t. Glory be! ain't we afther
getting in late to-noight--and me blasting the hide o' me crew and old
man Torrance? And 'Uggins didn't draw the fires, he was that lazy and
cantankerous himself--"

"Call the crew!" ordered Mahon. "We'll need them."

"'Ere's 'Uggins," said a small voice from the edge of the cot.

The fireman was pulling on his second sock. He waited for nothing
more. Shirt flapping about his short legs, he ran into the night,
shouting at the top of his voice.

"Have you arms?" Mahon enquired of Murphy.

"Wish I had about three more o' thim for this collar-button," grumbled
the engineer before the mirror.

"Have you a gun, I asked?"

"Well," said Murphy carefully, "if ye're enquir-ring to enfor-rce the
law agin carrying arms, nary a jack-knife even. If it's help ye nade,
I guess we might be able to scrape up a shooter apiece. We lug 'em
along for ballast, ye understand, in the absence o' fire-water. If
it's a foighter ye're talking like, ivery devil of a mother's son of us
can make a bang like a gun, with a bullet t'rowed in--though for meself
I prefer a shillalah. I'm going to be in this foight if I have to use
a lead pencil. Ain't I Oirish?"

"For heaven's sake, let the collar and tie go!" groaned Mahon.

Murphy turned a disgusted face on the Policeman. "Niver go into a
foight excited-like. It's dangerous. I wouldn't enjoy meself if it's
too scrambly a show. 'Tain't ivery day a fellow has a chance out here
to get into one. Anyway, 'Uggins has to get steam up. . . . Now I'm
ready for anything from dam-sels to any other damn thing."

As they ran from the tent, the shacks the crews had taken to themselves
were bustling with activity. Four half-clothed figures, pulling on
jackets as they ran, fell in behind them and made for the siding where
great gusts of flame revealed Huggins' frantic struggle with the engine.

The half-naked fireman was firing recklessly, madly. Limitless dry
wood was at his hand, and from the live coals that remained from the
day's work a mass of flame was already throwing heavy sparks against
the smokestack guard. But Huggins was a fuming thing of cursing
impatience. Mouthing unlisted oaths, his wet shirt lashing against his
bare legs, he was repeatedly filling a small pail from a nearby barrel
and, standing on the cab steps, was tossing its contents into the
blazing fireplace. Great gushes of fire roared out in response,
revealing him, face streaming pe