THE REAL ATTACK BEGINS
Hearing the moving wheels of a wagon on the trail, Tom looked outside,
then seized Mr. Newnham’s arm rather roughly.
“Come along, sir, and come quickly, if you want to see something
that will beat a carload of telegrams,” urged the cub engineer.
Having gotten the president of the road outside, Tom let go of
his arm and raced on before that astonished man from Broadway.
“Here, you fellows,” called Tom, almost gayly, as he ran to where
engineers and chainmen men were standing in little groups, talking
gloomily over the forenoon’s work. “Get in line, here---a whole
crowd of you!”
Dave Fulsbee was now riding briskly toward the centre of the camp,
ahead of the wagon for which he had gone down the trail. Laughing
quietly, Tom hustled group after group of young men into one long
line.
“Hold up your right hands!” called out the young cub engineer.
Wondering, his subordinates obeyed. Fulsbee reined up, dismounting
before the line.
“They’re all ready for you, friend,” called Tom gayly.
“Listen, boys!” commanded Dave Fulsbee, as he faced the line on
foot. “You do each and all of you, singly and severally, hereby
swear that you will serve truly and well as special deputy sheriffs,
and obey all lawful orders, so help you God?”
Almost in complete silence the hands fell as their owners nodded.
Both the engineers and rodmen felt a trifle dazed. Why was this
solitary deputy sheriff before them, and with what did he expect
them to fight! Were they to stand and throw rocks at an enemy armed
with rifles?
But just then the wagon was driven in front of them.
“Hustle the cases out, boys! Get ’em open!” commanded Dave, though
he spoke without excitement. “Forty rifles and ten thousand cartridges,
all borrowed from the National Guard of the State. Get busy!
If the coyotes down to the westward try to get busy around here
we will talk back to them!”
“Whoop!” yelled the college boys. They pushed and crowded about
the wooden cases that were now unloaded.
“See here,” boomed in the deep voice of Professor Coles, “I wasn’t
sworn in, and I now insist that I, too, be sworn.”
“Mr. Newnham, tell the professor that fighting is a boy’s business,
and that there isn’t any call for him to risk himself,” appealed
Tom. “There are plenty of youngsters here to do the fighting
and to take the chances.”
“Surely, there appear to be enough men,” chuckled President Newnham,
who, since he realized that rifles and ammunition were at hand,
appeared to be wonderfully relieved. “Professor, don’t think of
running yourself into any danger. Look on, with me.”
“Rifles are all given out, now, anyway,” called Dave Fulsbee coolly.
“Now, youngsters, I’m going to show you where to station yourselves.
Mr. Reade, have you seen anything through the glasses that looks
interesting?”
“By Jove,” Tom admitted, flushing guiltily, “I quite forgot to keep
the lenses turned on the hills to the west.”
He now made good for his omission, while Fulsbee led his young men
away, stationing them in hiding places along the westward edge of
the camp. Each man with a rifle was ordered not to rise from the
ground, or to show himself in any way, and not to fire unless orders
were given. Then Dave hurried back to the wagon. Something else
was lifted out, all canvas covered, and rushed forward to a point
just behind a dense clump of bushes.
“Reade, I want to apologize to you,” cried the man from Broadway,
moving quickly over to where Tom stood surveying the hills beyond
through his glass. “I thought, for a few minutes, that you had
suspected some such rascally work afoot, and that you had failed
to take proper precautions.”
“If I had failed, sir,” murmured Tom, without removing the glass
from before his eyes, “you would have arrived just in time, sir,
to turn out of the camp a man who wasn’t fit to be in charge.
Yet it was only accident, sir, that led me to suspect what might
be in the air.”
Thereupon Tom hastily recounted to the president of the company
the story of how he had accidentally overheard fragments of talk
between ’Gene Black and Bad Pete.
“That gave me a hint of how the wind was blowing,” Tom continued,
“though I couldn’t make out enough of their talk, on either occasion,
to learn just what was happening. I telegraphed to the nearest
town that had a sheriff in it, and that put me in touch with Fulsbee.
Then Dave, over the wire, offered to bring arms here and to help
us to defend our camp.”
“Mr. Reade,” exclaimed President Newnham hoarsely, “you are a
wonderful young man! While seeming to be idle yourself, you have
rushed the work through in splendid shape. Even when our enemies
plot in the dark, and plan incredible outrages against us, you fully
inform yourself of their plans. When the cowards strike you are
ready to meet them, force for force. You may be only a cub
engineer, but you have an amazing genius for the work in which
chance has placed you out here.”
“You may be guilty, Mr. Newnham, of giving me far more credit than
I deserve,” laughed Tom gently. “In the matter of finding out the
enemy’s designs, I didn’t, and I don’t know fully yet what the other
side intends to do to us. What I did learn was by accident.”
“Very few other young men would have been equal to making the
greatest and best use of what accident revealed,” insisted Mr.
Newnham warmly.
Harry Hazelton came now, from the hole in the ground, to report
that Dr. Gitney had done all he could for the comfort of poor
young Reynolds.
“Gitney says that Reynolds ought to come along all right, as far
as the mere wound itself is concerned,” Hazelton added. “What
will have to be looked out for is suppuration. If pus forms in
and around the wound it may carry Reynolds off, for there are
no hospital conveniences to be had in this wild neck of the woods.”
“Is the doctor staying with Reynolds?” Tom asked, still using the
glasses on the hilly country that lay ahead.
“No; he has gone back to Mr. Thurston and Mr. Blaisdell,” Hazelton
answered. “Doc says he’ll have to be with them to quiet them in
case the firing gets close. He says both men will become excited and
try to jump out of bed and come over here. Doc says he’s going to
strap ’em both down.”
“Dr. Gitney may be badly needed here, if a fight opens,” Tom mused
aloud.
“He says, if we need him, to send for him.”
“Come through a hot fire?” Tom gasped.
“Surely! Doc Gitney is a Colorado man, born and bred. He doesn’t
mind a lead shower when it comes in the line of duty,” laughed
Harry. “Now, if you’re through using me as a messenger, I’m going
to find a rifle.”
“You won’t succeed,” Tom retorted. “Every rifle in camp already
has an amateur soldier behind it.”
“Just my luck!” growled Harry.
“You’re a good, husky lad,” Tom continued. “If you want to be
of real use, just lie down hug the earth, take good care not to
be hit, and-----”
“Fine and manly!” interjected Hazelton with contempt.
“Now, don’t try to be a hero,” urged Tom teasingly. “There are
altogether too many green, utterly inexperienced heroes here at
present. Be useful, Harry, old chum, and let those who are good
for nothing else be heroes.”
“Following your own advice?” asked Hazelton. “Is that why you
haven’t a rifle yourself?”
“Why do I need a rifle?” demanded Reade. “I’m a non-combatant.”
“You-----”
“Box the chatter, Harry, and ship it east,” Tom interposed, showing
signs of interest. Then, in a louder voice, Tom called:
“Dave Fulsbee!”
“Here,” answered the deputy sheriff from his hiding place in the
brush.
“Do you see that bald knob of rock ahead, to your left; about
a quarter of a mile away?”
“I do.”
“I make out figures crawling to the cover of the line of brush
just to the right of the bald knob,” Tom continued. “There are
eight of them, I think.”
“I see figures moving there,” Dave answered. Then, in a low voice,
the deputy instructed the engineers on each side of him.
“I see half a dozen more figures---heads, rather---showing just
at the summit line of the rock itself,” went on Reade.
“Yes; I make ’em,” answered Fulsbee, after a long, keen look.
Again more instructions were given to the engineers.
“Say, I’ve _got_ to have a rifle,” insisted Harry nervously.
“You know, I always have been ’cracked, on target shooting. This
is the best practical chance that I’ll ever have.”
“You’ll have to wait your turn, Harry,” Tom urged soothingly.
“My turn?”
“Yes; wait until one of our fellows is badly hit. Then you can
take up his rifle and move into his place on the line. When you’re
hit, then I can have the rifle.”
Hazelton made a face, though he said nothing.
Meanwhile Fulsbee’s assistant, the man who had driven the wagon into
camp, stood silent, motionless, behind the canvas-covered object in
the bushes just behind the engineer’s fighting line.
“Now, if one of you galoots dares to fire before he gets the word,”
sounded Dave Fulsbee’s warning voice in the ominous calm that
followed, “I’ll snatch the offender out of the line and give him
a good, sound spanking. The only man for me is the man who has
the nerve to wait when he’s being shot at.”
Crack! Far up on the bald knob a single shot sounded, and a bullet
struck the ground about six feet from where Tom Reade stood with
the binocular at his eyes.
Then there came a volley from the right of the rock, followed
by one from the rock itself.
“Easy, boys,” cautioned Fulsbee, as the bullets tore up the ground
back of the firing line. “I’ll give you the word when the time
comes.”
Another volley sounded. Bullets tore up the ground near President
Newnham, and one leaden pellet carried off that gentleman’s soft
hat.
“Please lie down, Mr. Newnham,” begged Tom, turning around. Now
that the fight had opened the cub chief saw less use for the binocular.
“We can’t have you hit, sir. You’re the head of the company,
please remember.”
“I don’t like this place, but I’m only one human life here,” the man
from Broadway replied quietly, gravely. “If other men so readily
risk their lives for the property of my associates and myself, then
I’m going to expose myself at least as much as these young men ahead
of us do.”
“Just one shot apiece,” sounded Dave Fulsbee’s steady voice.
“Fire where you’ve been told.”
It was an irregular volley that ripped out from the defenders
of the camp. Half of the marksmen fired to the right of the rook,
the others at its crest.
Right on top of this came another volley, fired from some new
point of attack. It filled the air at this end of the camp with
bullets.
“Livin’ rattlers!”, cried Dave Fulsbee, leaping to his feet. “That’s
the real attack. Reade, locate that main body and turn us loose on
’em. If you don’t, the fellows in the real ambush will soon make a
sieve of this camp. There must be a regiment of ’em!”