Jawn said no word, but waited with blazing eyes beside the door. He meant to strike the first blow with his coupling pin. There were two ineffectual thuds against the door and then a crash. The hinges started and one panel splintered inward. Another, and this time the door fell and a giant of a man, jerked off his balance by the sledge he had swung, staggered into the car. Jawn struck; the man's collarbone crackled under the coupling pin and he fell forward with a yell. Then over him and over the fallen door came the rush. The handful of defenders chose their corners and fought in them, each in his own way; some in a sort of hysteria, screaming curses, some striking silently, and one, the singer, with a laugh on his lips. When the fireman was struck senseless, this man fought over him until forced back by press of numbers, so that he no longer had room to strike. The defence of the baggage car was over, and the defenders, disabled and disarmed, were submitting to the handcuffs or to the bits of rope which were used in securing them, when there came a sound of cheering, which made their captors leave them hastily and clamber from the car. The relief had come. It came on the run, with Mallory at the head. There was no order, no pretence at formation; simply a stream of eager, angry men, some running through the cut along the tracks, others stumbling through the woods above, all animated by the desire to reach the scene of action as quickly as possible. And waiting for them was another mob of men, the main body of McNally's army. They were crowded in the cut on both sides of the train they had just captured, with the knowledge rankling in their hearts that they had been held at bay by a handful of determined men. They were glad they had somebody to fight. The moment the two bodies of men came together the confusion became indescribable. The men had no means of distinguishing between friend and foe. They were at too close quarters to make fighting possible, and if it had been, no one would have known whom to strike and whom to defend. The cut was densely packed with men who strained and swayed and struggled and swore, but who could not by any possibility fight. But slowly the increasing weight of the new arrivals began to tell, and slowly, almost imperceptibly, the mass began to move south. Eventually they would push out of the cut to the open, where they could discuss matters more satisfactorily. In the excitement they did not hear the long train that came clanking up from the south and stopped just behind the C. & S.C. train. But a moment later the uproar ceased, as sounded high and clear the echoing bugles, “Forward, Fours left into line, March!” Looking, they saw six companies of the National Guard come swinging across the open, the horizontal rays of the rising sun gilding their fixed bayonets.