II
Jack Calhoun, United States Ranger stationed at Hell Hole, in the Sunken Land region of Arkansas, dropped the boot he was polishing and gave entire attention to the telegraph instrument clicking on a table in his cabin. His call had been sounded.
“Headquarters. Wheeler sending,” came the message. “Train number two, J. L. C. and E., held up at east end trestle on Lake St. Francis, last night. Four men, possibly more. Express safe robbed. Mail looted, and messenger killed. Possible aids in identification: Leader a tall, spare man. Two others medium height. Fourth, who shot Brake, short, heavy-set, red hair. All masked. Escaped by boat. Bloodhounds followed trail to lake. Blair, of Craighead, and posse combing lake country north of railway. Lundsford, of Poinsette, and posse of ten just passed here in motor boats to search south. Advise not joining them, but go on your own. Communicate when possible.”
“Got it,” was Calhoun’s reply.
He resumed polishing the boot. The hour was two in the afternoon of the day succeeding the robbery, and the ranger was putting a bit of spare time to good use by burnishing his equipment. He was in no great hurry even now, and for a very good reason.
Wheeler had said that Sheriff Lundsford was on his was upriver with a big posse. Therefore Calhoun would wait until they had come and gone, before taking to the wilderness.
“I’ll find out where they are going, and then go an entirely different way,” he was thinking. “Wheeler needn’t advise me not to join the sheriff’s gang. Man-hunting in a motor boat!”
There was scorn in the ranger’s voice, and a look of disgust on his face. His contacts with the sheriff from Poinsette County had been of a character calculated to arouse just such feelings.
“Lundsford never played a solo hand in his whole term of office,” Cal soliloquized. “Always has to have his posse. I actually believe he brings his armed gang into the swamp for his own protection, more than for any other reason. A good enough office sheriff — but worse than useless on a trail. No, Wheeler need not have told me to lay off him and his gang!”
The surface of the boot now shone like new copper, and Calhoun laid it aside. From a locked cupboard he took a roll of stiff blue print paper; spreading it out on a table, he fastened the corners down with thumb tacks and sat down to consider it.
The thing before the ranger was a map of the Sunken Land Country. Not the official one, but a comprehensive, painstaking plat made by Cal himself. On that paper, carefully traced, was the record of the ranger’s explorations in the district. Every creek, slough, bayou, no matter how small and unimportant; every island, lake and donnick was there in its proper place. Distances were faithfully recorded. Little dots here and there showed the exact locations of the cabins of tire natives — and the name of the occupant appeared in tiny letters below each cabin. With the map, Calhoun had the country before him as it really was, and not as it was rather vaguely depicted upon official plats of the region. He had more than once found it of inestimable value.
The scene of the train robbers’ operations was sixty miles north of Hell Hole, at the head of Lake St. Francis, which was eighteen miles from end to end, and as many as four miles wide in some places. The ranger considered the lay of the land in and around that portion of the district.
“They would not go north,” he reflected. “Two good reasons for not doing so. One, that way lies civilization. Secondly, they’d have a current to buck, after leaving the lake, and consequently make slow progress. No. They’d likely follow the lake down, get into the current of the river as soon as possible, and take advantage of that in their get-away. Blair, of Craighead, is a good man and a fine officer — but he’s wasting his time in the territory north. Now, where would they be liable to leave the lake?”
He followed the outline of the big body of water closely, noting the many small streams leading from it to the interior.
“None of those would likely attract them,” was his conclusion. “They lead nowhere.”
Near the foot of the lake, Big Bayou takes off in a southeasterly course for some fifteen miles, then straightens out due east for five miles and finally angles northeast to Reed Lake. The ranger gave that course very close attention.
Following the line of the bayou, Calhoun’s glance wavered and stopped at a point where an arm of the larger stream takes off nearly south and joins Little Bear River. Little Bear has its origin in Swan Lake, and runs a fifty mile course straight to the Mississippi.
“I wouldn’t be surprised, now, if that is the route they’ll take. It’s the logical one. I can’t imagine four crooks with ten thousand dollars cash split up among them, lingering in the swamp any longer than they have to. Nothing to spend money for here. The old Murel Route, part of the once used underground system used in running slaves South, would naturally be known to them.
“A direct outlet to the Big River — and never a foot upon the ground. Once on the Mississippi, it would be easy to mingle with the roustabouts of a steamboat at a small village or woodyard, and get away north or south with little chance of detection. Moreover, Little Bear traverses a wilderness — cane-brakes, flags, river-grass line its shores. Plenty of cover in case of pursuit. At any rate, I’m going to proceed on the theory that they would seek that particular outlet — and try and grab them there.”
He returned the map to its cupboard, and began leisurely gathering his kit for the trip. He was in no hurry. The bandits would be somewhere west of the junction of Beaver Creek and Little Bear, and there was ample time for him to travel down the river to the point where it absorbed the creek, before they could possibly reach it. Lundsford out of the way, he would start.
Two hours later the put-put-put of a pair of motor boats announced the coming of the sheriff and his posse.
“Noise enough to wake a graveyard full of dead people,” Cal commented as he went to the landing to meet the party. “Must be a dozen men all told,” he estimated, as the two motor boats came to anchor.
“Well, Cal, I guess you’ve heard the news?” Lundsford called, stepping ashore. “Why ain’t you out in the timber?”
“I’ve heard the news, yes,” Calhoun replied. “And I’m getting ready to strike out. What are you holding — a convention of some kind?” he queried, eying the escort.
Lundsford flashed him a hard look.
“I’m out to get those train robbers — and get ’em right!” he exclaimed heatedly. “Stopped at Oak Donnick and consulted with Wheeler — invited him to send some of his men along. What you reckon he said?”
Calhoun shook his head. “Haven’t any idea what the chief said,” he replied, a glint of humor in his eyes. “There are so many things he might have, you know. Suppose you tell me.”
“He put out the same old stuff!” Lundsford declared. “ ‘One good man,’ he said, ‘is worth more than a dozen, in such a search. The dozen are, by reason of the noise and confusion of their number, foredoomed to failure. Calhoun is at Hell Hole, and he’ll take care of any bandits who come his way!’ That’s the line of talk he handed me!”
Calhoun grinned. “The chief isn’t very strong on the gab,” he told Lundsford. “Reckon he must have believed the way he talked, else he wouldn’t have so expressed himself.”
“Believe it!” the sheriff exploded. “Why, hell, the man is plumb rotten with confidence. Thinks he’s got an unbeatable organization, and while I’ll admit you boys are doing very well, nobody is unbeatable! Here’s something else he handed me. I says to him: ‘What could Cal do by himself, if he was to run smack onto the four?’
“ ‘In the first place, Cal isn’t going to run smack onto them,’ he replied. ‘He’s too careful for that. But if he locates them, he’ll bring ’em in — dead or alive. One good man, working on the side of the law, is more than a match for half a dozen crooks.’