turn, scarce knowing what he was doing.

"Keep an eye on Tressa," he cried, and made for the front door.

Mahon grabbed him. "Here, they have that door covered. Conrad will be
all right. Anyway, it's throwing yourself away searching for him now."

"Conrad!" The contractor's bull voice was full of disgust. "Conrad to
hell! It's the trestle."

Mahon swung him away with a rougher thrust than was necessary. "Damn
the trestle! It's life we have to think of first."

"But it's the trestle they want. They're only keeping us in here--"

"Do as you're told. I'm in charge."

A rifle shot split the silence without. There followed a sharp cry of
pain and a fusillade from the trees beyond the grade. The Indian was
in action.

"Praise be!" chortled Murphy. "Somebody got it where it hurts. That
Indian, he's a man afther me own hear-rt. Oh, mother, for me shillalah
about the heads o' thim!"

Ten minutes of complete silence--fifteen. Murphy's impatience was
becoming vociferous; he began to be jealous of Huggins up there with
Mollie, with a fight at hand any time he wanted it. Torrance was
scarcely less clamorous.

Relief came from a second shot from beside the trestle. And after it a
cry as before, and a volley of wild firing. The Indian was wasting no
shots; his night eyes were exacting toll.

Mahon decided to investigate. Also he wished to meet the Indian--to
hear his voice--to touch him. Leaving Williams in charge, with
definite instructions as to Torrance and Murphy, he crept from the back
door to the edge of the trestle. The Indian was not there. Mahon
wondered how much of it was dream. Then the redskin was swept from his
mind by the sound of life far below about the base of the trestle. The
bohunks were attacking there.

He became aware of a strange creaking among the timbers reaching down
into the blind depths. Suddenly a spurt of flame from their midst
darted to the valley below. Mahon felt himself shiver at the
death-shriek that replied. The Indian, somewhere far below his eye,
was shooting now to kill. A dash of hasty feet told of momentarily
defeated plans. A storm of bullets rattled from the trees among the
timbers and whistled above Mahon's head as he lay under cover of the
grade. Then a new peril startled him. Three rifles cracked in rapid
succession from behind the stable.

For a moment Mahon thought of stalking them, but reflection decided him
against it. It was a risk too