“I’d like to drop him on the track,” thought Bull to himself, as he heard the roar of a train approaching. “By Heaven, that would settle him!”
The crowd had barely crossed before the engine appeared at the tunnel’s mouth, after it a long freight train slowly rumbling past them. And at that instant Gus Murray seized Bull convulsively by the arm.
“I’ve got a scheme!” he cried. “Do you hear me, a scheme?”
“What is it?” shouted Bull, above the noise of the train.
“It’s a beauty,” gasped Murray. “By George, we’ll get ’em fired. They’ll go nobody knows where, and be missed in the morning. And we can swear we didn’t do it. Hooray! We’ll put ’em on the train!”
Bull staggered back and cried out with excitement.
“That’s it!” he muttered, and an instant later, before the horrified four could comprehend his purpose he and Edwards had torn the helpless body of Mallory from their arms and made a rush at a passing car. It was an empty car, and the door was half open; to fling the plebe in was the work of but an instant; then with Murray and Vance he quickly slid the other two in also. Half a minute later the train was gone.
The four outsiders turned and stared at Bull’s gang in horror.
“What on earth have you done?” they gasped.