The fireman scrambled to his feet and ran forward, expecting to find his engineman hurt or killed. What was his surprise to behold Baggs, uninjured, on his feet and releasing the safety-valve of his fallen locomotive to prevent an explosion. The engine lay on its side. The crash of the breaking timbers, followed by a deafening blast of escaping steam, startled Bucks and, with Bob Scott, he ran out of the station. As he saw the spectacle in the river, he caught his breath. He lived to see other wrecks––some appalling ones––but this was his first, and the shock of seeing Dan Baggs’s engine lying prone in the river, trumpeting forth a cloud of steam, instead of thundering across the bridge as he normally saw it every day, was an extraordinary one.
Filled with alarm, he ran toward the bridge expecting that the worst had happened to the engineman and fireman. But his amazement grew rather than lessened when he saw Delaroo and Baggs running for their lives toward him. He awaited them uneasily.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Bucks, as 166 Baggs, well in the lead, came within hailing distance.
“Matter!” panted Baggs, not slackening his pace. “Matter! Look at my engine! Indians!”
“Indians, your grandmother!” retorted Bob Scott mildly. “There’s not an Indian within forty miles––what’s the matter with you?”
“They wrecked us, Bob,” declared Baggs, pointing to his roaring engine; “see for yourself, man. Them cotton-woods are full of Indians right now.”
“Full of rabbits!” snorted Bob Scott. “You wrecked yourself by running too fast.”
“Delaroo,” demanded Dan Baggs, pointing dramatically at his taciturn fireman, who had now overtaken him, “how fast was I running?”
Peter Delaroo, an Indian half-blood himself, returned a disconcerting answer. “As fast as you could, I reckon.” He understood at once that Baggs had raised a false alarm to protect himself from blame for the accident, and resented being called upon to support an absurd story.
Baggs stood his ground. “If you don’t find an 167 Indian has done this,” he asserted, addressing Bob Scott with indignation, “you can have my pay check.”