“Pull him!  Pull him!” came the piercing cry from Larry.

Neale was about to ride his frantic horse straight into the work-train.  Desperately he hauled the horse up and leaped off.  Larry was down, waiting, and his mount went plunging away.  Bullets were pattering against the sides of the cars, from which puffed streaks of flame and smoke.

“Up wid yez, lads!” sang out a cheery voice.  Casey’s grin and black pipe appeared over the rim of the car, and his big hands reached down.

One quick and straining effort and Neale was up, over the side, to fall on the floor in a pile of sand and gravel.  All whirled dim round him for a second.  His heart labored.  He was wet and hot and shaking.

“Shure yez ain’t hit now!” exclaimed Casey.

Larry’s nervous hands began to slide and press over Neale’s quivering body.

“No—­I’m—­all—­safe!” panted Neale.

The engine whistled shrilly, as if in defiance of the Indians, and with a jerk and rattle the train started.

Neale recovered to find himself in a novel and thrilling situation.  The car was of a gondola type, being merely a flat-car, with sides about four feet high, made of such thick oak planking that bullets did not penetrate it.  Besides himself and Larry there were half a dozen soldiers, all kneeling at little port-holes.  Neale peeped over the rim.  In a long thinned-out line the Sioux were circling round the train, hiding on the off sides of their mustangs, and shooting from these difficult positions.  They were going at full speed, working in closer.  A bullet, striking the rim of the car and showering splinters in Neale’s face, attested to the fact that the Sioux were still to be feared, even from a moving fort.  Neale dropped back and, reloading his rifle, found a hole from which to shoot.  He emptied his magazine before he realized it.  But what with his trembling hands, the jerking of the train, and the swift motion of the Indians, he did not do any harm to the foe.

Suddenly, with a jolt, the train halted.

“Blocked ag’in, b’gorra,” said Casey, calmly.  “Me pipe’s out.  Sandy, gimme a motch.”

The engine whistled two shrill blasts.

“What’s that for?” asked Neale, quickly.

“Them’s for the men in the foist car to pile over the engine an’ remove obstruchtions from the track,” replied Casey.

Neale dared to risk a peep over the top of the car.  The Sioux were circling closer to the front of the train.  All along a half-dozen cars ahead of Neale puffs of smoke and jets of flame shot out.  Heavy volleys were being fired.  The attack of the savages seemed to be concentrating forward, evidently to derail the engine or kill the engineer.

Casey pulled Neale down.  “Risky fer yez,” he said.  “Use a port-hole an’ foight.”

“My shells are gone,” replied Neale.

He lay well down in the car then, and listened to the uproar, and watched the Irish trio.  When the volleys and the fiendish yells mingled he could not hear anything else.  There were intervals, however, when the uproar lulled for a moment.