speed straight for the mouth of the pass. How could one man stop it? How could five men attack it after it was stopped? It was like trying to storm a medieval fortress with a popgun.
The great black front of the engine came rocking toward them, gathering impetus on the sharp grade. Had Scottie missed his trick? But when the thunder of the iron on iron was deafening Andrew, and the engine seemed almost upon them, there was a cloud of white vapor that burst out on either side of it and a great whistling and breathing sound, as of an animal giving up life in an agony. The brakes were jumped on; the wheels skidded, screaming on the tracks. The engine lurched past; Andrew caught a glimpse of Scottie, a crouched, masked form in the cab of the engine, with a gun in either hand. For Scottie was one of the few natural two-gun men that Andrew was ever to know. The engineer and the fireman he saw only as two shades before they were whisked out of his view. The train rumbled on; then it went from half speed to a stop with one jerk that brought a cry from the coaches. During the next second there was the successive crashing of couplings as the coaches took up their slack.
Andrew, stepping out with his rifle balanced in his hands, saw Larry la Roche whip into the rear car. Then he himself swept the windows of the train, blurred by the mist, with the muzzle of his gun, keeping the butt close to his shoulder, ready for a swift snapshot in any direction. In fact, his was that very important post, the reserve force, which was to come instantly to the aid of any overpowered section of the active workers. He had rebelled against this minor task, but Allister had assured him that, in former times, it was the place which he took himself to meet crises in the attack.
