him in any crookedness."

Hammond had arranged for an express car on the afternoon train, and after caring for his horse and hiring the city marshall to guard the car while he was away, Dillon and Hammond ate lunch at a nearby restaurant, then returned to the depot. The afternoon train took the car into Topeka on good time, and Dillon looked up Pathfinder's rider, a slim youth by the name of Montauk, to make arrangements for Pathfinder to run to Council Grove, a distance of three change stations.

It was late afternoon when the first horse, carrying an Interstate rider, raced up to the Topeka change station and registered his package. Jones came in second, smiling with satisfaction that his little roan had outgamed three faster horses. Pathfinder at once set out for Council Grove with the Dell-Argo package, and an hour later, Dillon and Jones, with their horses, were asleep in the speeding express car, resting while the opportunity offered.

Hammond had arranged accommodations for his riders and horses along the route, but Dillon ignored the hotels when he reached Council Grove. He had already experienced the underhand methods of Dan Mortley, so he finished his night's sleep on a cot in Sagamore's stall.

The riders were expected in Council Grove about eight o'clock the next morning, so Dillon took his time at breakfast. Then, making sure that Sagamore was ready, he walked the horse to the change station. Pathfinder was the third horse to arrive at the station, and after instructing Montauk about shipping his horse ahead, Dillon and Sagamore again took up the race.

The contest had developed into a steady grind by this time, each team fighting to gain and hold the lead. The National rider had led out of Council Grove--riding a trim iron-gray mare--but Mortley had now begun to use his faster horses. When Sagamore's steady gait enabled him to overtake one of the leading horses within the first ten miles, it proved to be the National mare.

Sagamore was running easily, his long, free lope clipping off the miles. It was twenty-six miles to Herrington, the next change station, and he allowed Sagamore to show a bit more speed in the last five miles. Even then, the Continental had already changed and sent its package on ahead when Dillon reached the station.

From Herrington the trail swings south to Marion, another stretch of twenty-six miles. South of Lincolnville, the halfway point, Sagamore caught up with the Continental rider. Realizing that this rider would not yield his place without a bitter race that might injure both horses, Dillon was content to ride into Marion on even terms.

Another Continental horse was waiting at the Marion station--this one a fine bay stallion that stood quivering with eagerness. Sagamore had already run fifty-two miles that day, but Dillon knew the great beast's power, so he clung steadily to the fast pace set by the bay. Mile after mile the two horses galloped down the dust-swept highway, then the bay began to weaken from the terrific pace and Dillon felt the elation of knowing that he led in the contest.

The shaggy little cow-horse was waiting with a thoroughbred racer of the Continental string when Dillon rode up to the station at Canton and transferred the registered parcel to his team-mate.

"Somebody tried to get into Patsy's stall last night," Jones said, patting a gun that swung on his hip. "I got a permit from the sheriff here and strapped on my old hardware. The man that tries to hurt my horse will be askin' St. Peter who won this race."

"Good," Dillon replied. "I'm packing a gun myself, and I'll use it before I'll let anyone cripple my horse."

From McPherson, across the wheat fields of Kansas, the lead alternated between the Continental and Dell-Argo teams. Patsy lost the lead in his lap of the race, but his rider turned the package over to Pathfinder on good time at Ellinwood. The lean bay horse surprised both Dillon and Hammond by leading the race into Garfield.

Sagamore made the run to Dodge City that night and still held the lead, but the faster horses of the Continental string forged ahead of Patsy the next day. At Garden City, Pathfinder had cut down the Continental lead to less than an hour. Dillon crowded Sagamore as much as he dared that day, but Mortley was changing horses every twenty-five miles, and he still retained the lead at Lamar, Colorado.

At La Junta, where Dillon had to wait for a change of trains, he received a telegram from Hammond, at Trinidad, that increased his confidence of winning. Speedaway had recovered from his injury and would arrive at Las Vegas that night. Dillon replied by wire, requesting Hammond to send Speedaway to the last change station at Glorieta, N. M., from where he could carry the package into Santa Fe. Dillon had wanted that honor for Sagamore, but he thought it better to let a fresh horse race against Imperator at the finish.

Jones brought the Dell-Argo package through Las Animas and La Junta and swung southward toward the New Mexico boundary, ending a long, hard ride at Timpas. Dillon was waiting with his big stallion at Trinidad when the telephone brought news that seemed to end the Dell-Argo chances of winning. Pathfinder had given out after leaving Hoehne, the first town north of Trinidad, and was coming in at a walk. The rules permitted a rider to go back to meet a crippled team-mate, so Dillon quickly saddled Sagamore and rode back.

Montauk was heart-broken that his horse had failed after making such a good showing earlier in the race, but Dillon blamed neither the horse nor his rider. Pathfinder's condition showed that he had simply collapsed. With a quick handshake that means much between good sportsmen. Dillon took the package and turned back toward Trinidad. He was an hour behind the Continental rider when he registered at Trinidad, but he was still determined to win if possible.

From Trinidad, the trail enters the mountains, and here Sagamore was at his best. Without urging and without holding back, Dillon let the big horse set his own pace. Power is what counts most when a horse is climbing steadily, and Sagamore's mighty chest was the main factor in the long climb to Raton Pass--the long passage through the crest of the mountains. About halfway through the Pass, Sagamore overtook and passed the Continental horse--a fine animal, but one unaccustomed to such travel.

Several airplanes had been following the running horses during the latter part of the race, and Dillon had learned that these planes were covering the race for newspaper associations and motion picture weeklies. Just outside Raton, Dillon heard the drone of an engine overhead and a shaft of light from an airplane caught and held the big horse and his rider for an instant. Dillon merely supposed this was one of the news planes, but he learned more of it when he arrived at the Raton change station.

"See anything of an airplane as you came in?" the station man inquired.

"Yes, just outside Raton. Why?"

"Nothing in particular, only Mortley, the manager of the Continental team, was seen talking to an aviator at Trinidad, and the judges have noticed that one plane follows the horses at night."

Dillon gave the airplane no further thought as he registered his package, and resumed his way. His principal worry was that Patsy, worn out from his long run of the preceding day, would be unable to hold his own against the Continental horses that day. He resolved to save the little roan every possible mile and let Sagamore gallop freely as he rode from Raton.

From Raton to Maxwell the highway passes no towns and few habitations. Mile after mile slipped by as the big horse, with the same gameness that had characterized the Pony Express carriers in bygone days, clung grimly to his pace. Past Maxwell and on to Springer, Dillon rode, turning the package over to Jones long after daylight had come.

Dillon had intended to relieve Patsy at Las Vegas that afternoon, but he changed his mind when he saw the condition of the little horse at Springer.

Hammond had chartered an engine to take their express car to Las Vegas at once, but as Dillon led Sagamore into the car, he said, "I guess I'd better stop at Watros. Patsy isn't much on speed, and he's about gone his limit at fast running. Speedaway will be waiting to finish at Glorieta, so I'd better relieve Jones as quickly as possible."

"But, good Lord, man, how about your own horse? He's carried the brunt of the race so far, and he's just finished running all night long."

"I know," Dillon replied, a touch of sentiment in his voice, "but that's our only chance. We must reach Glorieta on even terms or Imperator will nose out Speedaway in the final stretch."

As Dillon had predicted, Patsy lost time and the lead in the race during the fifty miles from Springer, though Dillon did not know of this until Hammond awakened him that afternoon. The airplanes and the telephone were keeping a close check on the race and reports were being sent ahead. At Colmor, Patsy had still retained the lead, but north of Nolan the Continental horse had passed him and a fresh horse starting at Wagon Mound had added to the gain.

Dillon, Hammond and a Continental rider were waiting at the Watros station when an airplane swept over the crest of a hill and landed in an open space near the change station. The pilot and a camera-man climbed from the plane and selected a position from which to film the arrival of the horses. Then a big black, with four white stockings, rounded a turn and raced up to the station.

Dillon gave a start as he recognized the horse. It was August Long's Conquest, one of the greatest racers on the American turf, and Dillon realized anew the limits to which Mortley had gone in order to win.

The waiting Continental rider, mounted on a well-built sorrel, was on his way almost as soon as Conquest's rider had touched the ground. Then came an agonizing wait for Dillon. He knew that Patsy could not be expected to cope with the speed of Conquest after what the little horse had already done, yet it hurt him to think that each leap of the sorrel was carrying the Continental package farther and farther ahead while the big, patient stallion could only wait.