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Under the escort of Walter, Harry, Alfred, and Drake, the cannon arrived in the afternoon, and, by their united efforts and the assistance of the Captain, was mounted before sundown on a heavy piece of timber in the Clear the Track's bow. By night the flags, ammunition, and many other necessaries for the morrow's undertaking were in order and readiness for service.
This I kept up for an hour, I think, when I caught a glimpse of one of the men from the tank going back, and thought likely they had both gone. The outlaws made just one more rally, and it was very well planned, and if I had not been expecting it it might, after all, have gone hard with the town of Track's End. All at once they began an uncommonly lively firing from under the depot platform.
Telling of how Pike and his Gang come and of what Kaiser and I do to get ready for them: together with the Way we meet them. Here, now, I must tell of how the outlaws came to Track's End, and of the fight we, that is to say, Pike and his gang on the one side and I, Judson Pitcher, on the other side, had that day.
They came, then, to Track's End to rob, and to murder if needs be, on Saturday, February 5th. My good luck consisted in this: The evening before, just as the sun was about to go down, I saw them at Mountain's from the windmill tower with Tom Carr's field-glass. I had gone up on purpose to have a look about, as I did two or three times every day when the weather was so I could see.
The women folks, having nobody to ask questions of, had nothing for it but to be quiet and use their ears. "Can't get on!" said another man, coming in "there's nothing but snow out o' doors track's all foul." A number of people instantly rushed out to see. "Can't get on any further to-night?" asked a quiet old gentleman of the news-bringer.
And Wynne had left the house by no means sober! "It looks as though he had come here after all!" broke out Tony West, excitedly. "Why the track's as plain as the nose on your face." They zig-zagged their tedious way out across the marshy grassland, their thin shoes squelching in the bogs, their trousers unmercifully spattered with the thick, treacley mud.
On the morning of that day week Tom Carr came over from the station and brought word that he had just got a telegram from headquarters saying that for the rest of the winter the train would run to Track's End but once a week, coming up Wednesday and going back Thursday. "Well, that settles it with me," said Harvey Tucker. "I shall go back with it the first Thursday it goes."
That strange Spire filled his memory still in spite of himself. Something of the Indian's awe communicated itself to him. But he thrust it from him and gazed out ahead again, searching the tracks they were following. "We'll find something, anyway," he said presently. "This track's not half a day old. There's folks beyond the rise. Say, maybe we can winter hereabouts, and work along the coast.
I suddenly thought of a way to spend the day, and in ten minutes I was at something which I did every Sunday while I stayed at Track's End. This was to write a letter to my mother, stamp and direct it, and drop it in the slot of the post-office door.
Once I said, when I told of how I found myself helpless at Bill Mountain's, that I thought Kaiser the best dog that ever lived; here I may say I know it. Though he got in my way and made me turn a few somersets in the dark, he may have saved Track's End from destruction.
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