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Sarah Orne Jewett - "The Country of the Pointed Firs"

Arthur Conan Doyle - "Tales of Terror and Mystery"

Edgar Alfred Bowring - "The Poems of Goethe"

William Shakespeare - "Much Ado About Nothing"

The Octopus, by Frank Norris

F >> Frank Norris >> The Octopus, by Frank Norris




They went forward and had supper in the diner, while the long
train, now out upon the main line, settled itself to its pace,
the prolonged, even gallop that it would hold for the better part
of the week, spinning out the miles as a cotton spinner spins
thread.

It was already dark when Antioch was left behind. Abruptly the
sunset appeared to wheel in the sky and readjusted itself to the
right of the track behind Mount Diablo, here visible almost to
its base. The train had turned southward. Neroly was passed,
then Brentwood, then Byron. In the gathering dusk, mountains
began to build themselves up on either hand, far off, blocking
the horizon. The train shot forward, roaring. Between the
mountains the land lay level, cut up into farms, ranches. These
continually grew larger; growing wheat began to appear, billowing
in the wind of the train's passage. The mountains grew higher,
the land richer, and by the time the moon rose, the train was
well into the northernmost limits of the valley of the San
Joaquin.

Annixter had engaged an entire section, and after he and his wife
went to bed had the porter close the upper berth. Hilma sat up
in bed to say her prayers, both hands over her face, and then
kissing Annixter good-night, went to sleep with the directness of
a little child, holding his hand in both her own.

Annixter, who never could sleep on the train, dozed and tossed
and fretted for hours, consulting his watch and time-table
whenever there was a stop; twice he rose to get a drink of ice
water, and between whiles was forever sitting up in the narrow
berth, stretching himself and yawning, murmuring with uncertain
relevance:

"Oh, Lord! Oh-h-h LORD!"

There were some dozen other passengers in the car--a lady with
three children, a group of school-teachers, a couple of drummers,
a stout gentleman with whiskers, and a well-dressed young man in
a plaid travelling cap, whom Annixter had observed before supper
time reading Daudet's "Tartarin" in the French.

But by nine o'clock, all these people were in their berths.
Occasionally, above the rhythmic rumble of the wheels, Annixter
could hear one of the lady's children fidgeting and complaining.
The stout gentleman snored monotonously in two notes, one a
rasping bass, the other a prolonged treble. At intervals, a
brakeman or the passenger conductor pushed down the aisle,
between the curtains, his red and white lamp over his arm.
Looking out into the car Annixter saw in an end section where the
berths had not been made up, the porter, in his white duck coat,
dozing, his mouth wide open, his head on his shoulder.

The hours passed. Midnight came and went. Annixter, checking
off the stations, noted their passage of Modesto, Merced, and
Madeira. Then, after another broken nap, he lost count. He
wondered where they were. Had they reached Fresno yet? Raising
the window curtain, he made a shade with both hands on either
side of his face and looked out. The night was thick, dark,
clouded over. A fine rain was falling, leaving horizontal
streaks on the glass of the outside window. Only the faintest
grey blur indicated the sky. Everything else was impenetrable
blackness.

"I think sure we must have passed Fresno," he muttered. He
looked at his watch. It was about half-past three. "If we have
passed Fresno," he said to himself, "I'd better wake the little
girl pretty soon. She'll need about an hour to dress. Better
find out for sure."

He drew on his trousers and shoes, got into his coat, and stepped
out into the aisle. In the seat that had been occupied by the
porter, the Pullman conductor, his cash box and car-schedules
before him, was checking up his berths, a blue pencil behind his
ear.

"What's the next stop, Captain?" inquired Annixter, coming up.
"Have we reached Fresno yet?"

"Just passed it," the other responded, looking at Annixter over
his spectacles.

"What's the next stop?"

"Goshen. We will be there in about forty-five minutes."

"Fair black night, isn't it?"

"Black as a pocket. Let's see, you're the party in upper and
lower 9."

Annixter caught at the back of the nearest seat, just in time to
prevent a fall, and the conductor's cash box was shunted off the
surface of the plush seat and came clanking to the floor. The
Pintsch lights overhead vibrated with blinding rapidity in the
long, sliding jar that ran through the train from end to end, and
the momentum of its speed suddenly decreasing, all but pitched
the conductor from his seat. A hideous ear-splitting rasp made
itself heard from the clamped-down Westinghouse gear underneath,
and Annixter knew that the wheels had ceased to revolve and that
the train was sliding forward upon the motionless flanges.

"Hello, hello," he exclaimed, "what's all up now?"

"Emergency brakes," declared the conductor, catching up his cash
box and thrusting his papers and tickets into it. "Nothing much;
probably a cow on the track."

He disappeared, carrying his lantern with him.

But the other passengers, all but the stout gentleman, were
awake; heads were thrust from out the curtains, and Annixter,
hurrying back to Hilma, was assailed by all manner of questions.

"What was that?"

"Anything wrong?"

"What's up, anyways?"

Hilma was just waking as Annixter pushed the curtain aside.

"Oh, I was so frightened. What's the matter, dear?" she
exclaimed.

"I don't know," he answered. "Only the emergency brakes. Just a
cow on the track, I guess. Don't get scared. It isn't
anything."

But with a final shriek of the Westinghouse appliance, the train
came to a definite halt.

At once the silence was absolute. The ears, still numb with the
long-continued roar of wheels and clashing iron, at first refused
to register correctly the smaller noises of the surroundings.
Voices came from the other end of the car, strange and
unfamiliar, as though heard at a great distance across the water.
The stillness of the night outside was so profound that the rain,
dripping from the car roof upon the road-bed underneath, was as
distinct as the ticking of a clock.

"Well, we've sure stopped," observed one of the drummers.

"What is it?" asked Hilma again. "Are you sure there's nothing
wrong?"

"Sure," said Annixter.
Outside, underneath their window, they heard the sound of hurried
footsteps crushing into the clinkers by the side of the ties.
They passed on, and Annixter heard some one in the distance
shout:

"Yes, on the other side."

Then the door at the end of their car opened and a brakeman with
a red beard ran down the aisle and out upon the platform in
front. The forward door closed. Everything was quiet again. In
the stillness the fat gentleman's snores made themselves heard
once more.

The minutes passed; nothing stirred. There was no sound but the
dripping rain. The line of cars lay immobilised and inert under
the night. One of the drummers, having stepped outside on the
platform for a look around, returned, saying:

"There sure isn't any station anywheres about and no siding. Bet
you they have had an accident of some kind."

"Ask the porter."

"I did. He don't know."

"Maybe they stopped to take on wood or water, or something."

"Well, they wouldn't use the emergency brakes for that, would
they? Why, this train stopped almost in her own length. Pretty
near slung me out the berth. Those were the emergency brakes. I
heard some one say so."

From far out towards the front of the train, near the locomotive,
came the sharp, incisive report of a revolver; then two more
almost simultaneously; then, after a long interval, a fourth.

"Say, that's SHOOTING. By God, boys, they're shooting. Say,
this is a hold-up."

Instantly a white-hot excitement flared from end to end of the
car. Incredibly sinister, heard thus in the night, and in the
rain, mysterious, fearful, those four pistol shots started
confusion from out the sense of security like a frightened rabbit
hunted from her burrow. Wide-eyed, the passengers of the car
looked into each other's faces. It had come to them at last,
this, they had so often read about. Now they were to see the
real thing, now they were to face actuality, face this danger of
the night, leaping in from out the blackness of the roadside,
masked, armed, ready to kill. They were facing it now. They
were held up.

Hilma said nothing, only catching Annixter's hand, looking
squarely into his eyes.

"Steady, little girl," he said. "They can't hurt you. I won't
leave you. By the Lord," he suddenly exclaimed, his excitement
getting the better of him for a moment. "By the Lord, it's a
hold-up."

The school-teachers were in the aisle of the car, in night gown,
wrapper, and dressing sack, huddled together like sheep, holding
on to each other, looking to the men, silently appealing for
protection. Two of them were weeping, white to the lips.

"Oh, oh, oh, it's terrible. Oh, if they only won't hurt me."

But the lady with the children looked out from her berth, smiled
reassuringly, and said:

"I'm not a bit frightened. They won't do anything to us if we
keep quiet. I've my watch and jewelry all ready for them in my
little black bag, see?"

She exhibited it to the passengers. Her children were all awake.
They were quiet, looking about them with eager faces, interested
and amused at this surprise. In his berth, the fat gentleman
with whiskers snored profoundly.

"Say, I'm going out there," suddenly declared one of the
drummers, flourishing a pocket revolver.

His friend caught his arm.

"Don't make a fool of yourself, Max," he said.

"They won't come near us," observed the well-dressed young man;
"they are after the Wells-Fargo box and the registered mail. You
won't do any good out there."

But the other loudly protested. No; he was going out. He didn't
propose to be buncoed without a fight. He wasn't any coward.

"Well, you don't go, that's all," said his friend, angrily.
"There's women and children in this car. You ain't going to draw
the fire here."

"Well, that's to be thought of," said the other, allowing himself
to be pacified, but still holding his pistol.

"Don't let him open that window," cried Annixter sharply from his
place by Hilma's side, for the drummer had made as if to open the
sash in one of the sections that had not been made up.

"Sure, that's right," said the others. "Don't open any windows.
Keep your head in. You'll get us all shot if you aren't
careful."

However, the drummer had got the window up and had leaned out
before the others could interfere and draw him away.

"Say, by jove," he shouted, as he turned back to the car, "our
engine's gone. We're standing on a curve and you can see the end
of the train. She's gone, I tell you. Well, look for yourself."

In spite of their precautions, one after another, his friends
looked out. Sure enough, the train was without a locomotive.

"They've done it so we can't get away," vociferated the drummer
with the pistol. "Now, by jiminy-Christmas, they'll come through
the cars and stand us up. They'll be in here in a minute. LORD!
WHAT WAS THAT?"

From far away up the track, apparently some half-mile ahead of
the train, came the sound of a heavy explosion. The windows of
the car vibrated with it.

"Shooting again."

"That isn't shooting," exclaimed Annixter. "They've pulled the
express and mail car on ahead with the engine and now they are
dynamiting her open."

"That must be it. Yes, sure, that's just what they are doing."

The forward door of the car opened and closed and the school-
teachers shrieked and cowered. The drummer with the revolver
faced about, his eyes bulging. However, it was only the train
conductor, hatless, his lantern in his hand. He was soaked with
rain. He appeared in the aisle.

"Is there a doctor in this car?" he asked.

Promptly the passengers surrounded him, voluble with questions.
But he was in a bad temper.

"I don't know anything more than you," he shouted angrily. "It
was a hold-up. I guess you know that, don't you? Well, what
more do you want to know? I ain't got time to fool around. They
cut off our express car and have cracked it open, and they shot
one of our train crew, that's all, and I want a doctor."

"Did they shoot him--kill him, do you mean?"

"Is he hurt bad?"

"Did the men get away?"

"Oh, shut up, will you all?" exclaimed the conductor.

"What do I know? Is there a DOCTOR in this car, that's what I
want to know?"

The well-dressed young man stepped forward.

"I'm a doctor," he said.
"Well, come along then," returned the conductor, in a surly
voice, "and the passengers in this car," he added, turning back
at the door and nodding his head menacingly, "will go back to bed
and STAY there. It's all over and there's nothing to see."

He went out, followed by the young doctor.

Then ensued an interminable period of silence. The entire train
seemed deserted. Helpless, bereft of its engine, a huge,
decapitated monster it lay, half-way around a curve, rained upon,
abandoned.

There was more fear in this last condition of affairs, more
terror in the idea of this prolonged line of sleepers, with their
nickelled fittings, their plate glass, their upholstery,
vestibules, and the like, loaded down with people, lost and
forgotten in the night and the rain, than there had been when the
actual danger threatened.

What was to become of them now? Who was there to help them?
Their engine was gone; they were helpless. What next was to
happen?

Nobody came near the car. Even the porter had disappeared. The
wait seemed endless, and the persistent snoring of the whiskered
gentleman rasped the nerves like the scrape of a file.

"Well, how long are we going to stick here now?" began one of the
drummers. "Wonder if they hurt the engine with their dynamite?"

"Oh, I know they will come through the car and rob us," wailed
the school-teachers.

The lady with the little children went back to bed, and Annixter,
assured that the trouble was over, did likewise. But nobody
slept. From berth to berth came the sound of suppressed voices
talking it all over, formulating conjectures. Certain points
seemed to be settled upon, no one knew how, as indisputable. The
highwaymen had been four in number and had stopped the train by
pulling the bell cord. A brakeman had attempted to interfere and
had been shot. The robbers had been on the train all the way
from San Francisco. The drummer named Max remembered to have
seen four "suspicious-looking characters" in the smoking-car at
Lathrop, and had intended to speak to the conductor about them.
This drummer had been in a hold-up before, and told the story of
it over and over again.

At last, after what seemed to have been an hour's delay, and when
the dawn had already begun to show in the east, the locomotive
backed on to the train again with a reverberating jar that ran
from car to car. At the jolting, the school-teachers screamed in
chorus, and the whiskered gentleman stopped snoring and thrust
his head from his curtains, blinking at the Pintsch lights. It
appeared that he was an Englishman.

"I say," he asked of the drummer named Max, "I say, my friend,
what place is this?"

The others roared with derision.

"We were HELD UP, sir, that's what we were. We were held up and
you slept through it all. You missed the show of your life."

The gentleman fixed the group with a prolonged gaze. He said
never a word, but little by little he was convinced that the
drummers told the truth. All at once he grew wrathful, his face
purpling. He withdrew his head angrily, buttoning his curtains
together in a fury. The cause of his rage was inexplicable, but
they could hear him resettling himself upon his pillows with
exasperated movements of his head and shoulders. In a few
moments the deep bass and shrill treble of his snoring once more
sounded through the car.

At last the train got under way again, with useless warning
blasts of the engine's whistle. In a few moments it was tearing
away through the dawn at a wonderful speed, rocking around
curves, roaring across culverts, making up time.

And all the rest of that strange night the passengers, sitting up
in their unmade beds, in the swaying car, lighted by a strange
mingling of pallid dawn and trembling Pintsch lights, rushing at
break-neck speed through the misty rain, were oppressed by a
vision of figures of terror, far behind them in the night they
had left, masked, armed, galloping toward the mountains pistol in
hand, the booty bound to the saddle bow, galloping, galloping on,
sending a thrill of fear through all the country side.

The young doctor returned. He sat down in the smoking-room,
lighting a cigarette, and Annixter and the drummers pressed
around him to know the story of the whole affair.

"The man is dead," he declared, "the brakeman. He was shot
through the lungs twice. They think the fellow got away with
about five thousand in gold coin."

"The fellow? Wasn't there four of them?"

"No; only one. And say, let me tell you, he had his nerve with
him. It seems he was on the roof of the express car all the
time, and going as fast as we were, he jumped from the roof of
the car down on to the coal on the engine's tender, and crawled
over that and held up the men in the cab with his gun, took their
guns from 'em and made 'em stop the train. Even ordered 'em to
use the emergency gear, seems he knew all about it. Then he went
back and uncoupled the express car himself.

While he was doing this, a brakeman--you remember that brakeman
that came through here once or twice--had a red mustache."

"THAT chap?"
"Sure. Well, as soon as the train stopped, this brakeman guessed
something was wrong and ran up, saw the fellow cutting off the
express car and took a couple of shots at him, and the fireman
says the fellow didn't even take his hand off the coupling-pin;
just turned around as cool as how-do-you-do and NAILED the
brakeman right there. They weren't five feet apart when they
began shooting. The brakeman had come on him unexpected, had no
idea he was so close."

"And the express messenger, all this time?"

"Well, he did his best. Jumped out with his repeating shot-gun,
but the fellow had him covered before he could turn round. Held
him up and took his gun away from him. Say, you know I call that
nerve, just the same. One man standing up a whole train-load,
like that. Then, as soon as he'd cut the express car off, he
made the engineer run her up the track about half a mile to a
road crossing, WHERE HE HAD A HORSE TIED. What do you think of
that? Didn't he have it all figured out close? And when he got
there, he dynamited the safe and got the Wells-Fargo box. He
took five thousand in gold coin; the messenger says it was
railroad money that the company were sending down to Bakersfield
to pay off with. It was in a bag. He never touched the
registered mail, nor a whole wad of greenbacks that were in the
safe, but just took the coin, got on his horse, and lit out. The
engineer says he went to the east'ard."

"He got away, did he?"

"Yes, but they think they'll get him. He wore a kind of mask,
but the brakeman recognised him positively. We got his ante-
mortem statement. The brakeman said the fellow had a grudge
against the road. He was a discharged employee, and lives near
Bonneville."

"Dyke, by the Lord!" exclaimed Annixter.

"That's the name," said the young doctor.

When the train arrived at Bonneville, forty minutes behind time,
it landed Annixter and Hilma in the midst of the very thing they
most wished to avoid--an enormous crowd. The news that the
Overland had been held up thirty miles south of Fresno, a
brakeman killed and the safe looted, and that Dyke alone was
responsible for the night's work, had been wired on ahead from
Fowler, the train conductor throwing the despatch to the station
agent from the flying train.

Before the train had come to a standstill under the arched roof
of the Bonneville depot, it was all but taken by assault.
Annixter, with Hilma on his arm, had almost to fight his way out
of the car. The depot was black with people. S. Behrman was
there, Delaney, Cyrus Ruggles, the town marshal, the mayor.
Genslinger, his hat on the back of his head, ranged the train
from cab to rear-lights, note-book in hand, interviewing,
questioning, collecting facts for his extra. As Annixter
descended finally to the platform, the editor, alert as a black-
and-tan terrier, his thin, osseous hands quivering with
eagerness, his brown, dry face working with excitement, caught
his elbow.

"Can I have your version of the affair, Mr. Annixter?"

Annixter turned on him abruptly.

"Yes!" he exclaimed fiercely. "You and your gang drove Dyke from
his job because he wouldn't work for starvation wages. Then you
raised freight rates on him and robbed him of all he had. You
ruined him and drove him to fill himself up with Caraher's
whiskey. He's only taken back what you plundered him of, and now
you're going to hound him over the State, hunt him down like a
wild animal, and bring him to the gallows at San Quentin. That's
my version of the affair, Mister Genslinger, but it's worth your
subsidy from the P. and S. W. to print it."

There was a murmur of approval from the crowd that stood around,
and Genslinger, with an angry shrug of one shoulder, took himself
away.

At length, Annixter brought Hilma through the crowd to where
young Vacca was waiting with the team. However, they could not
at once start for the ranch, Annixter wishing to ask some
questions at the freight office about a final consignment of
chairs. It was nearly eleven o'clock before they could start
home. But to gain the Upper Road to Quien Sabe, it was necessary
to traverse all of Main Street, running through the heart of
Bonneville.

The entire town seemed to be upon the sidewalks. By now the rain
was over and the sun shining. The story of the hold-up--the work
of a man whom every one knew and liked--was in every mouth. How
had Dyke come to do it? Who would have believed it of him?
Think of his poor mother and the little tad. Well, after all, he
was not so much to blame; the railroad people had brought it on
themselves. But he had shot a man to death. Ah, that was a
serious business. Good-natured, big, broad-shouldered, jovial
Dyke, the man they knew, with whom they had shaken hands only
yesterday, yes, and drank with him. He had shot a man, killed
him, had stood there in the dark and in the rain while they were
asleep in their beds, and had killed a man. Now where was he?
Instinctively eyes were turned eastward, over the tops of the
houses, or down vistas of side streets to where the foot-hills of
the mountains rose dim and vast over the edge of the valley. He
was in amongst them; somewhere, in all that pile of blue crests
and purple canyons he was hidden away. Now for weeks of
searching, false alarms, clews, trailings, watchings, all the
thrill and heart-bursting excitement of a man-hunt. Would he get
away? Hardly a man on the sidewalks of the town that day who did
not hope for it.

As Annixter's team trotted through the central portion of the
town, young Vacca pointed to a denser and larger crowd around the
rear entrance of the City Hall. Fully twenty saddle horses were
tied to the iron rail underneath the scant, half-grown trees near
by, and as Annixter and Hilma drove by, the crowd parted and a
dozen men with revolvers on their hips pushed their way to the
curbstone, and, mounting their horses, rode away at a gallop.

"It's the posse," said young Vacca.

Outside the town limits the ground was level. There was nothing
to obstruct the view, and to the north, in the direction of
Osterman's ranch, Vacca made out another party of horsemen,
galloping eastward, and beyond these still another.

"There're the other posses," he announced. "That further one is
Archie Moore's. He's the sheriff. He came down from Visalia on
a special engine this morning."

When the team turned into the driveway to the ranch house, Hilma
uttered a little cry, clasping her hands joyfully. The house was
one glitter of new white paint, the driveway had been freshly
gravelled, the flower-beds replenished. Mrs. Vacca and her
daughter, who had been busy putting on the finishing touches,
came to the door to welcome them.

"What's this case here?" asked Annixter, when, after helping his
wife from the carry-all, his eye fell upon a wooden box of some
three by five feet that stood on the porch and bore the red
Wells-Fargo label.

"It came here last night, addressed to you, sir," exclaimed Mrs.
Vacca. "We were sure it wasn't any of your furniture, so we
didn't open it."

"Oh, maybe it's a wedding present," exclaimed Hilma, her eyes
sparkling.

"Well, maybe it is," returned her husband. "Here, m' son, help
me in with this."

Annixter and young Vacca bore the case into the sitting-room of
the house, and Annixter, hammer in hand, attacked it vigorously.
Vacca discreetly withdrew on signal from his mother, closing the
door after him. Annixter and his wife were left alone.

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