Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/117

Rh "We had been in motion less than ten minutes when I saw the conductor's light (we were going with the storm) stand out, and following this movement all the lights along the train's top pointed out over the plain, and I began to slow down. Instantly a dozen shots were fired from the darkness. Muffled by the storm, the sound came as if a pack of fire-crackers were going off under a dinner pail, and we all knew what we had run into. 'Injuns,' shouted the fireman, leaping across the gangway, and they 're on my side. 'Keep your seat,' said I, 'they 're on my side, too.'

"Now all the white lights, following another signal from the conductor, began to whirl furiously in a short circle. That was my notion precisely. If they had prepared to ditch us, we might as well go into the ditch as remain on the tops of the cars to be picked off by the Sioux, so I opened the throttle and began to back away again as fast as possible. The Indians had prepared to ditch our train. They had placed a great pile of cross ties upon the track, expecting that when we struck them our train would come to a dead stop. This small