But the short cut to the office was up the slope of the dump and along the railway track over which the drawings of molten slag were run out to be spilled down the face of the declivity. There had been no slag-drawing since the new "blow-in" earlier in the day; but while he was watching to keep Farley in sight in the intervals between the gas-flares, Gordon was conscious of the note of preparation behind him: the slackening of the blast, the rattle and clank of the dinkey locomotive pushing the dumping ladle into place under the furnace lip.
Farley had taken two or three scrambling steps up the rough-seamed declivity when the workmen tapped the furnace. There was a sputtering roar and the air was filled with coruscating sparks.
Then the stream of molten matter began to pour into the great ladle, a huge eight-foot pot swung on tilting trunnions and mounted on a skeleton flat-car; and for Gordon, standing at the corner of the ore shed with his back to the slag drawers, the red glow picked out the man scrambling up the miniature mountain of cooled scoria,—this man and another man running swiftly to overtake him.
He looked on coldly until he saw Kincaid head off the retreat and face his adversary. Instantly there was a spurt of fire from a pistol in Farley's right hand, a brief flash with the report swallowed up in the roar from the furnace lip. Then the two men closed and rolled together to the bottom of the slope, and Gordon turned his back.
When he looked again the trampling note of the big blast-engines had quickened to its normal beat, the blow-hole was plugged with its stopper of damp clay, and a red twilight born of the reflection from the surface of the great pot of seething slag had succeeded to the blinding glare. Where there had been two men locked in struggle there was now only one, and he was lying quietly with one leg doubled under him. Gordon set his teeth on an angry oath of disappointment. Had Kincaid broken his compact?
The first long-drawn exhaust of the dinkey engine moving the slag kettle out to its spilling place ripped the silence. Gordon heard—and he did not hear: he was watching the prone figure at the dump's toe. When it should rise, he meant to fire from where he stood under the eaves of the ore-shed. The murder-thought contemplated nothing picturesque or dramatic. It was merely the dry thirst for the blood of a mortal enemy, as it is wont to be off the stage or out of the pages of the romancers.
The puffing locomotive had pushed the slag-pot car half-way to the track-end before Farley sat up as one dazed and seemed to be trying to get on his feet. Twice and once again he essayed it, falling back each time upon the bent and doubled leg. Then he looked up and saw the slag-car coming; saw and cried out as men scream in the death agony. The end rails of the dumping track were fairly above him.
Gordon heard the yell of terror and witnessed the frenzied efforts of the doomed man to rise and get out of the path of the impending torrent. Whereupon the murder devil whispered in his ear again. Farley's foot was caught in one of the many scars or seams in the lava bed. It was only necessary to wait, to withhold the merciful bullet, to go away and leave the wretched man to his fate.
That fate was certain, lacking a miracle to avert it. There were no workmen in that part of the yard; and the two men in charge of the slag kettle were on the opposite side of the engine where the dumping mechanism was connected. Farley was screaming again, but now the safety-valve of the locomotive was blowing off steam with a din to drown all.
Gordon tossed the gun aside and turned away. It was better so. Possibly at the climaxing instant he might have lacked the firmness to aim and press the trigger. This was simpler, easier, more in keeping with Vincent Farley's deserts; more satisfying to the thirst for vengeance.