The Gentleman from Indiana - Page 97/212

The men on the embankment were walking slowly, bending far over, their

eyes fixed on the ground. Suddenly one of them stood erect and tossed his

arms in the air and shouted loudly. Other men ran to him, and another far

down the track repeated the shout and the gesture to another far in his

rear; this man took it up, and shouted and waved to a fourth man, and so

they passed the signal back to town. There came, almost immediately three

long, loud whistles from a mill near the station, and the embankment grew

black with people pouring out from town, while the searchers came running

from the fields and woods and underbrush on both sides of the railway.

Briscoe paused for the last time; then he began to walk slowly toward the

embankment.

The track lay level and straight, not dimming in the middle distances, the

rails converging to points, both northwest and southeast, in the clean-

washed air, like examples of perspective in a child's drawing-book. About

seventy miles to the west and north lay Rouen; and, in the same direction,

nearly six miles from where the signal was given, the track was crossed by

a road leading directly south to Six-Cross-Roads.

The embankment had been newly ballasted with sand. What had been

discovered was a broad brown stain on the south slope near the top. There

were smaller stains above and below; none beyond it to left or right; and

there were deep boot-prints in the sand. Men were examining the place

excitedly, talking and gesticulating. It was Lige Willetts who had found

it. His horse was tethered to a fence near by, at the end of a lane

through a cornfield. Jared Wiley, the deputy, was talking to a group near

the stain, explaining.

"You see them two must have knowed about the one-o'clock freight, and that

it was to stop here to take on the empty lumber cars. I don't know how

they knowed it, but they did. It was this way: when they dropped from the

window, they beat through the storm, straight for this side-track. At the

same time Mr. Harkless leaves Briscoes' goin' west. It begins to rain. He

cuts across to the railroad to have a sure footing, and strikin' for the

deepo for shelter--near place as any except Briscoes' where he'd said

good-night already and prob'ly don't wish to go back, 'fear of givin'

trouble or keepin' 'em up--anybody can understand that. He comes along,

and gets to where we are precisely at the time they do, them comin' from

town, him strikin' for it. They run right into each other. That's what

happened. They re-cog-nized him and raised up on him and let him have

it. What they done it with, I don't know; we took everything in that line

off of 'em; prob'ly used railroad iron; and what they done with him

afterwards we don't know; but we will by night. They'll sweat it out of

'em up at Rouen when they get 'em."