which was
shot through with howls and bellows of uproarious men.

"Trouble's coming there, Mr. Parker!" gasped the foreman,
apprehensively. "The wind behind 'em an' rum inside 'em."

"Ward's men, eh?" suggested the engineer.

"That they are! The Gideonites! They can't be anything else."

"Get our men together!" Parker cried, clapping his gloved hands. "Rout
out every man in the settlement."

The foreman started away on the run, banging on house doors and bawling
the cry:

"Whoo-ee! All up! Parker's crew turn out! All hands wanted at the lake!"

In the excitement of the moment Mank did not question the command nor
pause to reflect that he might be calling his neighbors into trouble
that they would not relish.

CHAPTER EIGHT--THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT WENT SWIMMING AND THE ENGINEER WHO
WAS STOLEN

In a few moments the bell of the little chapel was sending its jangling
alarm out over the village. Doors banged, men burst out of the houses
and poured down to the lake shore, buttoning their jackets as they ran.

They required no explanation. Ever since the incident at Poquette some
such irruption of Ward's reckless woods hordes had been anticipated. But
this tempestuous night arrival under sail, this sudden and terrifying
descent appalled the newly awakened men.

The craft was now close to shore, and was making for the stolid Swogon
and its waiting sleds. The stranger's method of construction could
now be distinguished, A good half-score of tote-sleds had been lashed
together into a sort of runnered raft The sail was the huge canvas used
in summer on Ward's lake scow.

As the great boat swung into the wind, a jostling crowd of men poured
out on the ice from under the flapping sail. Each man bore a tool of
some sort, either ax, cant-dog, iron-shod peavey-stick, or cross-cut
saw; and the moonshine flashed on the steel surfaces. It was plain
that the party viewed its expedition as an opportunity for reckless
roistering, and spirits had added a spur to the natural boisterous
belligerency of the woodsmen.

Most of Parker's crew had brought axes, and now as he advanced across
the ice toward the locomotive, his men followed with considerable
display of valor.

'A giant whiskered woodsman led the onrush of the attacking force;
and the gang interposed itself between the railroad property and its
defenders.

"Hold up there, right where ye are, all of ye!" the giant shouted.

"What is your business here?" demanded