“There! There!” she whispered, trying to point.
Just then rifle-shots and the spattering of bullets made quick work urgent.
“Go—get inside the log walls,” said Neale, as he shoved Allie in.
Excitement prevailed among the graders. They began to run under cover of the inclosure and some began to shoot aimlessly.
“Anderson, take some men! Go to the back of the cabin!” shouted Baxter.
The scout called for men to follow him and ran out. So many of the graders essayed to follow that they blocked the narrow opening between the inclosure and house. Suddenly one of them in the rear sheered round so that he looked at Neale. It was but a momentary glance, but Neale sensed recognition there. Then the man was gone and Neale sustained a strange surprise. That face had been familiar, but he could not recall where he had ever seen it. The red, leering, evil visage, with its prominent, hard features, grew more vivid in memory, as Neale’s mind revolved closer to discovery.
“Inside with you, Neale,” yelled Baxter.
Baxter and Neale, with the four young engineers, took to the several rooms of the log cabin, where each selected an aperture between the logs or a window through which to fire upon the Indians. But Neale soon ascertained that there was nothing to shoot at, outside of some white puffs of smoke rising from behind rocks on the slope. There was absolutely not a sign of an Indian. The graders were firing, but Neale believed they would have done better to save their powder. Bullets pattered against the logs; now and then a leaden pellet sang through a window, to thud into the wall. Neale shut the heavy door leading from the cabin into the engineers’ quarters, for bullets were ripped through from one side to the other of this canvas-and-clapboard structure. Then Neale passed from room to room, searching for Allie. Two of the engineers were kneeling at a chink between the logs, aiming and firing in great excitement. Campbell had sustained a slight wound and looked white with rage and fear. Baxter was peeping from behind the rude jamb of a window.
“Nothin’ to shoot at, boy,” he said, in exasperation.
“Wait. Listen to that bunch of Irish shoot. They’re wasting powder.”