_ CHAPTER XXVIII. THE SIEGE OF THE SHACK
'Uggins' historical chatter was but a by-play. The others crept along under protection of the grade until they were clear of stray shots from the gang that had waylaid the engine. There they broke into a run, though Murphy complained bitterly at turning his back to a sure fight for one that might never come off. Four hundred yards from the trestle Mahon ordered them to wait.
He had no idea what might be happening in and about the shack, but he realised that only within its walls was his small force formidable. Only he and Williams possessed rifles. The revolvers of the others were of small service except at closer range than was apt to offer. He knew the bohunks well enough to feel certain that an attack at close quarters would be attempted only when defence was practically beaten down.
The silence told him that no immediate danger threatened; he did not doubt that the Indian was somewhere on guard. Uncertain, however, how closely the shack was invested, he crept carefully forward to reconnoitre.
It gave him time to canvass the situation. As far as the curve of the river behind the shack were too few trees to cover serious attack from that direction. Probably the survey for the grade had chosen this line of contact between prairie and forest because of the small expense of clearing the right of way.
It was certain, therefore, that the danger lay in front, where the forest across the grade, and the elevation of the grade itself, protected the besiegers. The bohunks would be slow to expose themselves. Indeed, there was no need that they should, since escape was impossible. Not only was there nowhere to flee, but without its defenders the trestle would be at the mercy of the I.W.W.
Mahon did not trouble to speculate as to the end of the affair. His duty was to fight to the last, to protect life first and then the work of the contractors. Only when he remembered Tressa did his thoughts pass beyond the immediate future. Fortunately his wife, alone three miles away, did not enter his mind as a matter for anxiety.
Arrived within a stone's throw of the shack, and having heard no sound, he knew that his conclusions as to the disposition of the bohunks were correct. Swinging out wide of the grade, he skirted about in the darkness in search of isolated prowlers. The stable was reached without incident.
The late moon was rising, low still but clear enough to throw a dim light and touch the tops of the evergreen trees with a cold radiance so wild and pure that Mahon found it hard to believe in the perils urging him on. In an hour the light would be strong enough to expose movement within the danger zone, though the size of the moon and a thin autumn mist limited it; and the low arc promised long shadows. Far to the south drifted the running echo of coyotes on the hunt, a shriek and a howl that never failed to stir the Sergeant's blood though he had lived with it for years. For a moment he longed for the old prairie life--the coyotes--the feeding cattle--the cowboys and the sweeping open spaces.
As he crawled from the stable to the back door a dim shadow moved round the corner of the shack and disappeared toward the trestle. Though no sound went with it, he was not alarmed. He challenged in a low voice. No reply. He stood erect to expose his uniform and called again. But the thing he had seen filtered into the vague moon shadows and was gone.
Knocking at the door, he waited for a reply. Not a sound reached him, yet he felt that ears were listening. He tried the latch, found it caught, and whispered his name. Immediately the door opened and Tressa Torrance seized his arm.
"All right here?" he enquired.
"Where's Adrian?" Calm and undisturbed was the tone, but he could feel her hand tremble on his arm.
"He'll be all right," he replied cheerily. "No mere bohunk ever got the better of Adrian Conrad. Who went out just now?"
"The Indian. He's been waiting for you."
"Oh!"
"Tell me, is it true--what he told us?"
"Only too true. They fired on us up the track."
She heaved a deep breath. "That was what we heard. Nothing more. I was afraid--Conrad hasn't come. . . . And the Indian wouldn't let any one leave the shack."
He took her hands in his and held them tight. "Miss Torrance, much of the outcome of to-night depends on you. We're going to fight harder for you than for everything else lumped together. I must ask you to forget Adrian for the time being. May we trust you?"
Her reply was a return squeeze to the hands that held hers.
"I'll not flinch," she said. "But I'm not giving up hope."
He laughed. "Adrian will be proud of you."
He dropped her hand and turned back to the door. "Lock it behind me," he ordered. "In fifteen minutes exactly I'll knock twice. Open without a word. I have Williams and the train crew."
He found his companions lying where he had left them. Certain unmistakable signs of life among the trees over the grade they had heard, but that was all. Murphy was growling into the loose sand beneath his chin.
"Mother o' Mike! Why don't ye rush thim? There's bunches jist over there. Fir-rst thing ye know they'll get away. A good scr-rap going to waste, it is. And sure why are we lying here like a gang o' thieves? I got hould of a shillalah that fits me hand like a glove, glory be! The Lord put it there, He did. Sure He intinds me to use it. Mollie'd be ashamed o' me."
"You'll have your stomach full of fighting before you're through," promised Mahon.
"Be gad, I don't belave ye know an Oirishman's appetite at all."
"Keep low," ordered Mahon, crawling forward, "and quiet."
"The m'anest koind o' foighting I iver took a hand in, it is," grumbled Murphy, shaking the sand from his whiskers. But he fastened his eyes to the dim movement of Constable Williams' heels and crawled after him.
Thirty yards they had advanced on hands and knees, and Mahon was searching for a depression to lead off back of the shack, when Murphy whispered huskily:
"Any chance up there, Sergeant, o' nading a gun? 'Cause I left mine back there. But, praise be, I got the shillalah," he added brightly.
Mahon sighed. "You idiot! Lord"--to Constable Williams--"I'll be glad when I have him locked in. . . ."
A string of muttered oaths told them of Murphy's return.
"Another mouthful o' sand! Darn their hides! If iver I get me hands on a bohunk in this wor-rld again--" He spat noisily. "And all for a gun I don't know how to use. But it'll make a n'ise. Maybe it'll do to disthract their attintion till I get me shillalah swinging."
Torrance received them with a burst of joy, shaking each by hand in turn, scarce knowing what he was doing.
"Keep an eye on Tressa," he cried, and made for the front door.
Mahon grabbed him. "Here, they have that door covered. Conrad will be all right. Anyway, it's throwing yourself away searching for him now."
"Conrad!" The contractor's bull voice was full of disgust. "Conrad to hell! It's the trestle."
Mahon swung him away with a rougher thrust than was necessary. "Damn the trestle! It's life we have to think of first."
"But it's the trestle they want. They're only keeping us in here--"
"Do as you're told. I'm in charge."
A rifle shot split the silence without. There followed a sharp cry of pain and a fusillade from the trees beyond the grade. The Indian was in action.
"Praise be!" chortled Murphy. "Somebody got it where it hurts. That Indian, he's a man afther me own hear-rt. Oh, mother, for me shillalah about the heads o' thim!"
Ten minutes of complete silence--fifteen. Murphy's impatience was becoming vociferous; he began to be jealous of Huggins up there with Mollie, with a fight at hand any time he wanted it. Torrance was scarcely less clamorous.
Relief came from a second shot from beside the trestle. And after it a cry as before, and a volley of wild firing. The Indian was wasting no shots; his night eyes were exacting toll.
Mahon decided to investigate. Also he wished to meet the Indian--to hear his voice--to touch him. Leaving Williams in charge, with definite instructions as to Torrance and Murphy, he crept from the back door to the edge of the trestle. The Indian was not there. Mahon wondered how much of it was dream. Then the redskin was swept from his mind by the sound of life far below about the base of the trestle. The bohunks were attacking there.
He became aware of a strange creaking among the timbers reaching down into the blind depths. Suddenly a spurt of flame from their midst darted to the valley below. Mahon felt himself shiver at the death-shriek that replied. The Indian, somewhere far below his eye, was shooting now to kill. A dash of hasty feet told of momentarily defeated plans. A storm of bullets rattled from the trees among the timbers and whistled above Mahon's head as he lay under cover of the grade. Then a new peril startled him. Three rifles cracked in rapid succession from behind the stable.
For a moment Mahon thought of stalking them, but reflection decided him against it. It was a risk too great to justify exposing his life. For all it would gain at the best he, in charge of the defence, must not undertake it. And there was really no extra danger to the shack, since it could not be taken from the rear.
He wormed his way back more carefully through the kitchen door and reported what he had seen. Torrance, far from feeling gratitude for the Indian's defence of the trestle, fumed that it should be left to the care of any one but himself. In the midst of his grumbling the first bullets struck the shack. They penetrated door and window and embedded themselves in the rear walls. But Mahon had disposed of the defenders with that peril in mind.
Of the eight Constable Williams and Murphy were stationed in the kitchen, with its one window and door. In Tressa's room, the point of least exposure, two of the crew were established. Torrance and another of the crew held the contractor's bedroom at the front. The living room Mahon himself, assisted by the last member of the crew, took in charge. Tressa carried messages, under strict orders to avoid exposure to window or door. One man in each pair was told off to co-operate with the defenders of any threatened point.
The weakness of the defence was the number of rifles. Torrance had two, the Policemen two. One rifle was given to each room; each of the eight had a revolver. Mahon was almost satisfied that the ammunition would last out any siege the bohunks were likely to undertake.
A few minutes' contemplation of the stable exposure convinced him that the attackers could gain nothing there. To fire the stable would only rob them of the sole protection to the rear, and, with what wind there was against it, fire would not spread to the house.
Standing to the left of the living room window while he reflected, he imagined a movement far down the grade. Immediately he fired. From Torrance's room came the thunder of his rifle. Evidently the bohunks were crossing the grade in numbers.
Thereafter nothing happened for half an hour but pointless and desultory potting. It promised nothing to the attackers and the defence was still intact. The windows were shattered, and by the tinkle of glass every picture and ornament in the room must have been smashed. From the trestle the silence was broken only twice. The Indian was saving his cartridges.
Suddenly a burst of five shots in quick succession warned Mahon that the Indian was alarmed. Recklessly the Sergeant looked through the window. From just beneath the sleepers that held the rails a jabbing flight of flashes pierced the darkness, pointing along the edge of the bank above the path leading up from Conrad's shack. A pause of only a moment--the Indian was filling his magazine--then another burst of the most rapid firing Mahon had ever heard from one rifle. Not a shot replied from the trees along the bank.
Mahon was puzzled. Was a big attack forming? Did the Indian see some threat of which those in the shack were unaware? Mahon issued sharp orders for increased vigilance. But why shoot in that direction to ward off concentrated attack?
The Indian's bullets continued to pour along the edge of the forest.
Mahon saw the idea. For some reason the bohunks were being driven temporarily to cover. Something--
The moon had moved a little over the top of the dark mass of trees. The grade was lit up. Mahon's eyes ran back and forward along the twin bands of dimly reflecting steel.
A man leaped to the top of the grade from the other side, swayed a little, and plunged forward toward the shack. With the moon full on him in that first moment he loomed unnaturally huge. In a bound Mahon reached the door and threw it open.
"Conrad!" he shouted. "Quick!"
Adrian Conrad stumbled over the doorstep, laughed, and fell to the floor.
"'S all right," he cheered with a mad laugh. "Haven't got Adrian Conrad yet. Easy--there, Mahon! They've chewed me up--a bit--that rifle at the trestle--saved me." Then he fainted.
A voice that jerked Mahon erect came grimly from the grade.
"Shut that door, durn yuh! I can't keep 'em down all night."
Mahon was obeying mechanically when the Indian dashed through.
"Gor-swizzle, if he ain't the spunkiest chap I ever set eyes on. Jes' swaggered up that path like he was out fer a walk. . . . But plumb loco'ed! An' whistlin'! Oh, gor!"
The Sergeant leaned heavily against the table, staring into the darkness toward the familiar voice. He knew he was dreaming again, that haunting grief for his dead half breed friend had mastered him at last in a moment of excitement.
A cry of alarm from Torrance's room, and a succession of rifle shots, brought him to his senses. He hastened to investigate. Torrance had seen several men running across the grade. One dark lump on the ground gave proof. When he returned to the front room the Indian was still there.
"Any spare cartridges? I'm about cleaned out. Jes' two left. Gotta save them."
Mahon dropped a dozen in the extended hand. The Indian worked with them in the darkness for a moment and slammed them on the table with a curse.
"Shud 'a' knowed they wudn't fit. Where's Torrance's?"
But Torrance's likewise were the wrong size, and the Indian disappeared into Tressa's room. The brakesman entrusted with a rifle in that room paid no attention until a strong hand wrenched it from him.
"Yuh'll hurt yerself, sonny, playin' with a real gun. Yuh can have all I shoot to eat."
When he returned to the living room, Mahon laid a hand on his shoulder.
"My God, who are you?"
A moment of silence, then: "Me Indian; no pale-face name."
Torrance rushed from the bedroom.
"Is that the Indian? Good Heavens! The trestle--the trestle!"
He had thrown wide the front door and gone before they could interfere. A hail of bullets came through. Keener eyes among the trees picked out Torrance's running bulk, but their eyes were keener than their aim. The contractor reached the grade and threw himself between the rails, and with head overhanging the abyss below stared through the sleepers into the thinning darkness about the feet of his beloved trestle.
Mottled clouds were dimming the moon. Mahon, peering from the window, could make out only the slight bulk above the rails that marked the place where the contractor lay. A moment later a spot of light sank from beneath him--lower and lower, until it dropped beyond the edge of the bank.
"Me go too," muttered the Indian.
A volley greeted the opening of the door, but the Indian chose the moment when it had dropped away and crawled out.
Torrance was lying on his face, an electric flash dropping at the end of a long cord. As it fell, the bones of the trestle came into view stage after stage and passed upward.
The Indian chuckled. "Durn good!"
"Somebody's got to do something durn good," Torrance returned sulkily.
"Somebody looks as if he'll do some dyin' durn good. Yuh're a bit thick in the breadbasket fer them rails, ain't yuh?"
Torrance flattened himself until he grunted, for bullets were splattering about the dropping light. In a few moments the bohunks understood. They turned their attention then to the top of the trestle. _