Torrance rushed from the bedroom.
"Is that the Indian? Good Heavens! The trestle—the trestle!"
He had thrown wide the front door and gone before they could interfere. A hail of bullets came through. Keener eyes among the trees picked out Torrance's running bulk, but their eyes were keener than their aim. The contractor reached the grade and threw himself between the rails, and with head overhanging the abyss below stared through the sleepers into the thinning darkness about the feet of his beloved trestle.
Mottled clouds were dimming the moon. Mahon, peering from the window, could make out only the slight bulk above the rails that marked the place where the contractor lay. A moment later a spot of light sank from beneath him—lower and lower, until it dropped beyond the edge of the bank.
"Me go too," muttered the Indian.
A volley greeted the opening of the door, but the Indian chose the moment when it had dropped away and crawled out.
Torrance was lying on his face, an electric flash dropping at the end of a long cord. As it fell, the bones of the trestle came into view stage after stage and passed upward.
The Indian chuckled. "Durn good!"
"Somebody's got to do something durn good," Torrance returned sulkily.
"Somebody looks as if he'll do some dyin' durn good. Yuh're a bit thick in the breadbasket fer them rails, ain't yuh?"