“Ten years ago I was engineer on the Tehicipa and Los Angeles Road, a branch of the Southern Pacific.  Those were troublesome times.  What with the guerillas and Indians that infested the country, to say nothing of other dangers, we never knew when we were safe, if we ever were.

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“One evening—­just about such an evening as this, too—­we had barely stopped at a way station when some one rushed up to the train and said Gray Gerardo’s band was coming to attack us.

“Gerardo was considered the worst desperado in that lawless country, and knowing we had a lot of the yellow ore on board, I knew the outlaw was after it.

“The conductor cut our stop short, but before I could get under way the outlaws were upon us.  From their sounds one would have thought all the fiends from the lower world had been let loose.

“The boys fought like tigers, and it was a wild scene for a few minutes.  My fireman—­a plucky little fellow he was, too—­was snatched from my very side, and with a volley of shot whistling about my head, I was pulled from the cab.

“The wheels had begun to revolve and the train was moving on.  Struggling desperately with my captors, I succeeded in breaking from them and sprang back upon the engine.  Three or four of the outlaws followed me, and among them was Gerardo himself, whom I knew by sight.

“He was a tall, stalwart fellow, with burning black eyes, and a countenance that would have been handsome, had it not been for a long scar under his right jaw.  It looked like a sabre-wound, and quite spoiled the beauty of that side of the face.

“Well, knowing it was life or death with me, I pitched one after another of those fellows off the cab, until only Gerardo was left.  It surprises me now that I could have done it; but a man never knows his strength until put to the test.  Then, you see, being on my own footing gave me an advantage, while some of them, losing their hold on the moving engine, fell off without any assistance of mine.

“I grappled with Gerardo, just as he was boarding the cab and before he could establish his position, I hurled him, heels over head, down the side of the track.  At the same moment, however, I heard a sharp report and felt a stinging sensation in my right arm, where the outlaw’s bullet had struck me.

“The firing had nearly ceased at the rear of the train, and feeling that in another minute we should be safe, I sprang to the lever and threw the valve wide open.  With snorts and shrieks of defiance to our enemies, the old engine obeyed me, soon gaining a rate of speed which I knew would out-distance the baffled outlaws, whose yells I could still hear above the thunder of the train.

“As my excitement abated my arm began to pain me fearfully, and I found the member disabled for further use.  My fireman gone, my situation was critical, and I was wondering how the rest of the boys had fared when I heard some one behind me.