Rooster told me to get the horses. He ran down the hill on foot.
The bandits had left two of their number behind and we had forced the others to continue their flight on jaded ponies, but I thought we had little reason to congratulate ourselves. The bandits in the snow were dead men and could “tell no tales.” We had not identified Chaney among those who escaped. Was he with them? Were we really on his trail? Also, we found that Lucky Ned Pepper had made off with the greater part of the loot from the train robbery.
The thing might have fallen out more to our advantage had LaBoeuf not started the fight prematurely. But I cannot be sure. I think Lucky Ned Pepper had no intention of entering that dugout, or indeed of approaching it any closer, when he discovered the two stock thieves unaccountably missing. So our plan had miscarried in any case. Rooster was disposed to place all the blame on LaBoeuf.
When I reached the bottom of the hill with the horses he was cursing the Texan to his face. I am certain the two must have come to blows if LaBoeuf had not been distracted from a painful wound. A ball had struck his rifle stock and splinters of wood and lead had torn the soft flesh of his upper arm. He said he had not been able to see well from his position and was moving to a better place when he heard the three signal shots fired by Lucky Ned Pepper. He thought the fight was joined and he stood up from a crouch and threw a quick shot down at the man he had rightly sized up as the bandit chieftain.
Rooster called it a likely story and charged that LaBoeuf had fallen asleep and had started shooting from panic when the signal shots awakened him. I thought it was in LaBoeuf’s favor that his first shot had struck and killed Lucky Ned Pepper’s horse. If he had been shooting from panic would he have come so near to hitting the bandit chieftain with his first shot? On the other hand, he claimed to be an experienced officer and rifleman, and if he had been alert and had taken a deliberate shot would he not have hit his mark? Only LaBoeuf knew the truth of the matter. I grew impatient with their wrangling over the point. I think Rooster was angry because the play had been taken away from him and because Lucky Ned Pepper had beaten him once again.
The two officers made no move to give pursuit to the robber band and I suggested that we had better make such a move. Rooster said he knew where they were going to earth and he did not wish to risk riding into an ambush along the way. LaBoeuf made the point that our horses were fresh and theirs jaded. He said we could track them easily and overtake them in short order. But Rooster wanted to take the stolen horses and the dead bandits down to McAlester’s and establish a prior claim to any reward the M. K. & T. Railroad might offer. Scores of marshals and railroad detectives and informers would soon be in on the game, said he.
LaBoeuf was rubbing snow on the torn places of his arm to check the bleeding. He took off his neck cloth for use as a bandage but he could not manage it with one hand and I helped him.
Rooster watched me minister to the Texan’s arm and he said, “That is nothing to do with you. Go inside and make some coffee.”
I said, “This will not take long.”
He said, “Let it go and make the coffee.”
I said, “Why are you being so silly?”
He walked away and I finished binding up the arm. I heated up the sofky and picked the trash from it and boiled some coffee in the fireplace. LaBoeuf joined Rooster in the stock cave and they strung the six horses together with halters and a long manila rope and lashed the four dead bodies across their backs like sacks of corn. The dun horse belonging to Moon bolted and bared his teeth and would not permit his dead master to be placed on his back. A less sensitive horse was found to serve.
Rooster could not identify the man who had returned to rescue Lucky Ned Pepper. I say “man.” He was really only a boy, not much older than I. His mouth was open and I could not bear to look at him. The man Haze was old with a sallow wrinkled face. They had a hard time breaking the revolver free from his “death grip.”
The two officers found Haze’s horse in the woods nearby. He was not injured. Right behind the saddle the horse was carrying two tow-sacks, and in these sacks were about thirty-five watches, some ladies’ rings, some pistols and around six hundred dollars in notes and coin. Loot from the passengers of the Katy Flyer! While searching over the ground where the bandits had made their fight, LaBoeuf turned up some copper cartridge cases. He showed them to Rooster.
I said, “What are they?”
Rooster said, “This one is a forty-four rim-fire from a Henry rifle.”
Thus we had another clue. But we did not have Chaney. We had not even set eyes on him to know it. We took a hasty breakfast of the Indian hominy dish and departed the place.
It was only an hour’s ride to the Texas Road. We made quite a caravan. If you had chanced to be riding up the Texas Road on that bright December morning you would have met two red-eyed peace officers and a sleepy youth from near Dardanelle, Arkansas, riding south at a walk and leading seven horses. Had you looked closely you would have seen that four of those horses were draped over with the corpses of armed robbers and stock thieves. We did in fact meet several travelers and they marveled and wondered at our grisly cargo.
Some of them had already heard news of the train robbery. One man, an Indian, told us that the robbers had realized $17,000 in cash from the express car. Two men in a buggy told us their information put the figure at $70,000. A great difference!
The accounts did agree roughly on the circumstances of the robbery. Here is what happened. The bandits broke the switch lock at Wagoner’s Switch and forced the train onto a cattle siding. There they took the engineer and the fireman as hostages and threatened to kill them if the express clerk did not open the doors of his car. The clerk had spunk and refused to open the doors. The robbers killed the fireman. But the clerk still held fast. The robbers then blasted the door open with dynamite and the clerk was killed in the explosion. More dynamite was used to open the safe. While this was going on two bandits were walking through the coaches with cocked revolvers gathering up “booty” from the passengers. One man in a sleeping car protested the outrage and was assaulted and cut on the head with a pistol barrel. He was the only one they bothered except for the fireman and the express clerk. The bandits wore their hats low and had handkerchiefs tied over their faces but Lucky Ned Pepper was recognized by way of his small size and commanding manner. None of the others was identified. And that is how they robbed the Katy Flyer at Wagoner’s Switch.
The riding was easy on the Texas Road. It was broad and had a good packed surface as Rooster had described it. The sun was out and the snow melted fast under the warm and welcome rays of “Old Sol.”
As we rode along LaBoeuf commenced whistling tunes, perhaps to take his mind off his sore arm. Rooster said, “God damn a man that whistles!” It was the wrong thing to say if he wished it to stop. LaBoeuf then had to keep it up to show that he cared little for Rooster’s opinion. After a while he took a Jew’s harp from his pocket. He began to thump and twang upon it. He played fiddle tunes. He would announce, “Soldier’s Joy,” and play that. Then, “Johnny in the Low Ground,” and play that. Then, “The Eighth of January,” and play that. They all sounded pretty much like the same song. LaBoeuf said, “Is there anything you would particularly like to hear, Cogburn?” He was trying to get his “goat.” Rooster gave no answer. LaBoeuf then played a few minstrel tunes and put the peculiar instrument away.