Filled with alarm, he ran toward the bridge expecting that the worst
had happened to the engineman and fireman. But his amazement grew
rather than lessened when he saw Delaroo and Baggs running for their
lives toward him. He awaited them uneasily.

"What's the matter?" demanded Bucks, as Baggs, well in the lead, came
within hailing distance.

"Matter!" panted Baggs, not slackening his pace. "Matter! Look at my
engine! Indians!"

"Indians, your grandmother!" retorted Bob Scott mildly. "There's not
an Indian within forty miles--what's the matter with you?"

"They wrecked us, Bob," declared Baggs, pointing to his roaring
engine; "see for yourself, man. Them cotton-woods are full of Indians
right now."

"Full of rabbits!" snorted Bob Scott. "You wrecked yourself by running
too fast."

"Delaroo," demanded Dan Baggs, pointing dramatically at his taciturn
fireman, who had now overtaken him, "how fast was I running?"

Peter Delaroo, an Indian half-blood himself, returned a disconcerting
answer. "As fast as you could, I reckon." He understood at once that
Baggs had raised a false alarm to protect himself from blame for the
accident, and resented being called upon to support an absurd story.

Baggs stood his ground. "If you don't find an Indian has done this,"
he asserted, addressing Bob Scott with indignation, "you can have my
pay check."

"Yes," returned Bob, meditatively. "I reckon an Indian did it, but you
are the Indian."

"Come, stop your gabble, you boys!" blustered the doughty engineman,
speaking to everybody and with a show of authority. "Bucks, notify the
despatcher I'm in the river."

"Get back to your engine, then," said Scott. "Don't ask Bucks to send
in a false report. And afterward," suggested Scott, "you and I, Dan,
can go over and clean the Indians out of the cotton-woods."

Baggs took umbrage at the suggestion, and no amount of chaffing from
Scott disconcerted him, but after Bucks reported the catastrophe to
Medicine Bend the wires grew warm. Baxter was very angry. A crew was
got together at Medicine Bend, and a wrecking-train made up with a
gang of bridge and track men and despatched to the scene of the
disaster. The operating department was so ill equipped to cope with
any kind of a wreck that it was after midnight before the train got
under way.

The sun had hardly risen next morning, when Bob Scott, without any
words of explanation, ran into Bucks's room, woke him hurriedly, and,
bidding