"Don"t ride so close!" yelled Larry. "They"re spreadin"!"
Neale gathered that the Indians were riding farther apart because they soon expected to be in range of bullets; and Larry wanted Neale to ride farther from him for the identical reason.
Neale saw the first white puff of smoke from a rifle of the leader. The bullet hit far behind. More shots kept raising the dust, the last time still a few yards short.
"Gawd! Look!" yelled Larry. "The devils. .h.i.t Pat"s hoss!"
Neale saw the Irishman go down with his horse, plunge in the dust, and then roll over and lie still.
"They got him!" he yelled at Larry.
"Ride thet hoss!" came back grimly and appealingly from the cowboy.
Neale rode as he had never before ridden. Fortunately his horse was fresh and fast, and that balanced the driving the cowboy was giving his mount. For a long distance they held their own with the Sioux. 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. Again they were shooting. Neale heard the reports and each one made him flinch in expectation of feeling the burn of a bullet. Brush was now turning to fire his rifle.
Neale bethought himself of his own Winchester, which he was carrying in his hand. Dropping the rein over the horn of his saddle, he turned half round. How close, how red, how fierce these Sioux were! He felt his hair rise stiff under his hat. And at the same instant a hot wrath rushed over him, madness to fight, to give back blow for blow. Just then several of the Indians fired. He heard the sharp cracks, then the spats of bullets striking the ground; he saw the little streaks of dust in front of him. Then the whistle of lead. That made him shoot in return.
His horse lunged forward, almost throwing him, and ran the faster for his fright. Neale heard Larry begin to shoot. It became a running duel now, with the Indians scattering wide, riding low, yelling like demons, and keeping up a continuous volley. They were well armed with white men"s guns. Neale worked the lever of his rifle while he looked ahead for an instant to see where his horse was running; then he wheeled quickly and took a snap shot at the nearest Indian, no more than three hundred yards distant now. He saw where his bullet, going wide, struck up the dust. It was desperately hard to shoot from the back of a scared horse. 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 sh.e.l.ls in his rifle and now with hand and spur was goading his horse.
Suddenly Neale heard the soft thud of lead striking flesh. His horse leaped with a piercing snort of terror, and Neale thought he was going down. But he recovered, and went plunging on, still swift and game, though with uneven gait. Larry yelled. His red face flashed back over his shoulder. He saw something was wrong with Neale"s horse and he pulled his own.
"Save your own life!" yelled Neale, fiercely. It enraged him to see the cowboy holding back to let him come up. But he could not prevent it.
"He"s. .h.i.t!" shouted Larry.
"Yes, but not badly," shouted Neale, in reply. "Spread out!"
The cowboy never swerved a foot. He watched Neale"s horse with keen, sure eyes.
"He"s breakin"! Mebbe he can"t last!"
Bullets whistled all around Neale now. He heard them strike the stones on the ground and sing away; he saw them streak through the scant gra.s.s; he felt the tug at his shoulder where one cut through his coat, stinging the skin. That touch, light as it was, drove the panic out of him. The strange darkness before his eyes, hard to see through, pa.s.sed away. He wheeled to shoot again, and with deliberation he aimed as best he could.
Yet he might as well have tried to hit flying birds. He emptied the Winchester.
Then, hunching low in the saddle, Neale hung on. Slingerland was close to the train; Brush on his side appeared to be about out of danger; the pursuit had narrowed down to Neale and Larry. The anger and the grimness faded from Neale. He did not want to go plunging down in front of those lean wild mustangs, to be ridden over and trampled and mutilated. The thought sickened him. The roar of pursuing hoofs grew distinct, but Neale did not look back.
Another roar broke on his ear--the clamor of the Irish soldier-laborers as they yelled and fired.
"Pull him! Pull him!" came the piercing cry from Larry.
Neale was about to ride his frantic horse straight into the work-train.
Desperately he hauled the horse up and leaped off. Larry was down, waiting, and his mount went plunging away. Bullets were pattering against the sides of the cars, from which puffed streaks of flame and smoke.
"Up wid yez, lads!" sang out a cheery voice. Casey"s grin and black pipe appeared over the rim of the car, and his big hands reached down.
One quick and straining effort and Neale was up, over the side, to fall on the floor in a pile of sand and gravel. All whirled dim round him for a second. His heart labored. He was wet and hot and shaking.
"Shure yez ain"t hit now!" exclaimed Casey.
Larry"s nervous hands began to slide and press over Neale"s quivering body.
"No--I"m--all--safe!" panted Neale.
The engine whistled shrilly, as if in defiance of the Indians, and with a jerk and rattle the train started.
Neale recovered to find himself in a novel and thrilling situation. The car was of a gondola type, being merely a flat-car, with sides about four feet high, made of such thick oak planking that bullets did not penetrate it. Besides himself and Larry there were half a dozen soldiers, all kneeling at little port-holes. Neale peeped over the rim.
In a long thinned-out line the Sioux were circling round the train, hiding on the off sides of their mustangs, and shooting from these difficult positions. They were going at full speed, working in closer.
A bullet, striking the rim of the car and showering splinters in Neale"s face, attested to the fact that the Sioux were still to be feared, even from a moving fort. Neale dropped back and, reloading his rifle, found a hole from which to shoot. He emptied his magazine before he realized it. But what with his trembling hands, the jerking of the train, and the swift motion of the Indians, he did not do any harm to the foe.
Suddenly, with a jolt, the train halted.
"Blocked ag"in, b"gorra," said Casey, calmly. "Me pipe"s out. Sandy, gimme a motch."
The engine whistled two shrill blasts.
"What"s that for?" asked Neale, quickly.
"Them"s for the men in the foist car to pile over the engine an" remove obstruchtions from the track," replied Casey.
Neale dared to risk a peep over the top of the car. The Sioux were circling closer to the front of the train. All along a half-dozen cars ahead of Neale puffs of smoke and jets of flame shot out. Heavy volleys were being fired. The attack of the savages seemed to be concentrating forward, evidently to derail the engine or kill the engineer.
Casey pulled Neale down. "Risky fer yez," he said. "Use a port-hole an"
foight."
"My sh.e.l.ls are gone," replied Neale.
He lay well down in the car then, and listened to the uproar, and watched the Irish trio. When the volleys and the fiendish yells mingled he could not hear anything else. There were intervals, however, when the uproar lulled for a moment.
Casey got his black pipe well lit, puffed a cloud of smoke, and picked up his rifle.
"Drill, ye terriers, drill!" he sang, and shoved his weapon through a port-hole. He squinted, over the breech.
"Mac, it"s the same bunch as attacked us day before yisteddy," he observed.
"It shure ain"t," replied McDermott. "There"s a million of thim to-day."
He aimed his rifle as if following a moving object, and fired.
"Mac, you git excited in a foight. Now I niver do. An" I"ve seen thot pinto hoss an" thot dom" redskin a lot of times. I"ll kill him yit."
Casey kept squinting and aiming, and then, just as he pressed the trigger, the train started with a sudden lurch.
"Sp"iled me aim! Thot engineer"s savin" of the Sooz tribe!... Drill, ye terriers, drill! Drill, ye terriers, drill!... Shane, I don"t hear yez shootin"."