"How"n h.e.l.l can I shoot whin me eye is full of blood?" demanded Shane.
Neale then saw blood on Shane"s face. He crawled quietly to the Irishman.
"Man, are you shot? Let me see."
"Jist a bullet hit me, loike," replied Shane.
Neale found that a bullet, perhaps glancing from the wood, had cut a gash over Shane"s eye, from which the blood poured. Shane"s hands and face and shirt were crimson. Neale bound a scarf tightly over the wound.
"Let me take the rifle now," he said.
"Thanks, lad. I ain"t hurted. An" hev Casey make me loife miserable foriver? Not much. He"s a harrd mon, thot Casey."
Shane crouched back to his port-hole, with his b.l.o.o.d.y bandaged face and his b.l.o.o.d.y hands. And just then the train stopped with a rattling crash.
"Whin we git beyond thim ties as was scattered along here mebbe we"ll go on in," remarked McDermott.
"Mac, yez looks on the gloomy side," replied Casey. Then quickly he aimed the shot. "I loike it better whin we ain"t movin"," he soliloquized, with satisfaction. "Thot red-skin won"t niver scalp a soldier of the U. P. R.... Drill, ye terriers! Drill, ye terriers, drill!"
The engine whistle shrieked out and once more the din of conflict headed to the front. Neale lay there, seeing the reality of what he had so often dreamed. These old soldiers, these toilers with rail and sledge and shovel, these Irishmen with the rifles, they were the builders of the great U. P. R. Glory might never be theirs, but they were the battle-scarred heroes. They were as used to fighting as to working. They dropped their sledges or shovels to run for their guns.
Again the train started up and had scarcely gotten under way when with jerk and b.u.mp it stopped once more. The conflict grew fiercer as the Indians became more desperate. But evidently they were kept from closing in, for during the thick of the heaviest volleying the engine again began to puff and the wheels to grind. Slowly the train moved on. Like hail the bullets pattered against the car. Smoke drifted away on the wind.
Neale lay there, watching these cool men who fought off the savages. No doubt Casey and Shane and McDermott were merely three of many thousands engaged in building and defending the U. P. R. This trio liked the fighting, perhaps better than the toiling. Casey puffed his old black pipe, grinned and aimed, shot and reloaded, sang his quaint song, and joked with his comrades, all in the same cool, quiet way. If he knew that the shadow of death hung over the train, he did not show it. He was not a thinker. Casey was a man of action. Only once he yelled, and that was when he killed the Indian on the pinto mustang.
Shane grew less loquacious and he dropped and fumbled over his rifle, but he kept on shooting. Neale saw him feel the hot muzzle of his gun and shake his bandaged head. The blood trickled down his cheek.
McDermott plied his weapon, and ever and anon he would utter some pessimistic word, or presage dire disaster, or remind Casey that his scalp was destined to dry in a Sioux"s lodge, or call on Shane to hit something to save his life, or declare the engine was off the track.
He rambled on. But it was all talk. The man had gray hairs and he was a born fighter.
This time the train gained more headway, and evidently had pa.s.sed the point where the Indians could find obstructions to place on the track.
Neale saw through a port-hole that the Sioux were dropping back from the front of the train and were no longer circling. Their firing had become desultory. Medicine Bow was in sight. The engine gathered headway.
"We"ll git the rest of the day off," remarked Casey, complacently.
"Shane, yez are dom" quiet betoimes. An" Mac, I shure showed yez up to-day."
"Ye DID not," retorted McDermott. "I kilt jist twinty-nine Sooz!"
"Jist thorty wus moine. An", Mac, as they wus only about fifthy of thim, yez must be a liar."
The train drew on toward Medicine Bow. Firing ceased. Neale stood up to see the Sioux riding away. Their ranks did not seem noticeably depleted.
"Drill, ye terriers, drill!" sang Casey, as he wiped his sweaty and begrimed rifle. "Mac, how many Sooz did Shane kill?"
"B"gorra, he ain"t said yit," replied McDermott. "Say, Shane.... CASEY!"
Neale whirled at the sharp change of tone.
Shane lay face down on the floor of the car, his b.l.o.o.d.y hands gripping his rifle. His position was inert, singularly expressive.
Neale strode toward him. But Casey reached him first. He laid a hesitating hand on Shane"s shoulder.
"Shane, old mon!" he said, but the cheer was not in his voice.
Casey dropped his pipe! Then he turned his comrade over. Shane had done his best and his last for the U. P. R.
17
Neale and Larry and Slingerland planned to go into the hills late in the fall, visit Slingerland"s old camp, and then try to locate the gold buried by Horn. For the present Larry meant to return to Benton, and Neale, though vacillating as to his own movements, decided to keep an eye on the cowboy.
The trapper"s last words to Neale were interesting. "Son," he said, "there"s a feller hyar in Medicine Bow who says as how he thought your pard Larry was a bad cowpuncher from the Pan Handle of Texas."
"Bad?" queried Neale.
"Wal, he meant a gun-throwin" bad man, I take it."
"Don"t let Reddy overhear you say it," replied Neale, "and advise your informant to be careful. I"ve always had a hunch that Reddy was really somebody."
"Benton "ll work on the cowboy," continued Slingerland, earnestly. "An", son, I ain"t so all-fired sure of you."
"I"ll take what comes," returned Neale, shortly. "Good-bye, old friend.
And if you can use us for buffalo-hunting without the "dom" Sooz," as Casey says; why, we"ll come."
After Slingerland departed Neale carried with him a memory of the trapper"s reluctant and wistful good-bye. It made Neale think--where were he and Larry going? Friendships in this wild West were stronger ties than he had known elsewhere.
The train arrived at Benton after dark. And the darkness seemed a windy gulf out of which roared yellow lights and excited men. The tents, with the dim lights through the canvas, gleamed pale and obscure, like so much of the life they hid. The throngs hurried, the dust blew, the band played, the barkers clamored for their trade.
Neale found the more pretentious hotels overcrowded, and he was compelled to go to his former lodgings, where he and Larry were accommodated.
"Now, we"re here, what "ll we do?" queried Neale, more to himself. He felt as if driven. And the mood he hated and feared was impinging upon his mind.
"Sh.o.r.e we"ll eat," replied Larry.
"Then what?"
"Wal, I reckon we"ll see what"s goin" on in this heah Benton."
As a matter of fact, Neale reflected, there was nothing to do that he wanted to do.
"You-all air gettin" the blues," said Larry, with solicitude.
"Red, I"m never free of them."
Larry put his hands on Neale"s shoulder. Demonstration of this kind was rare in the cowboy.
"Pard, are we goin" to see this heah Benton, an" then brace, an" go back to work?"