The whistle screeched, and in that confined space its voice was the voice of many demons. The wheels began to turn.
“One man up here,” Jim ordered, and when the man came he set an example by lifting his voice in battle-cry, by hurling lumps of coal at the backs of the defenders.
They turned. Taken in the rear by a new enemy, menaced by a down-bearing locomotive, their morale departed, they scattered to each side, broke, some even turned in sudden flight. Jim’s lumberjacks did the rest.
The locomotive moved out on a clear track, backed to the switch where stood the empty trucks. It was Jim who coupled them to the engine.
“We’ve done the job here,” he said to the big Irishman who was his companion on the tender. “Collect the boys and load ’em on the trucks. We’re off for the woods. Maybe Bennett’s gang is chewing on more than it can swallow. Somebody see to Gilders inside there.”
A few moments more saw the little army perched precariously on the trucks. They were bruised, bleeding, clothing was in tatters, eyes were draped in black, clearings appeared where once had grown strong white teeth. But they were jubilant, for victory had been theirs. They celebrated it noisily.
Slowly, with great rattling and jangling, with song and cheer, they moved away from the roundhouse, out of the yard and out upon the narrow-gauge track which led back into the woods. Five miles of uncomfortable travel lay between them and Camp One, but its discomforts were not detectable by them. They had won. It had been a fight worth while, and they had won. Another fight lay before them perhaps. They hoped so.
Perhaps Jim Ashe did not know it, but he had tied these men to him with bonds of admiration. From this day they were his friends, would work for him, fight for him. He had fought shoulder to shoulder with them. His quick thought had turned the day in their favor. He was a man who dared, a man who stood on his two feet and wielded fist or peavey handle like a man—he was one of them.
“What’s the matter with Sudden Jim?” somebody yelled.
“He’s all right,” answered back a tumultuous shout, and Jim was more than pleased. He had been tendered an honor which he knew how to appreciate.