United States or Saint Pierre and Miquelon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Anderson was the scout. He rode up on a foam-lashed mustang, and got off, dark and grimy with dust. His report was that he had been unable to get in touch with any soldiers or laborers along the line, but he had seen enough with his own eyes. Half-way between the camp and Benton a large force of Sioux had torn up the track, halted and fired the work-train.
They indulged in little further conversation while hurriedly eating breakfast. That finished, they sallied forth toward the station. Campbell clambered aboard the work-train. "Come on, Larry," he said. And Neale joined in the request. "Yes, come," he said. "Wal, seein' as how I want you-all to get on an' the rail-road built, I reckon I'd better not go," drawled Larry.
The lonely hours were winged, as if in a hurry to resolve back into the elements the flimsy remains of that great camp. And that spot was haunted. Casey left Benton on the work-train. It was composed of a long string of box and flat-cars loaded with stone, iron, gravel, ties all necessaries for the up-keep of the road.
The men eating breakfast in tents were to be sent on a work-train up a piece of Y-track that led as near as they could be taken to where they were needed. The train had pulled out when Dicksie, Marion, McCloud, and Whispering Smith took horses to get across to the hills and through to the ranch-house. They had ridden slowly for some distance when McCloud was called back.
The next time Neale looked back the Sioux had split up; some were riding hard after Brush and Pat; the majority were pursuing the other three hunters, cutting the while a little to the right, for Slingerland was working round toward the work-train. Neale saw the smoke of the engine and then the train. It seemed far away. And he was sure the Indians were gaining. What incomparable riders!
They had now gained a straight-away course for the work-train, so that with the Sioux behind they had only to hold out for a few miles. Brush appeared as well off as they were. Slingerland led by perhaps a hundred feet, far over to the left, and he was wholly out of range. It took a very short time at that pace to cover a couple of miles. And then the Indians began to creep up closer and closer.
Neale did not notice that Larry's shots were any more effective than his own. He grew certain that the Sioux were gaining faster now. But the work-train was not far away. He saw the workmen on top of the cars waving their arms. Rougher ground, though, on this last stretch. Larry was drawing ahead. He had used all the shells in his rifle and now with hand and spur was goading his horse.
Neale, I'll start east with another load off my shoulders.... And, son, if you throw up a bridge so there'll be no delay, something temporary for the rails and the work-train, and then plan piers right for Number Ten well you'll hear from it, that's all." They shook hands. "I may be gone a week or a month I can't tell," went on the chief.
It was near midnight when he boarded the work-train and dawn was just beginning to break over the wilderness when it stopped at Etomami, from which point he was to travel by hand-car over the sixty miles of new road that had been constructed as far north as Le Pas. For three days the car had been waiting for the new chief of the road, but neither Gregson nor Thorne was with it. "Mr.
Standing above his companions on a pile of ties, a tall young man holding a megaphone waited. Out of the darkness there came presently a loud calling. The tall young man at intervals bawled vigorously into the fog in answer. Far away could be heard, in the intervals of silence, the faint clang of the work-train engine-bell. Again the voice came out of the fog.
Word Of The Day