-brown rings--If he could only first explain everything to the
engineer--then they could shoot all they wanted to.

Horrid to be wounded in the back! Long ago at school there had often
been talk about wounds in the back and in the chest--the former were
disgraceful, because they were a sign of running away. But this was not
running away--this was an effort to save others.

Were the rails vibrating? Four steps more, then a quiet turn, one look
into the air, one far away over the prairie. He knew that the eyes
behind the dark-brown rings were following his every movement. Now along
the tracks--is there anything coming way back there? No, not yet. He
walked past the station, then along the tracks again, and looked to the
left across the prairie.

Now his glance rested on the cart. It stood perfectly still. Sure
enough, there, between the sacks, was another one of those bristly
heads! Where on earth had the fellows come from, and what in the world
did they want? Winston had said they were Japs.

Could this be war? Nonsense! How could the fellows have come so far
across country? A short time ago some one had said that a troop of Japs
had been seen far away, down in Nevada, but that they had all
disappeared in the mountains. That was two months ago. Could these be
the same?

But it couldn't be a war. War begins at the borders of a country, not
right in the middle. It is true that the Japanese immigrants were all
said to be drilled soldiers. Had they brought arms along? These
certainly had!

Now the turn again. Ah! there was the train at last. Far away along the
tracks a black square rose and quite slowly became wider and higher.
Good God! if the next ten minutes were only over--if one could only wipe
such a span as this out of one's life! Only ten minutes older! If one
could only look back on those ten minutes from the other side! But no;
one must go through the horror, second by second, taste every moment of
it. What would happen to the two inside? This didn't matter much after
all--they couldn't, in any case, overpower the others without weapons. A
thousand yards more perhaps and then the train would be there! And then
a thousand yards more, and he would either be nothing but an unconscious
mass of flesh and bones, or----

Now the rails were reverberating--from far away he heard the rumble of
the approaching mass of iron and steel. And now, very low but distinct,
the ringing of the bell could be distinguished--gang,