Before Bucks had time to think, a second Indian had sprung through the
open window. A feeling of helpless rage swept over him at being
cornered, defenceless; and, expecting every instant to be despatched
with no more consideration than if he had been a rat, he stood at bay,
determined not to be taken alive.
For an instant his mind worked clearly and with the rapidity of
lightning. His life swept before him as if he were a drowning man. In
that horrible moment he even heard his call clicking from the
despatcher. Of the two Indians confronting him, half-naked and shining
with war-paint, one appeared more ferocious than the other, and Bucks
only wondered which would attack first.
He had not long to wait. The first brave raised a war club to brain
him. As Bucks's straining eye followed the movement, the second Indian
struck the club down. Bucks understood nothing from the action. The
quick, guttural words that followed, the sharp dispute, the struggle
of the first savage to evade the second and brain the white boy in
spite of his antagonist--a lithe, active Indian of great strength who
held the enraged warrior back--all of this, Bucks, bewildered, could
understand nothing of. The utmost he could surmise was that the second
warrior, from his dress and manner of authority perhaps a chief, meant
to take him alive for torture. He watched the contest between the two
Indians until with force and threats the chief had driven the warrior
outside and turned again upon him.
It was then that Bucks, desperate, hurled himself knife in hand at the
chief to engage him in final combat. The Indian, though surprised, met
his onset skilfully and before Bucks could realize what had occurred
he had been disarmed and tossed like a child half-way across the
room.
Before he could move, the chief was standing over him. "Stop!" he
exclaimed, catching Bucks's arm in a grip of steel as the latter tried
to drag down his antagonist. "I am Iron Hand. Does a boy fight me?"
he demanded with contempt in every word. "See your knife." He pointed
to the floor. "When I was wounded by the Cheyennes you gave me
venison. You have forgotten; but the Sioux is not like the white
man--Iron Hand does not forget."
A fusillade of shots and a babel of yelling from outside interrupted
his words. The chief paid no attention to the uproar. "Your soldiers
are here. The building is on fire, but you are safe. I am Iron Hand."
So saying, and before Bucks could find his tongue, the chief strode to
the rear window, with one blow of his arm smashed out the whole sash,
and springing lightly through the crashing glass, disappeared.
Bucks, panting with confusion, sprang to his feet. Smoke already
poured in from the freight room, and the crackling of flames and the
sounds of the fighting outside reminded Bucks of Iron Hand's words. He
ran to the door.
The train had pulled up within a hundred feet of the station and the
railroad men in the coaches were pouring a fire upon the Indians,
under the cover of which scouts were unloading, down a hastily
improvised chute, their horses, together with those of such troopers
as had been gathered hurriedly.
Bucks ran back into the office and opening his wooden chest threw into
it what he could of his effects and tried to drag it from the burning
building out upon the platform. As he struggled with the unwieldy box,
two men ran up from the train toward him, staring at him as if he had
been a ghost. He recognized Stanley and Dancing.
"Are you hurt?" cried Stanley hastening to his side.
"No," exclaimed Bucks, his head still swimming, "but everything will
be burned."
"How in the name of God, boy, have you escaped?" demanded Stanley, as
he clenched Bucks's shoulder in his hand. Dancing seized the
cumbersome chest and dragged it out of danger. The Indians, jeering,
as they retreated, at the railroad men, made no attempt to continue
the attack, but rode away content with the destruction of the train
and the station.
Stanley, assured of Bucks's safety, though he wasted no time in
waiting for an explanation of it, directed the men to save what they
could out of the station--it was too late to save the building--and
hurried away to see to the unloading of the horses.
Bill Dancing succeeded in rescuing the telegraph instruments and with
Bucks's help he got the wires rigged upon a cracker-box outside where
the operator could report the story to the now desperate despatcher.
The scouts and troopers were already in the saddle and, leading the
way for the men, gave chase across the bottoms to the Indians.
Bob Scott, riding past Bucks reined up for a moment. "Got pretty warm
for you, Bucks--eh? How did you get through?"
Bucks jumped toward him. "Bob!" he exclaimed, grasping his arm. "It
was Iron Hand."
"Iron Hand!" echoed Bob, lifting his eyebrows. "Brules, then. It will
be a long chase. What did he say?"
"Why, we talked pretty fast," stammered Bucks. "He spoke about the
venison but never said a blamed word about my fixing his arm."
Bob laughed as he struck his horse and galloped on to pass the news to
Stanley. A detail was left to clear the cotton-woods across the creek
and guard the railroad men against possible attack while clearing the
wreck. The body of the unfortunate brakeman was brought across the
bridge and laid in the baggage car and a tent was pitched to serve as
a temporary station for Bucks.
While this was being done, Bob Scott, who had ridden farthest up the
creek, appeared leading his horse and talking to a white man who was
walking beside him. He had found the conductor of the wrecked train,
Pat Francis, who, young though he was, had escaped the Indians long
enough to reach a cave in the creek bank and whose rifle shots Bucks
had heard, while Francis was holding the Sioux at bay during the
fight. The plucky conductor, who was covered with dust, was greeted
with acclamations.
"He claims," volunteered Scott, speaking to Stanley, "he could have
stood them off all day."
Francis's eyes fell regretfully on the dead brakeman. "If that boy had
minded what I said and come with me he would have been alive now."
The wrecking train, with a gang of men from Medicine Bend, arrived
late in the afternoon, and at supper-time a courier rode in from
Stanley's scouting party with despatches for General Park. Stanley
reported the chase futile. As Bob Scott had predicted, the Brules had
burned the ranch and craftily scattered the moment they reached the
sand-hills. Instead of a single trail to follow, Stanley found fifty.
Only his determination to give the Indians a punishment that they
would remember held the pursuing party together, and three days
afterward he fought a battle with the wily raiders, surprised in a
canyon on the Frenchman River, which, though indecisive, gave Iron
Hand's band a wholesome respect for the stubborn engineer.
The train service under the attacks of the Indians thus repeated, fell
into serious demoralization, and an armed guard of regular soldiers
rode all trains for months after the Goose Creek attack. Bucks was
given a guard for his own lonely and exposed position in the person of
Bob Scott, the man of all men the young operator would have wished
for. And at intervals he read from his favorite novel to the scout,
who still questioned whether it was a true story.