_ CHAPTER XXIX. RETRIBUTION BEGINS
As long as Torrance held himself flat on the sleepers he was safer than the Indian supposed. The grade was several feet above the forest floor, and the hundred-pounds rails were almost sufficiently high to provide what further protection was necessary so long as he did not raise any part of his body. But lying still was against every precedent. Torrance felt an uncontrollable desire to curse the bohunks with appropriate gesture, to jeer at them when they missed him, to return their fire when the bullets struck unpleasantly close to his ears on the ringing steel.
But when one made a rumpling dart through his hair, and another exacted tribute from a vengeful finger, he concluded that vengeance might well await a safer opportunity. So he hugged the rails, though his face was red with shame.
When two hours of aimless fighting had spent themselves and daylight was promising, Mahon began to take stock. Would the light of day impose an end? He was not hopeful. The bohunks knew there was no relief for the besieged, day or night, unless a supply train came through. That contingency Koppy would no doubt have provided for by tearing up the track to east and west. And to drop the siege would not save the leaders. The Sergeant knew now that the attack had long been in plan, and every chance would be provided for. Daylight would make no difference, except that the bohunks would be more careful of their cover. Chagrin that he had not read their plans, and concern for the effect of daylight, were not his only emotions. Also there came for the first time twinges of uncertainty as to the outcome. It was a matter of life and death to the leaders of the attack to see that it was maintained until accidental hits, lack of ammunition, fear, or the hopelessness of prolonged resistance, induced the defenders to surrender. The Sergeant wished now that he had sent Williams off to try and reach the ticker at Mile 135, or to make a break for help from the western camps. But Koppy would certainly have cut the wires, and any attempt to go for help would only have weakened the defence. The Pole had proven his brains by the precautions they already knew of; he would probably omit few.
The Indian called to him from the grade, and Mahon unlatched the door and let him in. Grabbing another handful of cartridges, the Indian got the stable key and dashed away through the back door. A moment after he disappeared in the stable the two defenders of the kitchen saw a pair of bohunks run out into the dim morning light and make at mad speed for the few trees that grew in the bend of the river. Even as Constable Williams was taking aim, the man covered fell to a bullet from the stable. The other, apparently beyond the angle of the Indian's range, seemed certain to escape. The Policeman rested his rifle on the window sill. But Murphy gave a joyous whoop and started for the door.
"Glory be, I see some one to foight at last!"
Williams was forced to drop his rifle and catch the excited Irishman in his arms. And the bohunk disappeared into the dimness of the morning.
The Indian, having freed the stable of lurkers, returned to the kitchen. But not for long. A burst of rifle fire in a new direction sent him hastily out again beside the trestle. The men who had retired from the stable before his rifle had discovered a way to the river bottom in the rear and were now from below potting at the recumbent contractor through the sleepers.
Daylight had come suddenly, as it does in the West. The glare of the sun was rising above the trees, and over the snap of the rifles rang the songs of birds. The shack stood fully exposed in the open, while the attackers slunk in the protection of the trees.
As the Indian ran for his old place beside the grade at the end of the trestle bullets whistled about him. Peering over the edge, he saw a bohunk kneeling below, taking careful aim through the sleepers at the outstretched form of the contractor. A bullet from the Indian's rifle caught him full in the neck, and his companions hauled his limp body back under the bank. Thereafter they fired with greater circumspection and poorer aim.
Mahon set his mind seriously now to the problem that faced them. To lie there seemed fruitless; to attack supreme folly. Yet, in the way of the Police, he did not lose hope. Had there been no helpless girl to consider! And that, combined with a growing hunger, brought his mind round again to Helen. Strange how far away she seemed, how much a part of another life! And yet she was only three miles distant. She would be worrying, wondering. If the bohunks should decide to explore the village now! He fought his fears with a memory of Helen's competence to protect herself. She could outshoot any bohunk.
A volley of curses from Torrance directed Mahon's eyes to the trestle. The bohunks had attacked at last! The contractor was struggling madly with two of them! Mahon searched anxiously for the Indian, but he was far up the grade now, shooting among the trees. Torrance was fighting it out alone on that dizzy height.
As the light broke, Ignace Koppowski, too, took stock. He knew he had only to maintain the siege long enough to win; but he also realised that his followers had little stomach for a long struggle. The rising sun, too, was against every precedent as a time to attack authority. The doctrine of his kind was to stab in the dark, to hit and run--a foundation on which was based the successes of his organisation.
As he reviewed the risk of failure through nothing but the cowardice of his men, he found himself hating them with an intensity he could scarcely conceal. The transition from that to an appreciation of his own superiority was natural enough. Perhaps not so natural, a return of the twinges of conscience that had been afflicting him of late at inopportune moments. When he realised the existence of these thoughts, he read in them only weakening nerve, and to steady himself he moved about among his followers, cheering them on. But the glowering, vacillating looks he received here and there succeeded in impressing him only with the extent of his responsibility. Success in this, his grandest effort, assumed monstrous proportions. He dare not fail. Present and future demanded that.
Grimly he summoned his lieutenants to a hasty conference, not to hear quakings or objections, but to give and receive the stimulus necessary to wage the battle to the bitter end.
Werner hesitatingly advised raising the siege. In former tilts with the Mounted Police during his trapping days he had experienced their intrepidity, the hopelessness of winning against them in the long run.
"Oh?" Koppy gloomed at him beneath heavy eyebrows, giving little clue to the thoughts behind. "What next?"
What he really meant was of what profit to the leaders to yield now. Werner's keen wits read it. Volubly he suggested a rearguard of the better fighters to cover the retreat of the leaders and the rest; the besieged would not dare press them.
In reality a personal inspiration lay behind it all. Werner himself would creep away west and join himself to one of the construction gangs where questions were not asked. He could await his chance of slipping across the border to the States. His idea of geography was somewhat hazy.
Koppy listened to the end with veiled eyes. He read Werner much more accurately than Werner read him. But most poignantly of all he realised the hopelessness of submission, at least for the leaders. There was nothing now but to carry the fight through--no other hope for himself. Also he discovered a fresh goad in his hatred of Werner.
When the latter had completed his plan, Koppy suddenly dropped his hand from his face. Werner saw and collapsed. For several seconds Koppy held the coward's faltering eyes, then turned with disgust to the others.
"What will we do with him?"
Morani's knife slid down his wrist and swished across his boot leg. And the others looked agreement.
Werner shuddered--began to bluster.
"You asked what I thought. I told you. I didn't mean to give the whole thing up--not much I didn't." He drew his hand across his dripping forehead. "We'll get the trestle yet--and it's that we want, isn't it? Well, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll lie around and blow it up myself, if I have to spend the whole winter here."
Koppy broke into an insulting laugh. "You! And the trestle ain't all we want. Who pays for last night's deaths? You blow up the trestle! What about Mr. Conrad? You let him escape."
Werner saw difficulties accumulating beyond his oft-tried powers of evasion. He stammered a disconnected tale of bad luck, wiping his face repeatedly. Koppy waved it aside.
"Morani," he ordered solemnly, "watch him. If he tries to escape--" A swift downward stroke completed the command. "We'll settle with him later."
Werner paled. He knew what the settlement would be, and the justice of it. He knew, too, the folly of protesting under the strain of the moment. So he tried to look aggrieved at their suspicions. When the conference broke up, and Morani attached himself to his heels, he smiled ingratiatingly and sauntered to the edge of the bank overlooking the camp. There he seated himself to consider his position. Escape? Even if he succeeded in evading immediate doom by giving his guard the slip, the I.W.W. would never give up the chase till he had paid the penalty of his treason.
As he sat he could see the end of the trestle through the brush. A slight bulge above the rails marked the place where the contractor lay guarding his pet. At the sight a wave of fury against Torrance swept over Werner. The boss was to blame for everything. But for his vigilance the trestle would long ago have been down.
"Chico," he snarled, "watch me pink him."
He lay along the ground and rested his rifle on a rock. But Morani, having suffered helplessly for a whole season at the hands of this nimble-tongued comrade, saw his chance. Before Werner realised his plan, the Italian laid one long supple hand on the stock and wrenched it away. In his left hand gleamed the hovering stiletto.
"No rifle," he rasped. "I watch-a you better." He held the gun behind his back.
For a mad moment Werner thought of hurling himself on his leering enemy, but the knife waved before his eyes. No chance there. An overwhelming sense of hopelessness, of friendlessness, sent him cringing to Morani's feet. The Italian, gloating, leaned forward and prodded with the stiletto. Werner, beside himself now with terror, leaped up and ran a few yards. But the smirking face of the Italian followed. In that direction lay speedy death.
Trembling, Werner sank to his knees like a whipped dog. On his knees he crept on and on. And above him hung those gloating eyes and the threatening stiletto. Urged by that smirk of death the cowering man crept forward. There was blood now on his torn knees and hands, but he did not feel it. Only he must crawl on and on before the horrible Nemesis at his back.
Neither noticed where their path led. They reached the end of the trees. The open ahead promised Werner greater freedom of flight. Morani was blind to everything but the terror of his old enemy. With twisted head Werner moved out from the trees. Something loomed before him, blocking the way. A wall of loose sand! With a gasp he raised his eyes.
Above him loomed the five-foot grade, protecting them from the shack. Werner shifted his horror-stricken eyes only a little--and looked straight into those of the contractor staring through the sleepers. Torrance was moving his rifle to take aim.
Below Werner fell a dizzy depth. Above him the rifle of one who had no reason to spare. The double peril added the touch that makes craven spirits desperate.
With a scream of mad fury he leaped to his feet and charged up the loose sand of the grade. And Morani, suddenly conscious of where he was, and of Werner's chance of escape, gripped his stiletto and dug his toes into the pits Werner had made. _