at their
heels when the Fast Freight came thundering after them, but hailed,
with amaze and joy, the signal from the tender, and, feeling sure the
train would await them here, had spurred on to the station.

"You'll send the horses back for us, will you, sergeant?" he finished.
Then eagerly, "Now, conductor, shall we pull out for Summit?"

"Pull out for nothing," was the astounding answer. "You know perfectly
no Time Freight on this road takes a passenger of any kind, and it
would be more'n my job's worth to take you!"

"Then, in God's name, why did you signal?" was the almost agonized
question.

"Signal be jiggered! I never signalled. No man of _my_ crew signalled.
If you want to get back to the mines, stay here and flag No. 5. She'll
be along at eleven."

"Along at _eleven_! Man alive, the sheriff will be here with a posse of
forty long before that!"

"_Long_ before that!" almost screamed old Shiner. "Look, there, what
you see! He's coming now!"

And then Geordie Graham, listening with beating heart within the open
doorway of the caboose, could stand the strain no longer. The man he
must see, the man on whom everything depended, the old friend whom he
most trusted and believed in stood in sore peril. The cause for which
he had come all these miles must fail so sure as Nolan slipped into the
power of the adversary, even though grasped by the hand of the law. It
was no time for ethics--no time for casuists. He let his voice out in
the old tone of authority:

"You've no time to lose, Mr. Cullin. Arrest them, too, and come on!"

With wonderment in his eyes, with Shiner whispering caution in his ear,
"Long" Nolan was hustled aboard the caboose just as the wheels began to
turn, his breathless followers clambering after, while afar up the
divide toward the east, by twos and threes, in eager pursuit, egged on
by lavish promise of reward, the sheriff of Yampah, with a score of his
men, spurred furiously on the trail of a train that, starting slowly
and heavily, speedily gained headway and soon went thundering up the
grade, "leaving the wolves behind."

CHAPTER X

FIRST SHOTS OF THE SUMMER

Half-way up the scarred slope of mountain-side, and opposite the mouth
of a deep ravine, hung the crude wooden buildings and costly machinery
of a modern mine. Zigzagging up the heights, the road that led to it
from the ramshackle town in the valley was dotted with groups of
rough-coated men, all plodding steadily on