But if the boys were relieved of much of the actual bossing they still found plenty to do. There were center lines to be run with the surveying instruments, blue-prints to be explained to Burkett’s gang, the distribution of material to be planned for and the supplies kept moving so that the different gangs wouldn’t be thrown into confusion by having some other gangs overtaking them. In the thick of things the locomotive sent down the line to carry the news of the raid returned, and Barney came up to report. An earth slide had tumbled down upon the track a few miles below, and they were thus cut off from all communication with their base at Pine Gulch. They made no doubt that the blocking slide had been caused, or at least helped, by the unscrupulous enemy. “Never mind, Barney,” said Larry. “If we can’t get help from the outside we’ll try and get along without it. Bring your train crew up here and jump it on the tie-stringing. We can use every man in it. We’re going into Little Ophir――_to-day_!” The Irishman was hurrying back to his train to obey the order when Dick grabbed Larry’s arm. “Look!” he gurgled, pointing toward the river, “they’re coming for us again!” Larry looked and saw another group of men crossing the river on the boulder stepping-stones. Its leader was a tall, well-set-up man in the brown duck of the engineers. “It’s――it’s Grissby――the O. C. chief!” Dick stammered. “He’ll stop us again!” “I don’t believe he will,” said Larry, with another out-thrust of the fighting Donovan jaw. “Those other fellows were officers of the law; but he isn’t.” The O. C. chief’s purpose was made known the moment he came within shouting distance. It was to stampede the supposedly masterless working force. “Throw down your tools, or every man jack of you will go to jail!” he called out to the workers. “You’re breaking the law!” It was then that Michael Tregarvon, the big Cornish track-layer, stood forth, and that before either Dick or Larry could interpose. “Pick-han’les!” he bawled to his men. “Oot wi’ ’em, lads! Oop to the river wi’ ’em and drive ’em in!” The rush of some two score brawny trackmen, armed with the handles hastily knocked from their picks, was so sudden and overwhelming that the half-dozen intruders who had come to scare the Short Line force into stopping fled in disorder; stood not upon the order of their going, as the time-honored phrase has it. There was a lively foot-race across the level bit of valley, a shout of triumph from the pursuers as the invaders were driven helter-skelter to their own side of the Tourmaline, and the flurry was over.