"Conrad!" The contractor's bull voice was full of disgust. "Conrad to hell! It's the trestle."
Mahon swung him away with a rougher thrust than was necessary. "Damn the trestle! It's life we have to think of first."
"But it's the trestle they want. They're only keeping us in here—"
"Do as you're told. I'm in charge."
A rifle shot split the silence without. There followed a sharp cry of pain and a fusillade from the trees beyond the grade. The Indian was in action.
"Praise be!" chortled Murphy. "Somebody got it where it hurts. That Indian, he's a man afther me own hear-rt. Oh, mother, for me shillalah about the heads o' thim!"
Ten minutes of complete silence—fifteen. Murphy's impatience was becoming vociferous; he began to be jealous of Huggins up there with Mollie, with a fight at hand any time he wanted it. Torrance was scarcely less clamorous.
Relief came from a second shot from beside the trestle. And after it a cry as before, and a volley of wild firing. The Indian was wasting no shots; his night eyes were exacting toll.
Mahon decided to investigate. Also he wished to meet the Indian—to hear his voice—to touch him. Leaving Williams in charge, with definite instructions as to Torrance and Murphy, he crept from the back door to the edge of the trestle. The Indian was not there. Mahon wondered how much of it was dream. Then the redskin was swept from his mind by the sound of life far below about the base of the trestle. The bohunks were attacking there.
He became aware of a strange creaking among the timbers reaching down into the blind depths. Suddenly a spurt of flame from their midst darted to the valley below. Mahon felt himself shiver at the death-shriek that replied. The Indian, somewhere far below his eye, was shooting now to kill. A dash of hasty feet told of momentarily defeated plans. A storm of bullets rattled from the trees among the timbers and whistled above Mahon's head as he lay under cover of the grade. Then a new peril startled him. Three rifles cracked in rapid succession from behind the stable.