“Seven in all, besides the boss-devil; and they looked to me like Brewster toughs, or hold-up men, or something of that sort.” “Armed?” “Sure!--one of ’em ran me off the staging with a gun.” “Brewster toughs, you say?--are you sure they are not Powder Can toughs? Lushing would have to take them to Brewster to have them sworn in as deputies--which would account for their coming from down the line.” “By George--that’s so! I did see a bunch of plug-uglies going down on the stub train yesterday, come to think of it.” David Vallory turned upon Plegg. “There you are,” he said. And then to Crawford: “We are going back to headquarters now, and maybe they’ll give us a scrap as we go by, and maybe they won’t. If they don’t show up for us, they may come down here and make trouble for you. How about that?” “I’ll take my chances,” returned the bridge expert cheerfully. “I have my old pump-gun now; it was in the office shack, and I didn’t have sense enough to go and get it before they came up and fell on me. I’ll stand ’em off, all right, if they try to stop the job again.” “You said one of them came to you at Number One to borrow a monkey-wrench: what did he say?” “He was just joshing me a few lines while I was looking for the wrench; said I wouldn’t have any bosses to-morrow, because they’d both be in jail. I asked him who he meant by ‘both’, and he said, ‘the big one and the little one.’ I took that to mean you and Mr. Grillage.” “You probably guessed right; but the man was a liar. We are not going to jail--any of us. And before I forget it: you’ve done a good job to-night, Crawford, and I shall see to it that you get credit where it will do you the most good.” “I don’t need any credit; it’s all in the day’s work,” laughed the cheerful bridge builder; then, as his chief was turning to climb into Callahan’s cab: “Oh, say--I meant to ask you: have you seen Lushing since you--er--since he went into retirement a few days ago? He’s a plumb sight! You broke his nose; turned it around so it points east when he’s going north. Gee! but he looks fierce!” “It ought to have been his neck,” was the brittle rejoinder, and then the double-ended train pulled out for the return. There was no demonstration at the point where the abandoned gasoline car had been demolished, though David had the train stopped and got off with his pick-handle squad to beat the covers. The straight piece of track was on the river bank, with a wooded hill on the left from which a few determined snipers might have wrought havoc with the beaters, but no man was found and no shot was fired. Plegg spoke of the probabilities as the train proceeded up the valley. “We are through with them for to-night,” was his prediction. “It is eight miles to Powder Can or the Gap, and only four to Agorda. They’ll go east instead of west.” “Yes,” David agreed; “now that they know they can’t bluff us. That is what I meant to do; turn the bluff the other way around. I guess we did it.”