“Jake Allen was too tender-hearted about it. He sent ’em word that the track was in a dangerous condition, and if they came ahead it would be at their own peril. I’d a let ’em come without a word, and find out for themselves.”
“But I thought Jake Allen was locked up,” said Bill.
“So he was, but he isn’t now. When that fool of a lieutenant carried off all his men, or the best part of ’em, what was to hinder the boys from slipping into town and letting Jake out? Just nothing at all, and that’s what they did. No, there wasn’t any fuss. It was all done quiet enough, and now that Jake is out they won’t get him in again in a hurry, you can bet on that. We’re just laying for them city roosters, though, and it will serve ’em right if the whole regiment gets pitched into the creek. What business have they, anyhow, coming out here to interfere with us and our rights?”
“Then they are really coming, are they?” asked Bill.
“Coming! Of course they are, a whole train-load of ’em. They got as far as Martin’s yesterday, and, if they make an early start and get along as fast as they have been doing, they’ll be where we want ’em soon sun’s up.”
“Where’s that?”
“Just this side of Station One. Somewhere on the Horseshoe.”
“Are you going to fight ’em there?”
“Fight? Not much! The boys won’t be there at all; but they are fixing up a little trap to leave behind ’em that’ll do the business. The boys will be far enough away long before that, though. There isn’t anybody going to be caught in this racket.”
From all this Myles concluded that the 50th Regiment from New York City, of whose intended coming he had already heard, was really on its way to Mountain Junction. Some sort of a trap had been laid for them on the Horseshoe, a sharp curve on the edge of a deep stream that he remembered well. What if the train should be thrown from the track there! Why, the result would be simply horrible. They had been warned of danger, too, and yet would insist upon pushing ahead. Of course they would do that, though; and Myles thrilled with an honest pride as he thought how the boys of a New York City regiment would laugh at the word “danger.” “It would only make them come ahead all the quicker,” thought he, “for when those fellows are ‘under orders’ obeying them is the first thing they think of, and the danger of doing so the very last. But it would be awful if any thing were to happen to that train. Couldn’t any thing be done to warn them? Couldn’t I do something even now? If I were only at Mountain Junction, where I ought to be, instead of ’way off here in the woods—on the wrong side of it too!”