THE SIEGE OF THE SHACK
'Uggins' historical chatter was but a by-play. The others crept along
under protection of the grade until they were clear of stray shots from
the gang that had waylaid the engine. There they broke into a run,
though Murphy complained bitterly at turning his back to a sure fight
for one that might never come off. Four hundred yards from the trestle
Mahon ordered them to wait.
He had no idea what might be happening in and about the shack, but he
realised that only within its walls was his small force formidable.
Only he and Williams possessed rifles. The revolvers of the others
were of small service except at closer range than was apt to offer. He
knew the bohunks well enough to feel certain that an attack at close
quarters would be attempted only when defence was practically beaten
down.
The silence told him that no immediate danger threatened; he did not
doubt that the Indian was somewhere on guard. Uncertain, however, how
closely the shack was invested, he crept carefully forward to
reconnoitre.
It gave him time to canvass the situation. As far as the curve of the
river behind the shack were too few trees to cover serious attack from
that direction. Probably the survey for the grade had chosen this line
of contact between prairie and forest because of the small expense of
clearing the right of way.
It was certain, therefore, that the danger lay in front, where the
forest across the grade, and the elevation of the grade itself,
protected the besiegers. The bohunks would be slow to expose
themselves. Indeed, there was no need that they should, since escape
was impossible. Not only was there nowhere to flee, but without its
defenders the trestle would be at the mercy of the I.W.W.
Mahon did not trouble to speculate as to the end of the affair. His
duty was to fight to the last, to protect life first and then the work
of the contractors. Only when he remembered Tressa did his thoughts
pass beyond the immediate future. Fortunately his wife, alone three
miles away, did not enter his mind as a matter for anxiety.
Arrived within a stone's throw of the shack, and having heard no sound,
he knew that his conclusions as to the disposition of the bohunks were
correct. Swinging out wide of the grade, he skirted about in the
darkness in search of isolated prowlers. The stable was reached
without incident.
The late moon was rising, low still but clear enough to throw a dim
light and touch the tops of the evergreen trees with a cold radiance so
wild and pure that Mahon found it hard to believe in the perils urging
him on. In an hour the light would be strong enough to expose movement
within the danger zone, though the size of the moon and a thin autumn
mist limited it; and the low arc promised long shadows. Far to the
south drifted the running echo of coyotes on the hunt, a shriek and a
howl that never failed to stir the Sergeant's blood though he had lived
with it for years. For a moment he longed for the old prairie
life--the coyotes--the feeding cattle--the cowboys and the sweeping
open spaces.
As he crawled from the stable to the back door a dim shadow moved round
the corner of the shack and disappeared toward the trestle. Though no
sound went with it, he was not alarmed. He challenged in a low voice.
No reply. He stood erect to expose his uniform and called again. But
the thing he had seen filtered into the vague moon shadows and was gone.
Knocking at the door, he waited for a reply. Not a sound reached him,
yet he felt that ears were listening. He tried the latch, found it
caught, and whispered his name. Immediately the door opened and Tressa
Torrance seized his arm.
"All right here?" he enquired.
"Where's Adrian?" Calm and undisturbed was the tone, but he could feel
her hand tremble on his arm.
"He'll be all right," he replied cheerily. "No mere bohunk ever got
the better of Adrian Conrad. Who went out just now?"
"The Indian. He's been waiting for you."
"Oh!"
"Tell me, is it true--what he told us?"
"Only too true. They fired on us up the track."
She heaved a deep breath. "That was what we heard. Nothing more. I
was afraid--Conrad hasn't come. . . . And the Indian wouldn't let any
one leave the shack."
He took her hands in his and held them tight. "Miss Torrance, much of
the outcome of to-night depends on you. We're going to fight harder
for you than for everything else lumped together. I must ask you to
forget Adrian for the time being. May we trust you?"
Her reply was a return squeeze to the hands that held hers.
"I'll not flinch," she said. "But I'm not giving up hope."
He laughed. "Adrian will be proud of you."
He dropped her hand and turned back to the door. "Lock it behind me,"
he ordered. "In fifteen minutes exactly I'll knock twice. Open
without a word. I have Williams and the train crew."
He found his companions lying where he had left them. Certain
unmistakable signs of life among the trees over the grade they had
heard, but that was all. Murphy was growling into the loose sand
beneath his chin.
"Mother o' Mike! Why don't ye rush thim? There's bunches jist over
there. Fir-rst thing ye know they'll get away. A good scr-rap going
to waste, it is. And sure why are we lying here like a gang o'
thieves? I got hould of a shillalah that fits me hand like a glove,
glory be! The Lord put it there, He did. Sure He intinds me to use
it. Mollie'd be ashamed o' me."
"You'll have your stomach full of fighting before you're through,"
promised Mahon.
"Be gad, I don't belave ye know an Oirishman's appetite at all."
"Keep low," ordered Mahon, crawling forward, "and quiet."
"The m'anest koind o' foighting I iver took a hand in, it is," grumbled
Murphy, shaking the sand from his whiskers. But he fastened his eyes
to the dim movement of Constable Williams' heels and crawled after him.
Thirty yards they had advanced on hands and knees, and Mahon was
searching for a depression to lead off back of the shack, when Murphy
whispered huskily:
"Any chance up there, Sergeant, o' nading a gun? 'Cause I left mine
back there. But, praise be, I got the shillalah," he added brightly.
Mahon sighed. "You idiot! Lord"--to Constable Williams--"I'll be glad
when I have him locked in. . . ."
A string of muttered oaths told them of Murphy's return.
"Another mouthful o' sand! Darn their hides! If iver I get me hands
on a bohunk in this wor-rld again--" He spat noisily. "And all for a
gun I don't know how to use. But it'll make a n'ise. Maybe it'll do
to disthract their attintion till I get me shillalah swinging."
Torrance received them with a burst of joy, shaking each by hand in
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 great to justify exposing his life. For
all it would gain at the best he, in charge of the defence, must not
undertake it. And there was really no extra danger to the shack, since
it could not be taken from the rear.
He wormed his way back more carefully through the kitchen door and
reported what he had seen. Torrance, far from feeling gratitude for
the Indian's defence of the trestle, fumed that it should be left to
the care of any one but himself. In the midst of his grumbling the
first bullets struck the shack. They penetrated door and window and
embedded themselves in the rear walls. But Mahon had disposed of the
defenders with that peril in mind.
Of the eight Constable Williams and Murphy were stationed in the
kitchen, with its one window and door. In Tressa's room, the point of
least exposure, two of the crew were established. Torrance and another
of the crew held the contractor's bedroom at the front. The living
room Mahon himself, assisted by the last member of the crew, took in
charge. Tressa carried messages, under strict orders to avoid exposure
to window or door. One man in each pair was told off to co-operate
with the defenders of any threatened point.
The weakness of the defence was the number of rifles. Torrance had
two, the Policemen two. One rifle was given to each room; each of the
eight had a revolver. Mahon was almost satisfied that the ammunition
would last out any siege the bohunks were likely to undertake.
A few minutes' contemplation of the stable exposure convinced him that
the attackers could gain nothing there. To fire the stable would only
rob them of the sole protection to the rear, and, with what wind there
was against it, fire would not spread to the house.
Standing to the left of the living room window while he reflected, he
imagined a movement far down the grade. Immediately he fired. From
Torrance's room came the thunder of his rifle. Evidently the bohunks
were crossing the grade in numbers.
Thereafter nothing happened for half an hour but pointless and
desultory potting. It promised nothing to the attackers and the
defence was still intact. The windows were shattered, and by the
tinkle of glass every picture and ornament in the room must have been
smashed. From the trestle the silence was broken only twice. The
Indian was saving his cartridges.
Suddenly a burst of five shots in quick succession warned Mahon that
the Indian was alarmed. Recklessly the Sergeant looked through the
window. From just beneath the sleepers that held the rails a jabbing
flight of flashes pierced the darkness, pointing along the edge of the
bank above the path leading up from Conrad's shack. A pause of only a
moment--the Indian was filling his magazine--then another burst of the
most rapid firing Mahon had ever heard from one rifle. Not a shot
replied from the trees along the bank.
Mahon was puzzled. Was a big attack forming? Did the Indian see some
threat of which those in the shack were unaware? Mahon issued sharp
orders for increased vigilance. But why shoot in that direction to
ward off concentrated attack?
The Indian's bullets continued to pour along the edge of the forest.
Mahon saw the idea. For some reason the bohunks were being driven
temporarily to cover. Something--
The moon had moved a little over the top of the dark mass of trees.
The grade was lit up. Mahon's eyes ran back and forward along the twin
bands of dimly reflecting steel.
A man leaped to the top of the grade from the other side, swayed a
little, and plunged forward toward the shack. With the moon full on
him in that first moment he loomed unnaturally huge. In a bound Mahon
reached the door and threw it open.
"Conrad!" he shouted. "Quick!"
Adrian Conrad stumbled over the doorstep, laughed, and fell to the
floor.
"'S all right," he cheered with a mad laugh. "Haven't got Adrian
Conrad yet. Easy--there, Mahon! They've chewed me up--a bit--that
rifle at the trestle--saved me." Then he fainted.
A voice that jerked Mahon erect came grimly from the grade.
"Shut that door, durn yuh! I can't keep 'em down all night."
Mahon was obeying mechanically when the Indian dashed through.
"Gor-swizzle, if he ain't the spunkiest chap I ever set eyes on. Jes'
swaggered up that path like he was out fer a walk. . . . But plumb
loco'ed! An' whistlin'! Oh, gor!"
The Sergeant leaned heavily against the table, staring into the
darkness toward the familiar voice. He knew he was dreaming again,
that haunting grief for his dead half breed friend had mastered him at
last in a moment of excitement.
A cry of alarm from Torrance's room, and a succession of rifle shots,
brought him to his senses. He hastened to investigate. Torrance had
seen several men running across the grade. One dark lump on the ground
gave proof. When he returned to the front room the Indian was still
there.
"Any spare cartridges? I'm about cleaned out. Jes' two left. Gotta
save them."
Mahon dropped a dozen in the extended hand. The Indian worked with
them in the darkness for a moment and slammed them on the table with a
curse.
"Shud 'a' knowed they wudn't fit. Where's Torrance's?"
But Torrance's likewise were the wrong size, and the Indian disappeared
into Tressa's room. The brakesman entrusted with a rifle in that room
paid no attention until a strong hand wrenched it from him.
"Yuh'll hurt yerself, sonny, playin' with a real gun. Yuh can have all
I shoot to eat."
When he returned to the living room, Mahon laid a hand on his shoulder.
"My God, who are you?"
A moment of silence, then: "Me Indian; no pale-face name."
Torrance rushed from the bedroom.
"Is that the Indian? Good Heavens! The trestle--the trestle!"
He had thrown wide the front door and gone before they could interfere.
A hail of bullets came through. Keener eyes among the trees picked out
Torrance's running bulk, but their eyes were keener than their aim.
The contractor reached the grade and threw himself between the rails,
and with head overhanging the abyss below stared through the sleepers
into the thinning darkness about the feet of his beloved trestle.
Mottled clouds were dimming the moon. Mahon, peering from the window,
could make out only the slight bulk above the rails that marked the
place where the contractor lay. A moment later a spot of light sank
from beneath him--lower and lower, until it dropped beyond the edge of
the bank.
"Me go too," muttered the Indian.
A volley greeted the opening of the door, but the Indian chose the
moment when it had dropped away and crawled out.
Torrance was lying on his face, an electric flash dropping at the end
of a long cord. As it fell, the bones of the trestle came into view
stage after stage and passed upward.
The Indian chuckled. "Durn good!"
"Somebody's got to do something durn good," Torrance returned sulkily.
"Somebody looks as if he'll do some dyin' durn good. Yuh're a bit
thick in the breadbasket fer them rails, ain't yuh?"
Torrance flattened himself until he grunted, for bullets were
splattering about the dropping light. In a few moments the bohunks
understood. They turned their attention then to the top of the trestle.