They ran, stumbling, falling headlong. Men’s breath came pantingly; bruised shins were paid for in brief oaths. Each man sought to outdistance his fellows, to be first to add his weight to the tide of battle.
Down the last gully they charged, across the flat before the mills, over the tracks. Before them loomed the roundhouse, now bright with electric light. Before the big doors swayed and writhed a group of men. Other dark figures, two and two, quaintly intertwined, moved and struggled and smote like living silhouettes. Hoarse shouts arose; the thud of blows; the shuffling of feet came to Jim’s ears. Then he was in the midst of it.
Even with the addition of Jim’s reinforcements his party was outnumbered; but Moran’s men, under the shock and surprise of the charge, gave way, but only for an instant. Inside, Jim saw the engine, steam up, a man in the cab. They were getting ready to bring it out. Why? he asked himself, even as the sight of it was shut out and he was hemmed in by fighting men.
It was Jim’s first real fight. It came to him suddenly that he could fight, that he was worthy to stand side by side with these lumberjacks, to give blows where they gave blows, and he was glad.
Again he caught a brief glimpse of the interior of the roundhouse as a man before him went down under a blow from his fist. On the tender he saw Michael Moran—not fighting, but watching, directing. He saw a man break away from the melee and leap toward the engine, recognized Gilders. His teeth were bared, his hands empty. Jim struggled forward, shot another look, saw Moran, his face distorted with rage, raise a chunk of coal above his head and hurl it. Whether it found its mark or not Jim could not tell.
Jim’s men were holding their own. Though outnumbered, they were trained to battle of this sort, with inherited talent for it, against men not bred to fight with their hands. But Moran’s men fought, and fought well. Numbers made them even, if not superior.
It was apparent they had been told to guard the big door, for as best they could they remained solidly before it. They were not men to take the offensive on their own initiative, nor, Jim thought, would they assume it under orders unless the enemy were in actual retreat. It was a point to be taken advantage of. He wormed and wriggled out of the fight, marked the Dane who could drive an engine, and hauled him out, struggling. At random the two of them separated two others from the confusion.
“The engine,” Jim panted. “Side door. Come on!”
They scurried to a small door left unguarded, and plunged through. The engine was before them, Moran still on the tender. On the ground lay Gilders. Moran’s missile had flown true. The Dane with his companions stormed the cab. In an instant they had hurled down the engineer, hurled him so ungently that he did not rise. Jim dodged a lump of coal which Moran hurled, and himself threw a peavey handle which he had picked up somewhere in the fight. It caught Moran amidships so that he crumpled up on the coal, the breath knocked from his overnourished, undertrained body. Jim scrambled to his side, lifted him and dumped him off with scant regard for how or where he fell.
“Toot the whistle!” he yelled. “Back her out.”