Five convulsed faces had fallen before the fury of Torrance's assault before there was resistance. The first threatening arm he seized in relentless clutch, flinging back over his head the knife it held. Then a Hungarian, saved from a swinging club by Torrance's quick blow, recognised only another foe and lunged with a knife. The contractor kicked him out of the fray and went on.
In the meantime Conrad was realising his mistake in dividing forces. The mob was quieting a little, it was true, but it was the comparative calm only of discovering new foes. Torrance, ten yards away, was battling like a madman, but now advance was hopelessly blocked by weight of numbers and concentrated resistance. Two dozen bohunks, lost now to any ordinary sense of peril, were bent on paying off old scores. Conrad began seriously to fight his way over to Torrance.
Across the crowd he could see Koppy making headway at last, and he vaguely wondered why. A face loomed before him, and he struck into it viciously. It dropped away, but a shooting pain across his scalp warned him that he was cut; a moving spot of warm moisture on the back of his neck located a small stream of blood.
The maddest fury of the fight seemed to have waned, yet Conrad knew that the danger to him and Torrance had increased. Italian and Hungarian, Pole and Swede, had forgotten their race feud in the greater hatred of their bosses. The noise, so hideous and snarling when they arrived, was stilled in unity of purpose.
Many had retired, some to nurse their wounds, others not yet blind enough to custom to ignore authority. Those who remained knew what they were doing. Murder was in their eyes.
Through a temporary opening in his own group Conrad caught Torrance's eye, anxious and a little uncertain. The foreman made a peremptory movement of his head urging retreat—for Torrance. If one of them could get away for a rifle! At that instant he ducked to avoid a side attack, and Torrance saw the blood on his neck. With a bellow the contractor charged through.
"Back to back!" he shouted, and lashed out sideways with one foot at a fresh onset against the tiring foreman. Conrad smiled. He was feeling the strain—had been for minutes—but Torrance's arrival lent him fresh strength. Back to back they continued the losing struggle.
A gleam of light darted on Conrad's right, and he knew he could not avoid it. But suddenly the knife dropped, and the one who had wielded it grabbed his wrist with the other hand. The foreman dare not look to see what had happened, but he was aware of a sudden thinning in the crowd of spectators.
A lumbering Pole, his club knocked away by an unexpected blow from Torrance, leaped furiously on the contractor. The latter turned his back to receive the shock, at the same time ducking forward. The Pole's legs shot into the air before Conrad's eyes—a shriek—and a sudden stain of blood on the pant leg. Yet no one had touched the place where the blood gushed.
The scene was changing curiously. A score of men still fought to reach their prey, blind and deaf to everything but their own passions; but the great crowd that had made the threat of disaster so ominous had disappeared. One of the mad group about them, teeth bared, was creeping closer to Torrance, a long stiletto held aloft. But as it jerked back to strike, the hand that held it opened nervelessly, and a spurt of blood covered the fingers.