far that he lost
his balance. He struggled to recover. Dancing called again sharply to
him, but he was too wrought up to understand. Dizziness seized him,
and resigning himself, with an exclamation, to death, he felt himself
dropping into space.

In the next instant he was caught in Dancing's arms:

"Gosh darn it, why didn't you jump, as I told you?" exclaimed the
lineman, setting him up on his feet. "You pretty near clean upset us
both."

"Where are we, Bill?" muttered Bucks, swallowing his shock.

"Right here at the water, and them fellows up there beating the bush
for us. There's shooting down town, too. Some new deviltry. How good a
swimmer are you, Bucks? By gum, I forgot to ask you before you
started."

"I can swim better than I can climb, Bill."

"We've only a quarter of a mile and downstream at that. And the
current here would float a keg of nails."

"How about rocks, Bill?" asked Bucks, peering dubiously toward the
roar of the rushing river.

"All up-stream from here," returned Dancing, edging down the shelving
table toward the water. "Lock arms with me so I don't lose you, sonny.
What in Sam Hill is that?"

Far down the river the two saw a tongue of flame leaping into the sky.
They watched it for a moment. Dancing was the first to locate the
conflagration, which grew now, even as they looked, by leaps and
bounds. The two stood ready to plunge into the river when a fire of
musketry echoed up the gorge. The lineman clutched Bucks's arm.

"There's fighting going on down there now. What's that smokestack? By
Jing, the roundhouse is on fire!"

CHAPTER XXII

They plunged together into the river. The water, icy cold, was a
shock, but Dancing had made no mistake. They were below the rocks and
needed only to steady themselves as the resistless current swept them
down toward the railroad yards.

Bucks demonstrated that he could swim and the two seemed hardly in the
water before they could fully see the burning roundhouse. A moment
later, chilled to the bone but with his mind cleared by the sharp
plunge, Bucks felt his companion's arm drawing him toward the farther
shore where, in the slack water of an elbow of the stream, Dancing led
the way across a shoal of gravel and Bucks waded after him up the
riverbank.

They hastened together across the dark railroad yard. The sound of
firing came again from the square in front of the railroad station
and thither they directed their fleeing feet. To t