"Won't it blow up the engine, too?" asked Jim.
"Not likely with this amount," said Ketchel. "We will have to chance it anyhow."
"Ain't you afraid that you might take a chaw on it, by mistake for your tobacco?" queried Jim in a matter-of-fact voice. Bob Ketchel only grinned by way of reply.
"Now is our chance," whispered the engineer; "keep the beggars lying low while I start the fireworks."
"I'll attend to that," replied Jim briefly and with emphasis.
Then two crouching figures slipped out from the culvert, and Jim kept on the move with the quick dodging motions of a boxer so that the enemy in ambush could not get a bead on him. Flashing the fire of his revolver this side and that at a cluster of rock, or a clump of bushes he dodged on, and such was his accuracy that not a man in the attacking party dared show himself in the open.
Jim was able to keep down their fire, as his ally rushed to the barricade; then Ketchel stooped down and thrust the dynamite into an opening between the rocks and drawing off quickly threw himself flat down by the track. Then there came an upheaval that shook things. A geyser of rocks shot into the air, and in a jiffy Jim and the engineer had cleared off what remained on the track in the shape of debris. The engine itself had most of the cowcatcher torn off and the headlight smashed.
"Spoiled her beauty for you," said Jim. "But we will spoil their game I guess, and I don't think the railroad company will complain at the loss of a cowcatcher." Meantime both had raced back to the engine.
Before the gang had time to fully realize what had happened, Ketchel had regained his place in the cab and had turned the engine loose on the sanded rails. Within a remarkably short distance he had her full speed ahead, with a parting salute of shots from the enraged and baffled "hold ups."
"There goes three of 'em," cried Jim, who had swung aboard. "My what a jump."