Suddenly, with a jolt, the train halted.

"Blocked ag'in, b'gorra," said Casey, calmly. "Me pipe's out. Sandy,

gimme a motch."

The engine whistled two shrill blasts.

"What's that for?" asked Neale, quickly.

"Them's for the men in the foist car to pile over the engine an'

remove obstruchtions from the track," replied Casey.

Neale dared to risk a peep over the top of the car. The Sioux were

circling closer to the front of the train. All along a half-dozen

cars ahead of Neale puffs of smoke and jets of flame shot out. Heavy

volleys were being fired. The attack of the savages seemed to be

concentrating forward, evidently to derail the engine or kill the

engineer.

Casey pulled Neale down. "Risky fer yez," he said. "Use a port-hole

an' foight."

"My shells are gone," replied Neale.

He lay well down in the car then, and listened to the uproar, and

watched the Irish trio. When the volleys and the fiendish yells

mingled he could not hear anything else. There were intervals,

however, when the uproar lulled for a moment.

Casey got his black pipe well lit, puffed a cloud of smoke, and

picked up his rifle.

"Drill, ye terriers, drill!" he sang, and shoved his weapon through

a port-hole. He squinted, over the breech.

"Mac, it's the same bunch as attacked us day before yisteddy," he

observed.

"It shure ain't," replied McDermott. "There's a million of thim to-

day."

He aimed his rifle as if following a moving object, and fired.

"Mac, you git excited in a foight. Now I niver do. An' I've seen

thot pinto hoss an' thot dom' redskin a lot of times. I'll kill him

yit."

Casey kept squinting and aiming, and then, just as he pressed the

trigger, the train started with a sudden lurch.