Two Ambushes

: The Highgrader

The clock at the new Verinder Building showed ten minutes past eleven as

Jack Kilmeny took the Utah Junction road out of Goldbanks with his

loaded ore wagon. It was a night of scudding clouds, through which

gleamed occasionally a fugitive moon. The mountain road was steep and

narrow, but both the driver and the mules were used to its every turn

and curve. In early days the highgrader had driven a stage along it many

a
ight when he could not have seen the ears of the bronchos.



His destination was the Jack Pot, a mine three miles from town, where

intermittently for months he had been raising worthless rock in the hope

of striking the extension of the Mollie Gibson vein. It was not quite

true, as Bleyer had intimated, that his lease was merely a blind to

cover ore thefts, though undoubtedly he used it for that purpose

incidentally.



Bleyer had guessed shrewdly that Kilmeny would drive out to the Jack

Pot, put up in the deserted bunk-house till morning, and then haul the

ore down to the junction to ship to the smelter on the presumption that

it had been taken from the leased property. This was exactly what Jack

had intended to do. Apparently his purpose was unchanged. He wound

steadily up the hill trail, keeping the animals at a steady pull, except

for breathing spells. The miner had been a mule skinner in his time,

just as he had tried his hand at a dozen other occupations. In the still

night the crack of his whip sounded clear as a shot when it hissed above

the flanks of the leaders without touching them.



He ran into the expected ambush a half mile from the mine, at a point

where the road dipped down a wooded slope to a sandy wash.



"Hands up!" ordered a sharp voice.



A horseman loomed up in the darkness beside the wagon. A second appeared

from the brush. Other figures emerged dimly from the void.



Jack gave his mules the whip and the heavy wagon plowed into the deep

sand. Before the wheels had made two revolutions the leaders were

stopped. Other men swarmed up the side of the wagon, dragged the driver

from his seat, and flung him to the ground.



Even though his face was buried in the sand and two men were spread over

his body, the captive was enjoying himself.



"This is no way to treat a man's anatomy--most unladylike conduct I ever

saw," he protested.



He was sharply advised to shut up.



After the pressure on his neck was a little relieved, Jack twisted round

enough to see that his captors were all masked.



"What is this game, boys--a hold-up?" he asked.



"Yes. A hold-up of a hold-up," answered one.



Three of the men busied themselves moving the ore sacks from his wagon

to another that had been driven out of the brush. A fourth, whom he

judged to be Bleyer, was directing operations, while the fifth menaced

him with a revolver shoved against the small of his back.



The situation would have been a serious one--if it had not happened to

be amusing instead. Kilmeny wanted to laugh at the bustling energy of

the men, but restrained himself out of respect for what was expected of

him.



"I'll have the law on you fellows," he threatened, living up to the

situation. "You'd look fine behind the bars, Bleyer."



"All those sacks transferred yet, Tim?" barked the superintendent.



"Yep."



"Good. Hit the trail."



The wagon passed out of the draw toward Goldbanks. For some minutes the

sound of the wheels grinding against the disintegrated granite of the

roadbed came back to Jack and the two guards who remained with him.



"Hope this will be a lesson to you," said the superintendent presently.

"Better take warning. Next time you'll go to the pen sure."



"Wait till I get you into court, Bleyer."



"What'll you do there?" jeered the other man. "You'd have a heluvatime

swearing to him and making it stick. You're sewed up tight this time,

Jack."



"Am I? Bet you a new hat that by this time to-morrow night you fellows

won't be cracking your lips laughing."



"Take you. Just order the hat left at Goldstein's for the man who calls

for it."



For an hour by the superintendent's watch Kilmeny was held under guard.

Then, after warning the highgrader not to return to town before

daybreak, the two men mounted and rode swiftly away. Jack was alone with

his mules and his empty wagon.



He restrained himself no longer. Mirth pealed in rich laughter from his

throat, doubled him up, shook him until he had to hang on to a wagon

wheel for support. At last he wiped tears from his eyes, climbed into

the wagon, and continued on the way to the Jack Pot. At intervals his

whoop of gayety rang out boyishly on the night breeze. Again he whistled

cheerfully. He was in the best of humor with himself and the world. For

he had played a pretty good joke on Bleyer and Verinder, one they would

appreciate at its full within a day or two. He would have given a good

deal to be present when they made a certain discovery. Would Moya smile

when Verinder told her how the tables had been turned? Or would she

think it merely another instance of his depravity?



The road wound up and down over scarred hillsides and through gorges

which cut into the range like sword clefts. From one of these it crept

up a stiff slope toward the Jack Pot. One hundred and fifty yards from

the mine Jack drew up to give the mules a rest.



His lips framed themselves to whistle the first bars of a popular song,

but the sound died stillborn. Sharply through the clear night air rang a

rifle shot.



Jack did not hear it. A bolt of jagged lightning seared through his

brain. The limp hands of the driver fell away from the reins and he fell

to the ground, crumpling as a dry leaf that is crushed in the palm.



From the shadow of the bunk-house two men stole into the moonlight

heavily like awkward beasts of prey. They crept stealthily forward,

rifles in hand, never once lifting their eyes from the huddled mass

beside the wagon.



The first looked stolidly down upon the white face and kicked the body

with his heavy boot.



"By Goad, Dave, us be quits wi' Jack Kilmeny."



The other--it was Peale, the Cornish miner--had stepped on a spoke of

the wheel and pulled himself up so that he could look down into the bed

of the wagon. Now he broke out with an oath.



"The wagon's empty."



"What!" Trefoyle straightened instantly, then ran to see for himself.

For a moment he could not speak for the rage that surged up in him. "The

dommed robber has made fool of us'n," he cried savagely.



In their fury they were like barbarians, cursing impotently the man

lying with a white face shining in the moonlight. They had expected to

pay a debt of vengeance and to win a fortune at the same stroke. The

latter they had missed. The disappointment of their loss stripped them

to stark primeval savagery. It was some time before they could exult in

their revenge.



"He'll interfere wi' us no more--not this side o' hell anyway," Peale

cried.



"Not he. An' we'll put him in a fine grave where he'll lie safe."



They threw the body into the wagon and climbed to the seat. Peale drove

along an unused road that deflected from the one running to the Jack

Pot.



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