Throwing the flash ahead of him as he ran, he wriggled at top speed down the winding path that led through the village; and Constable Williams stumbled behind. As the last of the deserted shacks fell behind, a luminous spot ahead led them straight to Murphy's tent. From forty yards Mahon shouted:

 

"How long to get steam up, Murphy? It's life and death, and we need the engine."

 

A bewhiskered face thrust itself through the opening, carefully pulling the flap below to cut off a fleeting glimpse of bare legs and loose shirt.

 

"What ye take us for? Night nurses? Think we're taking shifts keeping Mollie snuggled up warm o' nights? Go away and change yeer dhrinks. What's the hullabaloo anyway? Short o' tobacco? Or has the newest tenderfoot discovered the one lone flea in all this lousy village?"

 

"The bohunks are attacking the trestle! They've stolen our horses."

 

Murphy asked no more foolish questions; he was busy with his overalls.

 

"Dunno about getting you there right away," he grunted, tugging at a suspender, "but sure the next instant. Glory be! ain't we afther getting in late to-noight--and me blasting the hide o' me crew and old man Torrance? And 'Uggins didn't draw the fires, he was that lazy and cantankerous himself--"

 

"Call the crew!" ordered Mahon. "We'll need them."

 

"'Ere's 'Uggins," said a small voice from the edge of the cot.

 

The fireman was pulling on his second sock. He waited for nothing more. Shirt flapping about his short legs, he ran into the night, shouting at the top of his voice.

 

"Have you arms?" Mahon enquired of Murphy.

 

"Wish I had about three more o' thim for this collar-button," grumbled the engineer before the mirror.

 

"Have you a gun, I asked?"

 

"Well," said Murphy carefully, "if ye're enquir-ring to enfor-rce the law agin carrying arms, nary a jack-knife even. If it's help ye nade, I guess we might be able to scrape up a shooter apiece. We lug 'em along for ballast, ye understand, in the absence o' fire-water. If it's a foighter ye're talking like, ivery devil of a mother's son of us can make a bang like a gun, with a bullet t'rowed in--though for meself I prefer a shillalah. I'm going to be in this foight if I have to use a lead pencil. Ain't I Oirish?"

 

"For heaven's sake, let the collar and tie go!" groaned Mahon.

 

Murphy turned a disgusted face on the Policeman. "Niver go into a foight excited-like. It's dangerous. I wouldn't enjoy meself if it's too scrambly a show. 'Tain't ivery day a fellow has a chance out here to get into one. Anyway, 'Uggins has to get steam up. . . . Now I'm ready for anything from dam-sels to any other damn thing."

 

As they ran from the tent, the shacks the crews had taken to themselves were bustling with activity. Four half-clothed figures, pulling on jackets as they ran, fell in behind them and made for the siding where great gusts of flame revealed Huggins' frantic struggle with the engine.

 

The half-naked fireman was firing recklessly, madly. Limitless dry wood was at his hand, and from the live coals that remained from the day's work a mass of flame was already throwing heavy sparks against the smokestack guard. But Huggins was a fuming thing of cursing impatience. Mouthing unlisted oaths, his wet shirt lashing against his bare legs, he was repeatedly filling a small pail from a nearby barrel and, standing on the cab steps, was tossing its contents into the blazing fireplace. Great gushes of fire roared out in response, revealing him, face streaming perspiration, lips moving ceaselessly, one sock hanging in tatters, already swinging about for the next pail.

 

Murphy looked on in anxious admiration.

 

"Holy smoke! Here I been wor-rking five years to get a hustle on that Englishman, and him arguing coal oil was made for wiping engines and lighting lamps and smelling up a grocery store. . . . That's what I call a medal job. Anyway," he added, as a greater gush than usual burst out and seemed to lick about the frantic fireman, "there ain't much o' him to catch fire, if he don't tumble down them steps in time. . . . Poof! That must have been half the barrel. For the love of Mike!" he bawled, wiping the soot from his eyes, "Here, you crazy bat, go aisy. The cab'll be catching fire."

 

"Garn!" yelled Huggins, reaching for a fresh supply. "Look arfter yer own blinkin' cab, yu blighter!"

 

"Blighter, is it?" Murphy was dancing excitedly about--until he got in the fireman's way, to receive such a furious push that he went sprawling on his back. He lifted himself to his feet as if something new had entered his experience, and stood agitatedly chewing his beard.

 

"When this foight's over," he announced solemnly, "there's going to be another that'll make the one at the threstle look like a Sunday School picnic; and Oireland's going to put England over her knee and spank the place yeer shirt don't cover dacent. . . . Stop it, ye loon! Make a pair o' pants o' the rest o' the ile and look respectable. Ye don't seem to remember Mollie's sex. I'm ashamed o' ye. . . . Climb aboard, ye fools--and ithers. She'll do five miles on what she has, and in three miles she'll be cutting' out twenty. . . . For the sake o' me dead and buried mother, somebody sit on that barrel or we'll be one short in the foight! I got to work in this cab! He's gone daffy! He'll miss the fireplace some time and set the bush on fire!"

 

Huggins' blind haste was deaf to everything but the clang of the starting lever and the grind of the big wheels. Grabbing the rail, he swung aboard, a half-filled pail clutched tight. And Murphy had only time to knock it from his hand to save the seven of them from one last gush of flame. Huggins swore deeply, swept a black arm across his dripping eyes, and leaned out to estimate their speed.