Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/121

Rh to be roasted alive. Then, again, I disliked fighting,—that's what we fed and hauled these soldiers around for. They were so infernally lazy in times of peace that I used almost to pray for trouble, that they might have an opportunity at least once a week to earn their board and keep. Now that the opportunity seemed to be at hand, I had no wish to deprive them of the excitement and glory of being killed in real battle, and so sat nodding in the cab of old 49.

"It was long after midnight when one of the men on duty heard a low scraping sound, like that made by a hog crawling under a gate. A moment later the noise was repeated, and when the same sound had been heard three or four times, the lieutenant in command flashed a bull's-eye lamp in the direction of the door, and the light of it revealed three big braves standing close together, while a fourth was just creeping in under the door. Then, as if the idea had struck all of them at once, they threw their guns up and let go along down the ray of light, and the lieutenant fell severely wounded. The scouts returned the fire and four Indians fell.