"Away with you! Get back to the mines and the mountains!" was the instant warning, and without the loss of a minute, mounted on such horses as his friends could hire, he and three of his trustiest followers had galloped away. They thought the sheriff was at their heels when the Fast Freight came thundering after them, but hailed, with amaze and joy, the signal from the tender, and, feeling sure the train would await them here, had spurred on to the station. "You'll send the horses back for us, will you, sergeant?" he finished. Then eagerly, "Now, conductor, shall we pull out for Summit?" "Pull out for nothing," was the astounding answer. "You know perfectly no Time Freight on this road takes a passenger of any kind, and it would be more'n my job's worth to take you!" "Then, in God's name, why did you signal?" was the almost agonized question. "Signal be jiggered! I never signalled. No man of _my_ crew signalled. If you want to get back to the mines, stay here and flag No. 5. She'll be along at eleven." "Along at _eleven_! Man alive, the sheriff will be here with a posse of forty long before that!" "_Long_ before that!" almost screamed old Shiner. "Look, there, what you see! He's coming now!" And then Geordie Graham, listening with beating heart within the open doorway of the caboose, could stand the strain no longer. The man he must see, the man on whom everything depended, the old friend whom he most trusted and believed in stood in sore peril. The cause for which he had come all these miles must fail so sure as Nolan slipped into the power of the adversary, even though grasped by the hand of the law. It was no time for ethics--no time for casuists. He let his voice out in the old tone of authority: "You've no time to lose, Mr. Cullin. Arrest them, too, and come on!" With wonderment in his eyes, with Shiner whispering caution in his ear, "Long" Nolan was hustled aboard the caboose just as the wheels began to turn, his breathless followers clambering after, while afar up the divide toward the east, by twos and threes, in eager pursuit, egged on by lavish promise of reward, the sheriff of Yampah, with a score of his men, spurred furiously on the trail of a train that, starting slowly and heavily, speedily gained headway and soon went thundering up the grade, "leaving the wolves behind." CHAPTER X FIRST SHOTS OF THE SUMMER