“We’re not going to run away,” said Reade grimly.  “But I’ll tell you what a half dozen of you can do.  Hustle for shovels and dig a deep hole here.  This gentleman is Mr. Newnham, president of the company that employs us.  If the camp is attacked we can’t afford to have the president of the road killed.”

“Mr. Newnham would do far better to ride down the trail as fast as he can go, and try to join the construction camp,” offered Rutter.

The president of the S.B. & L. had been silent during the last few exciting moments.  But now he opened his mouth long enough to reply very quickly: 

“Mr. Newnham hasn’t any thoughts of flight.  I am not a fighting man, and never saw a shot fired in anger in my life, but I’m going to stand my ground in my own camp.”

“Dig the hole, anyway,” ordered Tom.  “We’ll want a safe place to put young Reynolds.  We can’t afford to leave him exposed to fire.”

“Where are the revolvers?” Rice insisted, as others started to get shovels and dig in a hurry.

“Oh, never mind the revolvers,” replied Tom.  “We won’t use ’em, anyway.  We can’t, for they wouldn’t carry far enough to put any of the enemy in danger.”

“Mr. Reade,” remarked Mr. Newnham, in a quiet undertone, “does it occur to you that you are making no preparations to defend the camp!  That, in fact, you seem wholly indolent in the matter?”

“Oh, no; I’m not indolent, sir,” smiled Tom.  “You’ll find me energetic enough, sir, I imagine, when the need for swift work comes.”

“Of course you couldn’t foresee the coming of any such outrage as this,” Mr. Newnham continued.

“Oh, I rather guessed that this sort of thing was coming,” Tom confessed.

“You guessed it—–­and yet the camp has been left undefended?  You haven’t taken any steps to protect the company’s rights and property at this point?” gasped Mr. Newnham.

“You will find, sir, that I am not wholly unprepared,” Reade remarked dryly, while the corners of his mouth drew down grimly.

Tom was apparently the only one in camp, after the excitement started, who had noted that Dave Fulsbee, at the first shots, had leaped to his horse and vanished down the trail to the eastward.

At this moment a party of a dozen, headed by Professor Coles, came in on foot, bearing young Reynolds with them.

“Harry, mount one of the saddled horses and rush down yonder for Doc Gitney,” Tom ordered.  “Give him your horse to come back on.  He must see to young Reynolds promptly.”

Some of the field party came in on horseback, followed soon by still others on foot.  Many of the field engineering party, in their haste, had left their instruments, rods and chains behind.

Tom, after diving into and out of the headquarters tent, held up a pair of powerful binocular field glasses.  With these he took sweeping views of the near-by hills to the westward.