Tales of the Express
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Finding the express car locked, he opened one of the doors with a coal pick which he found on the engine. The little iron safe was securely locked. Having removed all the explosives from the car, this experienced mountaineer quietly blew up the safe with a few sticks of dynamite, but there was no money in it. By the light of the engineer's torch he managed to read a letter that had been left there by the messenger, and which was addressed to the express agent.
As the explorer finished reading it he gave a low, soft whistle of surprise, not much above a whisper, for he was an undemonstrative man.
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From the car he returned to the engine, and with the clinker hook fished an old clay-stained ore sack out of the tank. When he had cached the sack in the bed of the river, he hurried away in the direction of the junction, urging his horse over the rough ground as though he were bent upon a new and important mission. There was great excitement when we arrived at the junction without the express messenger, who acted as postal clerk as well. When the local express agent learned that the messenger was not with the rescued party, that the conductor had been unable to find him, and that no one could remember having seen him since we stopped, and he was seen heading for the high land with his register pouch and some packages of express matter bearing red seals, he began to wire in all directions.
In a little while mounted men were dashing out toward the hills, so as to be ready to take the trail at dawn. It was plain enough, the agent argued, that the messenger had taken advantage of the circumstances, and cleared out with the wealth in his possession. A thousand dollars reward was offered for the capture of the messenger. A deputy Sheriff made up a posse of four, including himself, and put out for the scene of the robbery. They were among the first to leave town, and as they all knew the country, were soon upon the ground where the open and empty safe left little to be explained.
The safe, they argued, had been blown up by the messenger for a blind, but they would not be fooled. The messenger, it would seem, had remained in the vicinity of the washout until the train was abandoned, and then set out upon a long tramp through the trackless hills. He knew the packages that were most valuable, and with these he filled his pockets.
The gold he must leave, for the journey would be a tiresome one. The country, which was new to him, was extremely rough. At times he found himself at the bottom of a deep gorge, and again at the top of a steep bluff, and saw before him a black and apparently bottomless abyss.
There was no moon, but the friendly stars would guide him. Pike's Peak, standing high against the sky, showed him where the east was, while the Greenhorn range rose rough and abrupt to the west. But when he had been upon his journey less than an hour, a gray cloud hung like a heavy fog on the hills and shut out all the light from the heavens and obscured the earth.
Instead of waiting for the mists to clear away, he kept on going and was soon hopelessly lost, so far as any knowledge of the points of the compass was concerned. He might, for what he knew, be headed for the hills, or he might be walking in the direction of the junction and the State's prison.
At last, having reached what appeared to be the summit of a little hill, he sat down upon a huge rock to rest. As he sat there, he thought he heard a sound like that produced by horses stepping about on a stone floor. Presently the cloud rolled away, and although the valley below was still obscured, the stars were bright above and the crags of the main range, stood out clean cut against the western sky. Before him he saw Pike's Peak and knew that a little way below him, hid in the mist, lay the junction.
The Sheriff and his posse, lost in the fog, had halted in a small basin and were waiting for the clouds to clear away. The Sheriff insisted that he had heard a man cough, and now the little party were sitting their horses in silence, which was broken only by the nervous tramping of a broncho.
Until now he had been sitting bare headed, and that gave him the bunchy look of a bear, but when he stood up and clapped his bell-topped cap upon his head, the Sheriff recognized him in an instant. When the four men had swung their guns into position, the Sheriff commanded the messenger to throw up his hands.
Instead of obeying, the man turned as if he intended to bolt, and with the first move of his body, the four rifles cracked almost as one gun and the messenger went down. Throwing the bridle reins over the necks of the horses, the Sheriffs posse dismounted and hurried up the little hill, but when they reached the spot where the messenger had stood, there was no messenger nor sign of messenger.
Anticipating the rain of lead he had dropped behind the rocks, while the bullets passed over his head, and by the time the posse had reached the crest of the hill and recovered from their surprise, the messenger was far up the mountain hiding among the crags. The white cloud rolled down the mountain as the fleece rolls from a sheep that is shorn, and lay in a tumbled heap at the foot of the range. The gray dawn came out of the east and revealed the peaks that were hiding high up in heaven's blue. Upon either hand, before and behind him, the messenger, crouching in the crags, heard the clatter of steel-shod feet and knew that he was being surrounded.
The coming of dawn meant death. The whispering winds, hurrying away up the hill, reminded him of the approach of day. His only hope was in reaching a point beyond which the horsemen might not ride, and he hurried on up to the narrow gulch. At the exit his trail was blocked by one of the deputies, and immediately both men opened fire. Now for the first time, since it shot muzzle first into the river, the messenger thought of his rifle. He was by no means an expert with a six-shooter, but managed to hit the officer's horse with his first bullet, and at the same instant a slug of lead from a Winchester crashed through his left shoulder, leaving it shattered and useless.
The deputy's horse, having received his death wound, plunged wildly and made it impossible for its rider to take accurate aim. Dropping his rifle, the officer began to use his revolver, but a chance shot from the messenger's forty-five pierced his heart. Another plunge of the horse hurled him to the ground, his foot caught in the stirrup, and the messenger was horrified to see the crazed broncho bounding away, dragging his rider, head down, over the jagged rocks.
The maddened animal appeared to be blind with rage. He crashed through a low, broad cedar, and a moment later leaped over a precipice and went rolling down the splintered side of a deep gorge; and when the Sheriff and his companions came up the gulch they found where the horse and rider had fallen one mangled mass of torn and tattered flesh. Made desperate by this appalling sight, the three officers were soon hot upon the trail of the fugitive. Finding it impossible to run away from his pursuers, the messenger cached his treasure, took refuge among some sharp rocks, and awaited the coming of the enemy.
To his surprise only two men came out of the gulch; the other, having taken another route in order to head the fugitive off, was now far out of range. The officers had the advantage of being armed with rifles, and to hold this advantage fought at long range. The besieged, being sheltered by the rocks, was able to stand them off until both of his guns were empty, but the moment he ceased firing, the Sheriff and his deputy began to advance.
The messenger, weak from his wound, worked nervously with his one useful hand, and had barely succeeded in refilling one of his pistols when he was surprised by the sound of a gun almost directly behind him, and not ten feet away. He turned his revolver upon the newcomer, only to find that the man was aiming at the deputies. Without a word he turned again to the work in hand, and at the next crack of the stranger's pistol saw the left arm of the Sheriff fall limp at his side, while the Winchester it was levelling fell to the ground.
Following the fearless example of this man who had so unexpectedly reinforced him, the messenger came from shelter and began to advance upon his assailants. One of the horses was hit by a bullet and became almost unmanageable, so that the Sheriff, finding the brunt of the fight upon himself, and seeing that the messenger had a confederate, was about to retire, when a badly aimed shot from his companion shattered the ankle of the messenger, causing him to fall. In an instant he rose to his knees and began again to use his gun.
The Sheriff, glancing at his companion, saw that he had been hit in the head, for blood was streaming down his face. The battle had gone against them, and now the wounded Sheriff and his bleeding companion turned their horses and galloped away. The messenger sank to a sitting posture, laid his empty, smoking revolver upon the ground, and gazed at his new found friend. The dark man opened the messenger's shirt and he did it as deliberately as he had kicked the Ute from the Lone Spruce saloon , examined the shattered shoulder and then the broken ankle, and asked, "Is that all?
What a lot of farmers to go shootin' a man in the foot—guess they wanted you to dance. That top scratch was n't bad. Reckon you must have got that in the previous engagement, eh? The blood's begun to thicken up. I see that fellow's hoss go over the cliff; gee, he must have fell a mile. The dark man had risen after examining the messenger's wounds, and when the latter looked up his friend had his own shirt open and was squeezing at a little pink spot just under his right breast.
Can you bring it to me? There are five pieces. But I like you; there's good stuff in you, boy. But who are you, and how did you happen to be here? The dark man put two fingers to his lips, gave a shrill, wild whistle, and a beautiful horse—black as night—came leaping up from the gulch behind him. Now don't be a fool," and he stooped to lift the big messenger by his wounded leg. But the effort caused him to cough, blood spurted from his mouth, and both men, weak from their wounds, fell down in a heap, and then, leaning on their elbows, they looked at each other, the dark man with a cynical, the messenger with a sort of hysterical smile.
The black horse sniffed at his master and snorted at the smell of blood. The Warden's dark-eyed daughter was taking her regular morning ride in the foothills. There were no daily papers to spread the news of the place, and she had heard nothing of the washout of the previous day and of the flight of the messenger. Yesterday he had made her to feel herself the happiest woman in the world. She had gone to her bed happy, but had awakened in a dreadful dream, and had been unable to sleep from that hour until morning. Her heart was heavy within her breast.
She felt half inclined to be angry with her spirited horse, who was now cantering away with her toward the fresh green hills. At the edge of the valley she met three horsemen riding hard toward the town. Two of the men were wounded—one was bleeding—and she asked what was the matter.
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The men appeared not to want to stop, but when she had heard, in a confused way, something about the express messenger, she turned and rode by the side of the Sheriff until he had told her hurriedly all that had occurred. He made her understand that they had left the fugitive and his confederate at the top of the gulch from which they had just emerged, and that the "thief" was severely wounded.
In an hour the whole town will be after him. The dark-eyed woman reined her horse to a stop and stood looking after the deputies. It was some moments before she could realize the awfulness of what she had heard.
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The guards at the prison, those who could be spared—even her own father—would be upon his trail to kill him. It must not be. With a prayer upon her lips the bewildered woman turned her horse and dashed toward the hills.
From the valley the gulch showed plainly, but when she found herself among the rocks she became confused. The heavy growth of pinon and cedar obscured her view, and for nearly an hour she galloped up and down along the foot hills, unable to find the correct pass. Her horse was white with foam. Her veil had been torn away, and her face was bleeding from many wounds inflicted by the stiff branches of the spreading cedars.
At times she actually cried out to God to guide her to her lover, whom she believed to be innocent. At last she found the trail made by the Sheriff's posse as they came down the gulch, but a moment later her heart sank as she heard the rattle of horsemen behind her.
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Presently she came to the dead deputy and his horse, but the sight did not appall her. Nothing could stop her now. Even in the presence of these silent witnesses—the horse and rider slain by the messenger—she was able still to believe in his innocence. Such is the capacity of a woman's love. Now a new trouble confronted her. Any item with "FREE Shipping" label on the search and the product detail page is eligible and contributes to your free shipping order minimum. You can get the remaining amount to reach the Free shipping threshold by adding any eligible item to your cart.
When God thought 'peaceful', He thought of Union Crossing, a mining community nestled in the foothills of central Pennsylvania. The township was made up of God-fearing people, comprised mostly of mining families deeply rooted in the Catholic faith. Really nothing much in the way of crime ever. Really nothing much in the way of crime ever happened in the area; the last major event was about five years ago, when Mrs. Roberts in a compromising position with Mrs.
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Now things were different, a man of the cloth had been murdered. On his own, the killer would strike terror into the hearts of the entire brotherhood; his modus operandi was simple Then, with a hunter's instinct, patience, cunning, and precision make the kill. The killer's choice of weapon would be the crossbow! It was up to the killer to set the metes and bounds for the hunt.
*FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. TALES OF THE EXPRESS This true story begins in , at a small farm in New Hampshire. The main character is a. Tales of the Express [Ellen Wight] on www.farmersmarketmusic.com *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.
The territory would be huge, ranging from Pennsylvania to the Vatican. When Ralston and Spalding started their investigation, "The Hunter" was ahead on two counts; he knew the church and how to use the crossbow with deadly accuracy. We will send you an SMS containing a verification code.
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