There was acclamation, and the assembly would have dispersed peaceably but that just as we went out Hemlock Jim, who had gathered the disaffected round him, said to Johnston:
“I’m glad to see the last of you. Now sail out into perdition, and take your shameless woman with you. But—I’m not particular—she’s got to pay tribute first.”
He grasped the trembling girl’s shoulder, dragged back the ample bonnet, but the next moment I had him by the throat, and he went reeling sideways among his comrades. Then, as by a signal the tumult began, for with a crash of splintered glass the nearest lamp went out, and a rush was made upon us. Something struck me heavily on the head; I saw Johnston stagger under a heavy blow; but I held myself before the girl as we were hustled through the doorway, and when a pistol-barrel glinted one of the railroad men whirled aloft an axe. We were outside now, but the pistol blazed before the blade came down, and a man beside me caught at a veranda pillar with a cry just as the door banged to.
“It’s Pete of the shovel gang!” somebody said. “It was Hemlock Jim who shot him. Where’s the man with the axe to chop one of these pillars for a battering-ram? Roll round here, railroad builders!”
A roar of angry voices broke out, and it was evident that popular sympathy was on the reformers’ side, while my blood was up. Pete of the shovel gang, a quiet, inoffensive man, 147 sat limply on the veranda, with the blood trickling from his shoulder, and there was the insult to the girl to be avenged; while, if more were needed, somebody hurled opprobrious epithets at us from an upper window. I wrenched the axe from its owner—and he resisted stubbornly—whirled it round my shoulder, and there was another roar when after a shower of splinters the stout post yielded. It was torn loose from the rafters, swung backward by sinewy arms, and driven crashing against the saloon door, one panel of which went in before it. Twice again, while another pistol-shot rang out, we plied the ram, and then followed it pell-mell across the threshold, where we went down in a heap amid the wreckage of the door, though I had sense enough left to remove Hemlock’s smoking revolver which lay close by, just where he had dropped it on the floor. He evidently had not expected this kind of attack and suffered for his ignorance. We could not see him, but a breathless voice implored somebody to “Give them blame deadbeats socks!” and there was evidently need for prompt action, because the rest of our opponents had entrenched themselves behind the bar, which was freely strengthened by chairs and tables; also, as we picked ourselves up, an invisible man behind the barricade called out in warning:
“Stop right there. Two of us have guns!”
“Will you come out, and give up Hemlock Jim?” asked Johnston, while half a dozen men who had found strangely assorted weapons gathered alert and eager behind him, a little in advance of the rest, and Lee panted among them with the blood running down his face.
“If you want him you’ve got to lick us first!” was the answer. “We don’t back down on a partner. But I guess he’s hardly worth the trouble, for he’s looking very sick—your blank battering-ram took him in the stummick.”
“One minute in which to change your mind!” said Johnston, 148 holding up his watch. “Bring along that log, boys, and get her on the swing;” and tightening my grip on the axe I watched the heavy beam oscillate as our partner called off the last few seconds.
“Fifty-four! fifty-five! fifty-six!—”