"Take care!" warned Geoffrey, straightening himself and thrusting one big hand behind his back. "It is desperately hard for me to keep my fingers off you now, but if you say another word against Mrs. Leslie, look to yourself. Shackleby, you have heard him; now for the woman's sake listen to me. I have never wronged your wife by thought or word, Leslie, and the greatest indiscretion she was ever guilty of was marrying you."
"You have hidden her!" almost screamed the desperate man. "I'll have satisfaction one way if you're too strong for me another. Liar, traitor, sed——"
Geoffrey strode forward before the last word was completed, Leslie flung up one hand, but Shackleby struck it aside in time, and something that fell from it clinked with a metallic sound. Exactly how what followed really happened was never quite certain. Leslie, blind with rage, either tripped over his confederate's outstretched foot, or lost his balance, for just as a blaze of light beat upon the group, he staggered, clutched at Thurston, and missing him, stepped over the edge of the platform and fell full length between the rails.
There was a yell from a man with a lantern and a sudden hoot from the whistle of the big locomotive. Savine's face turned white under the glare of the headlight. With a reckless leap Geoffrey followed his enemy. Only conscious of the man's peril, he acted upon impulse without reflection.
"Good God! They'll both be killed!" exclaimed Shackleby.
Thurston was strong of limb and every muscle in him had been toughened by strenuous toil, but Leslie had struck his head on the rails and lay still, stunned and helpless. The lift was heavy for the man who strove to raise him, and though the brakes screamed along the line of cars the locomotive was almost upon them. Standing horrified, and, without power to move, the two spectators saw Geoffrey still gripping his enemy's shoulders, heave himself erect in a supreme effort, then the cow-catcher on the engine's front struck them both, and Savine felt, rather than heard, a sickening sound as the huge machine swept resistlessly on. Afterward he declared that the suspense which followed while the long box-cars rolled by was horrible, for nothing could be seen, and the two men shivered with the uncertainty as to what might be happening beneath the grinding wheels.
When the last car passed both leapt down upon the track, and a man joined them holding a lantern aloft. Savine stooped over Thurston, who lay just clear of the rails, looking strangely limp.
"Another second would have done it—did I heave him clear?" he gasped. He tried to raise himself by one hand but fell back with a groan.
"I guess not," answered a railroad employé, holding the lantern higher, and while two others ran up the tracks, the light fell upon a shapeless, huddled heap. "That one has passed his checks in, certain," the holder of the lantern announced.
Within ten minutes willing assistants from the tiny settlement were on the spot and stretchers were improvised. Savine had bidden the agent telegraph for a doctor, and the two victims were slowly carried towards the New Eldorado saloon. When they were gently laid down an elderly miner, familiar with accidents, pointing to Thurston after making a hasty examination said: