“Ward's men, eh?” suggested the engineer.
“That they are! The Gideonites! They can't be anything else.”
“Get our men together!” Parker cried, clapping his gloved hands. “Rout out every man in the settlement.”
The foreman started away on the run, banging on house doors and bawling the cry:
“Whoo-ee! All up! Parker's crew turn out! All hands wanted at the lake!”
In the excitement of the moment Mank did not question the command nor pause to reflect that he might be calling his neighbors into trouble that they would not relish.
CHAPTER EIGHT—THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT WENT SWIMMING AND THE ENGINEER WHO WAS STOLEN
In a few moments the bell of the little chapel was sending its jangling alarm out over the village. Doors banged, men burst out of the houses and poured down to the lake shore, buttoning their jackets as they ran.
They required no explanation. Ever since the incident at Poquette some such irruption of Ward's reckless woods hordes had been anticipated. But this tempestuous night arrival under sail, this sudden and terrifying descent appalled the newly awakened men.