k back for months.
They would have sheriffs' posses out against them. They would have to
fight with hired fighters that the railroad would bring up against
them. In the end they would perhaps have to fight the State militia,
but there were men among them, he shouted, who had fought more than
militia. Would they not dare face it now for their homes and their
people!

Some men would die. But some men always died, in every cause. And in
the end the people of the whole State would judge the cause!

Would one man come? Would ten? Would fifty?

Seventy-two grim, sullen men looked over the knobs and valleys of
ashes where their homes had been, took what food the French people
could spare them, and mounted silently behind him.

Up over the ashes of Leyden road, past the cellars of the homes of
many of them, for half the day they rode, saving every strain they
could upon their horses. A three-hour rest. Then over the southern
divide and down the slope they thundered to strike the railroad at
Leavit's bridge.

IX

THE COMING OF THE SHEPHERD

The wires coming down from the north were flashing the railroad's call
for help. A band of madmen had struck the end of the line at Leavit's
Creek and had destroyed the half-finished bridge. They had raced down
the line, driving the frightened labourers before them, tearing up the
ties and making huge fires of them on which they threw the new rails,
heating and twisting these beyond any hope of future usefulness.

Labourers, foremen and engineers of construction had fled literally
for their lives. The men of the hills had no quarrel with them. They
preferred not to injure them. But they were infuriated men with their
wrongs fresh in mind and with deadly hunting rifles in hand. The
workmen on the line needed no second warning. They would take no
chances with an enemy of this kind. They were used to violence and
rioting in their own labour troubles, but this was different. This was
war. They threw themselves headlong upon handcars and work engines and
bolted down the line, carrying panic before them.

In a single night the hill men with Jeffrey Whiting at their head had
ridden down and destroyed nearly twenty miles of very costly
construction work. There were yet thirty miles of the line left in the
hills and if the men were not stopped they would not leave a single
rail in all the hill country where they were masters.

The call of the railroad was at first frantic with pan