“Help me choke him off!  He’s surely mad!” cried the man behind.

Somebody else got hold of Charnock.  He was dragged back, hustled away from the table and towards the door.  Then the bar was torn from his hands and a man pushed him out in the snow.

“You have fixed him good,” said somebody in a breathless voice.  “Go home and cool off!”

“If Wilkinson’s inside, I’m coming back,” Charnock declared.

The man laughed.  “Wilkinson lit out through the store-shed ’bout a minute after you came in.”

Charnock felt faint and dizzy, but tried to think when the fellow banged the door.  It looked as if Wilkinson knew why he had come, and had stolen away after seeing the struggle begin.  Moreover he had friends who might go after him and tell him what had happened to the foreman.  Then he remembered that the locomotive engineer had been ordered to move some cars, and set off for the track.

The snow was rough, he fell into holes, and stubbed his feet against the ties, but stumbled on until he heard the locomotive snort.  Then there was a jar of iron, wheels rattled, and a dark mass in front began to roll away.  He was too late, and when he stopped and tried to get his breath two men came down the track.

“Did any of the boys go out on the train?” he asked.

“Only Wilkinson,” one replied.

“Where’s he going?”

“I don’t know,” said the other.  “As he took his clothes-bag, it doesn’t look as if he was coming back.”

Charnock set off for Norton’s office.  He did not know how he got there, because a reaction had begun, and he sat down feeling powerless and badly shaken.

CHAPTER XXX

UNDERSTANDING

At midnight, Charnock, sitting drowsily in a chair in Norton’s office, roused himself with a jerk.  He was too anxious about Festing to go to bed, but bodily fatigue reacted on his brain and dulled his senses.  For all that, he thought he heard steps in the snow, and getting up quickly went to the door.  The bitter cold pierced him like a knife and he shivered.  A man stood outside, and his dark figure, silhouetted against the snow, was somehow ominous.  Charnock tried to brace himself, for he feared bad news.

“Well?” he said hoarsely.

“It’s Musgrave; the doctor sent me along.  Your partner’s taken a turn.  He’s going the right way now.”

Charnock looked at the messenger.  His relief was overwhelming and he could not speak.

“That’s all, but I guess it’s good enough, and you can go to sleep,” the other resumed, and went away.

When he vanished among the trees Charnock returned to his chair.  He thought he ought to have brought the man in and made him some coffee, but he was horribly tired and did not want to move about and talk.  Besides, he was conscious of a poignant satisfaction that prevented his thinking about anything else.  While he indulged it a wave of fatigue swept over him and his head drooped.  He tried to open his eyes but could not, and a few minutes later he was sound asleep.