“Too much gone,” shouted Ong. “Omaha!”
“Lee! Stop! Where are you going?”
Lee stopped only long enough to throw his right arm and forefinger with an excited gesture toward the west.
“San Francisco, San Francisco!” he cried.
“Why, Lee,” exclaimed Bucks running after him, “hold on! You are crazy! San Francisco is fifteen hundred miles from here.” This information did not visibly move Ong. “Indian no good,” he cried, pausing, but only long enough to wave both hands wildly toward the sand-hills. “San Francisco good. No some more cook here. Indian come too quick”––Ong with his active finger girdled the crown of his head in a lightning-like imitation of a scalping knife––“psst! No good for Ong!”
It would have seemed funny to Bucks if he had not been already frightened himself. But if the section men had fled with the hand-car it meant he would have to face the Indians. Lee Ong, running like mad, was already out of hearing, and in any event Bucks had no wish to imperil the poor China boy’s scalp with his own.
He turned an anxious eye toward the sand-hills. Then realizing that on the platform he was exposing himself needlessly, he hastened inside to his key and called up Medicine Bend. It was only a moment, but it seemed to the frightened operator a lifetime before the despatcher answered. Bucks reported the Indians and asked if there were any freight trains coming that he could make his escape on.
The despatcher answered that No. 11, the local freight, was then due at Goose Creek and would pick him up and carry him to Julesburg if he felt in danger. Bucks turned with relief to the east window and saw down the valley the smoke of the freight already in sight. Never had a freight train looked so good to his eyes as it did at that moment. He hailed its appearance with a shout and looked apprehensively back toward the sand-hills.