e cartridges? I'm about cleaned out. Jes' two left. Gotta
save them."

Mahon dropped a dozen in the extended hand. The Indian worked with
them in the darkness for a moment and slammed them on the table with a
curse.

"Shud 'a' knowed they wudn't fit. Where's Torrance's?"

But Torrance's likewise were the wrong size, and the Indian disappeared
into Tressa's room. The brakesman entrusted with a rifle in that room
paid no attention until a strong hand wrenched it from him.

"Yuh'll hurt yerself, sonny, playin' with a real gun. Yuh can have all
I shoot to eat."

When he returned to the living room, Mahon laid a hand on his shoulder.

"My God, who are you?"

A moment of silence, then: "Me Indian; no pale-face name."

Torrance rushed from the bedroom.

"Is that the Indian? Good Heavens! The trestle--the trestle!"

He had thrown wide the front door and gone before they could interfere.
A hail of bullets came through. Keener eyes among the trees picked out
Torrance's running bulk, but their eyes were keener than their aim.
The contractor reached the grade and threw himself between the rails,
and with head overhanging the abyss below stared through the sleepers
into the thinning darkness about the feet of his beloved trestle.

Mottled clouds were dimming the moon. Mahon, peering from the window,
could make out only the slight bulk above the rails that marked the
place where the contractor lay. A moment later a spot of light sank
from beneath him--lower and lower, until it dropped beyond the edge of
the bank.

"Me go too," muttered the Indian.

A volley greeted the opening of the door, but the Indian chose the
moment when it had dropped away and crawled out.

Torrance was lying on his face, an electric flash dropping at the end
of a long cord. As it fell, the bones of the trestle came into view
stage after stage and passed upward.

The Indian chuckled. "Durn good!"

"Somebody's got to do something durn good," Torrance returned sulkily.

"Somebody looks as if he'll do some dyin' durn good. Yuh're a bit
thick in the breadbasket fer them rails, ain't yuh?"

Torrance flattened himself until he grunted, for bullets were
splattering about the dropping light. In a few moments the bohunks
understood. They turned their attention then to the top of the trestle.

CHAPTER XXIX

RETRIBUTION BEGINS

As long as Torrance held himself flat on the sleepers he was safer than
the Indian supposed. Th