“Stop dat! Queek! I shoot! I shoot!” cried the voice of Big Tony, immediately below him. Again for a moment Alex quailed, then again went bravely on, while the old semaphore rocked and swayed as the enraged Italian threw himself at it and scrambled up toward him.
“GOING TO RUN—”
With a plunge the big trackman reached up and caught him by the ankle, wrenched him back from the lantern, and clambered up beside him. Catching the light off the semaphore arm, he thrust it into the boy’s face. “O ho!” he exclaimed. “So it you, da station-man boy, eh? An’ you da one whata help Hennessy get away, eh?
“An’ whata now you do wid dis?” he demanded fiercely, indicating the lantern.
“If you can’t guess, I’m not going to tell you,” declared Alex stoutly, though his heart was in his throat.
“O ho! You wonta, eh? Alla right,” said Tony softly through his teeth, and in a grim silence more terrifying than the threat of his words, he blew the lantern out, tossed it to the ground, and proceeding to clamber down, grasped Alex by the leg and dragged him down after.
But help was at hand. As they reached the ground a second tall figure loomed up suddenly out of the darkness. “Who dat?” demanded Big Tony. The answer was a rush, and a blow, and with a throttled cry of terror the big track worker went to the ground in a heap, the foreman on top of him.
Alex uttered a cry of joy, then with quick wit, while the two men engaged in a terrific struggle, he darted in search of the lantern, found it, fortunately unbroken, and in a trice was again running up the semaphore ladder.
As he once more reached his post on the platform the big Italian succeeded in breaking from the foreman, scrambled to his feet, and dashed off across the brick-yard. “Come down, Alex. It’s all over,” called Hennessy, gathering himself up. “And now we’ve got to hike right off, a mile a minute, for the main-line if we are to stop that train. They ran me so far I only just got back. Unless Twenty’s late we—”
“I am trying to stop her from up here,” interrupted Alex, relighting the lantern.