"Bless my face and eyes!" cried Mr. Damon. "What did I tell you? And you other fellows want to notice it. Tom Swift isn't here just at this precise moment; but he is guarding his locomotive just the same. He invented this ammonia pistol, and I should say it was effectual. Do you?"
The eccentric man was shrewd enough now to keep behind the jamb of the cab door. For some of these fellows, he realized, might be armed with more deadly weapons than his own.
"Hey, Mr. Lewis!" cried one big fellow, "d'you want we should get that fellow for you?"
"I want to know how badly that blamed thing is smashed," replied the big man with the dyed mustache savagely. "Where's O'Malley?"
"O'Malley's lit out, Boss, like I told you. That giant and them other fellows is after him."
"Break into that cab! Oh! My eyes! I'll kill that old fool! Break a way in there—What's that?"
In pain as he was, his other senses were alert. He was first to hear the screeching whistle of the on-coming freight.
"Think they got wind of this so quick?" demanded Montagne Lewis, for it was he. "Are they sending help from Cliff City?"
"It's a regular freight," returned one of his men.
"She's comm' a-whizzin'," added another. "Right down the eastbound track. If the crew see us—"