Another blast came from the whistle. "By Jove, she's going to stop!" said Cullin. "What on earth's the meaning of that?"
With prodigious shriek and roar of steam, with clinching, crunching air-brakes on the glistening tires, with sparks flying from the whirring wheels and signal-lanterns swinging at the side, No. 4 came rushing in. As the baggage-car shot by, a little group of men stood by the doorway about a recumbent figure, and the conductor whisked up his lantern and started after it. When nearly opposite the caboose the big train settled to a stop. Four pairs of strong arms lifted the prostrate figure from one car to the other. There were brief, hurried words. A lantern waved; the whistle sounded two quick blasts; No. 4 slowly started, quickly gained speed, and, almost as quickly as it came, was steaming away for Buffalo Butte, its pale lamps gleaming dimly in the gathering light. The conductor came running forward.
"Pull out for Argenta, Ben!" he shouted. "Say, young feller, drop shovelling and come back. I've got nobody to help me, and here No. 4's loaded me with a half-dead man to be taken home. There's a row at the mines. Every man is out from Silver Shield!"
CHAPTER VI[ToC]
FIRST AID TO THE WOUNDED
Slowly, jerkily, the Time Freight began to gather headway as the big Mogul pulled, hissing loudly, from the siding to the main track, the ugly brown cars winding grudgingly after. This was before the days of mile-long freight-trains with air-brakes and patent couplers. Over the grades of the Transcontinental no engine yet had pulled more than twenty "empties." There was ever the danger of breaking in two. In the dim interior of the caboose the conductor, with Geordie Graham by his side, was bending over a battered and dishevelled form. As the rear trucks went clicking over the switch-points, the former sprang to the open doorway to see that his brakeman reset and locked the switch, and with a swift run overtook the caboose and swung himself aboard.
"I'll be up in a minute, Andy," cried Cullin to his aid, already scrambling up the iron ladder for his station on the roof. "This poor devil's battered into pulp and I can't leave him." And again he was by Graham's side—Graham who, kneeling now and sponging with cold water the bruised, hacked, disfigured face of the senseless victim, had made a startling discovery.