Five o'clock came, and he was still there. It was getting dark. A few minutes more and it would be so dark that the men below would have plenty of opportunity to carry out their desperate plan. Steve had six cartridges left in his magazine chamber.
He waited and watched. At last he could no longer see the bottom of the gorge. Aiming his weapon as nearly as be could judge at the spot where he had last seen the dynamiters, he began shooting at intervals, varying his aim somewhat with each shot. He hoped to hold them off.
One more shell was left in the gun. Steve was making his last stand. It would be a matter of but a short time now before they would have accomplished their purpose.
Suddenly a shout rent the air. There was a new note in it. It was not a shout of triumph, but of anger and alarm. The boy on the bridge did not understand it.
"Run for it. It's the soldiers!" was the shout that was suddenly taken up and passed from lip to lip.
"Hurrah!" shouted the lad.
But he had not finished yet. He turned the rifle down into the dark gorge and pulled the trigger again. Whether he had hit anything or not he did not know.
"Look out for the soldiers!" bellowed a man, leaning over the edge of the precipice. "Run for it!"
Steve was bounding toward the end of the bridge.
The soldiers and the sheriff's deputies were coming up at a dog trot.