The defence of the baggage car was over, and the defenders, disabled and disarmed, were submitting to the handcuffs or to the bits of rope which were used in securing them, when there came a sound of cheering, which made their captors leave them hastily and clamber from the car. The relief had come.
It came on the run, with Mallory at the head. There was no order, no pretence at formation; simply a stream of eager, angry men, some running through the cut along the tracks, others stumbling through the woods above, all animated by the desire to reach the scene of action as quickly as possible. And waiting for them was another mob of men, the main body of McNally's army. They were crowded in the cut on both sides of the train they had just captured, with the knowledge rankling in their hearts that they had been held at bay by a handful of determined men. They were glad they had somebody to fight.
The moment the two bodies of men came together the confusion became indescribable. The men had no means of distinguishing between friend and foe. They were at too close quarters to make fighting possible, and if it had been, no one would have known whom to strike and whom to defend. The cut was densely packed with men who strained and swayed and struggled and swore, but who could not by any possibility fight. But slowly the increasing weight of the new arrivals began to tell, and slowly, almost imperceptibly, the mass began to move south. Eventually they would push out of the cut to the open, where they could discuss matters more satisfactorily.
In the excitement they did not hear the long train that came clanking up from the south and stopped just behind the C. & S.C. train. But a moment later the uproar ceased, as sounded high and clear the echoing bugles, “Forward, Fours left into line, March!” Looking, they saw six companies of the National Guard come swinging across the open, the horizontal rays of the rising sun gilding their fixed bayonets.
There was no need for shot or bayonet thrust, the mob was quiet. McNally, as he stood panting in the thickest of the crowd, knew what it meant. The time for violence was over; his army had outlived its usefulness. And he knew that however the fight for the M. & T. was to be won, this was the beginning of the end.
CHAPTER XIX. — KATHERINE DECIDES
It was some hours before definite information was to be had concerning the present condition of affairs. No one knew whether his side had won or lost, whether the M. & T. was a Weeks road or a Porter road, though in the excitement each claimed control and made immediate efforts to enforce orders relating to its conduct. Messages flew back and forth along the singing wires, and wrecking trains started almost simultaneously from Manchester and from Truesdale, with instructions to clear up the muss at Sawyerville, in order that the regular train service be resumed.
But before matters were more than fairly under way, there came a sudden suspension of action. The Weeks wreckers paused at Brushingham, and contented themselves with pulling Harvey's first capture back on the rails. That done, the conductor stuffed a bundle of somewhat contradictory but imperative orders into his pocket, and stretched himself on the little red bench on the Brushingham station platform; the engineer, after a shouted order, settled down to the nearest approach to rest known to an engineer on duty; the division car repairer and the roadmaster curled up in the caboose, for they had been routed out at an unseemly hour; the station agent amused himself reading the messages that rattled through to the South and back, telling of a muddle at headquarters. When a wrecking train is held for orders, it is safe to assume that something has happened.