“My God!” he muttered, with concentrated intensity, “to be trapped, TRAPPED like this!”

Sinclair stepped quickly to the door of his bedroom and motioned Foster to enter.  Then there came a knock at the outer door, and he opened it and stood on the threshold erect and firm.  Half a dozen “toughs” faced him.

“Major,” said their spokesman, “we want that man.”

“You can not have him, boys.”

“Major, we’re a-goin’ to take him.”

“You had better not try,” said Sinclair, with perfect ease and self-possession, and in a pleasant voice.  “I have given him shelter, and you can only get him over my dead body.  Of course you can kill me, but you won’t do even that without one or two of you going down; and then you know perfectly well, boys, what will happen.  You know that if you lay your finger on a railroad man it’s all up with you.  There are five hundred men in the tie-camp, not five miles away, and you don’t need to be told that in less than one hour after they get word there won’t be a piece of one of you big enough to bury.”

The men made no reply.  They looked him straight in the eyes for a moment.  Had they seen a sign of flinching they might have risked the issue, but there was none.  With muttered curses, they slunk away.  Sinclair shut and bolted the door, then opened the one leading to the bedroom.

“Foster,” he said, “the train will pass here in half an hour.  Have you money enough?”

“Plenty, Major.”

“Very well; keep perfectly quiet and I will try to get you safely off.”  He went to an adjoining room and called Sam, the contractor’s man.  He took in the situation at a glance.

“Wa’al, Foster,” said he, “kind o’ ‘close call’ for yer, warn’t it?  Guess yer’d better be gittin’ up an’ gittin’ pretty lively.  The train boys will take yer through an’ yer kin come back when this racket’s worked out.”

Sinclair glanced at his watch, then he walked to the window and looked out.  On a small mesa, or elevated plateau, commanding the path to the railroad, he saw a number of men with rifles.

“Just as I expected,” said he.  “Sam, ask one of the boys to go down to the track and, when the train arrives, tell the conductor to come here.”

In a few minutes the whistle was heard and the conductor entered the building.  Receiving his instructions, he returned, and immediately on engine, tender, and platform appeared the trainmen, with their rifles covering the group on the bluff.  Sinclair put on his hat.

“Now, Foster,” said he, “we have no time to lose.  Take Sam’s arm and mine, and walk between us.”

The trio left the building and walked deliberately to the railroad.  Not a word was spoken.  Besides the men in sight on the train, two behind the window-blinds of the one passenger coach, and unseen, kept their fingers on the triggers of their repeating carbines.  It seemed a long time, counted by anxious seconds, until Foster was safe in the coach.