A NIGHT ON GUARD
Two minutes more, with eight men to back him, George Graham was
knocking or sawing out holes in the blacksmith-shop, and presently a
man with a reliable Winchester was crouched by each opening watching
the next move of the foe. The shop was perched at the edge of a
flat-topped "dump", commanding the rocky slopes to the roadway on one
side, the hill on the other. It was exposed to shots from below, yet
the hardest to reach by direct assault. In the larger building a bit
farther back, the compressor-house, Cawker and four others were
stationed, guarding the approach from the north. The manager had taken
Nolan's broad hint, and the subsequent orders, with one long look of
amaze, then with the light of comprehension in his eyes and the
silence of consent on his lips. Did he not know that the main charge
against Nolan had been loyalty to his old comrades rather than his new
employers? Did he not know, or at least more than suspect, that the
company was trying to "freeze out" the distant holders? Did he not
know, down in his heart, that it was out and out robbery? And now, in
spite of youth and disguise, the manager saw in this masterful stranger
one of the very elements the owners had sought to keep at a distance
and in ignorance of true conditions. So far from resenting, he now
thanked God for his coming. What else could explain Nolan's
deference--Nolan, the most independent and self-respecting man at the
mines? What else could it mean but that this youth was one of his
officers--men skilled and schooled in warfare if not in mining--men
taught to face danger with stout heart and stubborn front? All in the
space of a few seconds the truth had flashed upon Cawker. It might not
be just what the owners would want, thought he, but it's almighty good
for us all.
Nolan, with a handful of men, still clung to the stoutest of the
buildings. It stood without the entrance to the ravine in which had
been discovered the outcropping that started the fame of Silver Shield.
In this, also, stood two other buildings, but these were so far from
the outer shop that flames need not be feared. Nolan was to care for
the wounded and guard the outward approach, and all three were in close
support of each other. Whoever managed to rush that little group of
buildings would know, if he lived, that he had been through a fight.
And now it was after six of the long summer day. The rioters had
received a wholesome lesson in the volley that met their first attempt
to swarm up from the south. They had gone tumbling and cursing back to
shelter, with three men wounded and many of the others badly scared,
and now were being harangued by their vociferous leader, and hundreds
had come to hear. Graham turned to the young Slav who had borne the
first news to Nolan. "Creep out there as far as you can," he ordered,
"listen to what is said, and tell me. They cannot reach you." But the
frightened lad crouched and whimpered. He _dared_ not.
"Come on, then," answered Geordie, grasping the stout collar of the
hickory shirt, and come he had to, moaning and imploring. With revolver
in his right hand, his unwilling interpreter in the left, Geordie
scrambled down to the roadway, and then, coming in view of the gang,
crouched with his prisoner behind sheltering bowlders, regardless of
the shots which began to hiss from below. The speaker was still
shouting; his words were easily heard. Yells of approval and savage
delight punctuated every other sentence. "What was that?" demanded
Geordie, as the applause became furious.
"He say they make circle--all sides, uphill, sidehill, downhill. They
all together run in when he give the word."
"He fights like a Cheyenne," grinned the young commander. "How soon do
they begin?"
"Right off; now! They come from _all_ round!" was the almost agonized
cry.
"Then I won't have to lug you back. You can go!"
And like a frightened hare the young foreigner darted away, dodging and
diving up the slope, only to fall exhausted at the top, and then to
creep on all-fours to the shelter of the office. Already some of the
armed rioters had managed to climb far up the hill-side and from behind
rock or ledge to open fire on the platform. The range was full three
hundred yards, their aim was poor, and the bullets flew wild, but the
effect on this poor lad was all they could ask. He collapsed at the
opening door.
Leisurely, yet cautiously, Geordie climbed in his tracks--went first to
the office to give warning to Nolan, then round to the compressor to
instruct the little guard. Cawker poked a head from a window and looked
anxiously toward the gaping mouth of the ravine. The darkness of night
was already settling in its gloomy depths. The homely shed looked black
and forbidding. Aloft on each side were precipitous slopes affording
but slight foothold. Little likelihood was there of rioters sliding
down to attack them, but, suppose they pried loose, or blasted out,
some of those huge rocks up the mountain and sent them rolling,
bounding, crashing down? What might _then_ happen?
A bullet tearing through the shingling, ten feet above Cawker's
protruding head, made him jerk it in, like a turtle, but presently it
reappeared at the window.
"It's the dynamite I'm thinking of," said he. "A rock lighting on that
now--"
"Where is it?" interrupted Graham.
"In that first shed yonder--a dozen boxes."
"Bring two men and come along," was the quick order, and it was no time
now for reluctance, resentment, much less refusal. The two men summoned
shrank back and would not come, but Cawker found two who dared to
follow. It was a case of "duck and run" for all.
"Watch the hill-side above!" shouted Graham, in tones that rang through
every building and reached every ear. "Shoot down every man that tries
to heave rocks into the ravine, or fire at us. We're going to move
that dynamite."
Once within the shelter of the gorge, with comrades carefully sighting
the slopes, Geordie felt the danger would not be very great. A swift
rush carried all four over the open space of twenty yards. Three or
four shots came zipping from aloft, but the instant ring of Winchesters
back of them told that watchful eyes had noted every head that
appeared, and the swift crackle of fire from the shop put instant stop
to the fun up the slope. Into the store-room the manager led them, and
unlocked a heavy little trap-door within; then, one by one, the
ominous-looking cases were dragged forth, hoisted, and swiftly borne to
the mouth of the mine. Three tunnels there seemed to be, as Geordie
hurriedly noted, but into the largest and lowermost they shouldered
their perilous burden and carefully, cautiously, stacked the boxes well
inside; went back, and searched out, and followed with all the fuse and
powder stored at the top. Then, with rock and ore and barrels of earth,
they built a stout barrier in front of the tunnel, blocking it from
without, and the sun was down and night was upon them when they
stumbled back to their posts.
For now still a weightier problem remained to them--how to defend those
works in the dark.
In all, Geordie Graham found they had just twenty men on whom he could
count. The trembling young Slav at the blacksmith-shop, the blue-lipped
boy in the office, and sorely wounded old Shiner were out of the fight.
But Cawker's mine-guards were native born, or Irish, and most of the
reinforcements that came with Nolan and himself were Americans, and all
were good men and true. By day they could see and shoot at any man or
men who sought to approach them with hostile intent. By night they
could see nothing. There was only one way, said Graham, to prevent the
more daring among the rioters crawling in on them and firing some of
the shops, and that was to throw out strong pickets on every side, then
trust to their ears, their grit, and their guns.
Already he had been selecting good positions in which to post his
sentries. Ten at least, full half his force, would be needed, and while
vigilant watch was kept through the twilight, and a warning shot sent
at every hat that showed within dangerous range, Geordie went from
building to building picking out his men.
Arms, ammunition, and provisions, fortunately, they had in abundance.
The company had long since seen to that. Nolan already had set "Blue
Lips" to work building a fire in the big kitchen stove at the office
and setting the kettle to boil. Coffee, hard bread, and bacon, with
canned pork and beans, were served to all hands, about five at a time,
and then, with Nolan to station the watchers on the south and west
fronts, George and his five stole out on the northward slope, alert,
cautious, and silent, moving only a few paces at a time.
Afar down in the depths of the valley the clustered lights of the
excited town shone brilliantly through the gloaming. Every now and then
through the surrounding silence came the bark of dogs, the shrill
voices of clamoring women, and occasionally a burst of howls and yells.
Some rude orator was still preaching death and destruction to a more
than half-drunken gang, urging them on to the aid of their brethren up
the levels above. All about the Silver Shield, however, was ominously
still. Over on opposite heights and down in stray gulches could be seen
the flitting lights of rival establishments, and away to the west,
around the base of the mountain where the railway squirmed by the side
of the tortuous stream, two or three locomotive-engines, on stalled
trains, had been whistling long and hard for aid. All that was useless.
Above for a mile, below for a league, the track had been torn up in
places, and down along Silver Run, toward Hatch's Cove and the
foot-hills, culverts and cuts had been mined and blown out for five
miles more. No sheriff's posses from below, no hated Pinkertons, no
despised militia, no dreaded regulars, should come to the aid of Silver
Shield till there was nothing left worth saving.
And up here on the northward flank of the bold, rounded heights that
overhung the town, and harbored now both besieged and besiegers,
invisible to each other and to the lower world in the darkness, Geordie
Graham lay crouching behind a little bowlder, every sense on edge, for
to his left front, a little higher up, he could distinctly hear low,
gruff voices, confused murmurings and movements, sounds that told him
that, relying on their overwhelming numbers, the mob was coming slowly,
surely, down to carry out their threat to fire the buildings and to
finish as they pleased the wretched defenders.
It was barely nine o'clock. Below him, perhaps twenty yards downhill,
was his nearest sentry. Above him, and a little retired, was another, a
silent young German-American who had been at the head of the men
working tunnel Number Two. Beyond him still, and thrown back toward the
head of the ravine, was one of Cawker's guard, a sharp-eyed,
sharp-witted chap who had seemed at first to chafe at Graham's hints
and orders, yet had acted on them. And on these two, so far as sound
could enable him to judge, all ignorant of their presence and purpose,
this uncouth mass of men was bearing down. Winchester in hand and, as
he himself said later, his heart in his mouth, Geordie stole swiftly
uphill to the post of the German and found him kneeling and all aquiver
with excitement. He, too, had just heard.
"Don't fire till I do," said Graham. "I'll be right out where you can
hear me challenge." A few steps higher he climbed, and then called low
and clear:
"D'you hear them coming, guard? Can you see anything?"
And the answer came in the drawl of the Southland:
"Hyuh 'em plain 'nuff, but they don't show a light yet. Reckon they
don't mean tuh."
"We'll give them the fill of our magazines if they don't halt at the
word. Wait till I let drive, then let them have it!"
And so, crouching low, straightforward along the slope he sped, till,
perhaps twenty yards out, the black bulk of the mountain-side loomed
between him and the westward heaven, while against the stars of the
northern horizon he could dimly determine, heaving steadily toward him,
not fifty paces away, some huge, murmuring, moving mass. And then there
rang out on the silence of the night, clear, stern, and commanding, a
voice the like of which their ears had never heard, in words that even
they could not fail to comprehend:
"Halt where you are--or we fire!"
There was an instant of recoil and confusion and fear. Then furious
tones from far back in the throng and guttural shoutings that seemed
urging them on, for, presently, on they came, but in the silence and
dread of death.
Back went the lever of Graham's Winchester; slap went the bolt to its
seat, with the shining cartridge ahead of it; up came the butt to the
shoulder; and then, once more, that deep, virile voice rang along the
heights and went echoing away across the gorge. Back at the mine
Nolan's heart leaped at the sound of it. Away down in the village they
heard it and shrank, for the next instant set them all shrieking; for
the lightning flashed and the rifles barked loud and swift, and strong
men howled and turned and fled, anywhere out of the way, and some fell
headlong, screaming and cursing, in the rush and panic that spread from
one stern and sudden word--the soldier command: "Fire!"