limp body back under the bank

  As the Indian ran for his old place beside the grade at the end of the trestle bullets whistled about him. Peering over the edge, he saw a bohunk kneeling below, taking careful aim through the sleepers at the outstretched form of the contractor. A bullet from the Indian's rifle caught him full in the neck, and his companions hauled his limp body back under the bank. Thereafter they fired with greater circumspection and poorer aim.   Mahon set his mind seriously now to the problem that faced them. To lie there seemed fruitless; to attack supreme folly. Yet, in the way of the Police, he did not lose hope. Had there been no helpless girl to consider! And that, combined with a growing hunger, brought his mind round again to Helen. Strange how far away she seemed, how much a part of another life! And yet she was only three miles distant. She would be worrying, wondering. If the bohunks should decide to explore the village now! He fought his fears with a memory of Helen's competence to protect herself. She could outshoot any bohunk.   A volley of curses from Torrance directed Mahon's eyes to the trestle. The bohunks had attacked at last! The contractor was struggling madly with two of them! Mahon searched anxiously for the Indian, but he was far up the grade now, shooting among the trees. Torrance was fighting it out alone on that dizzy height.     As the light broke, Ignace Koppowski, too, took stock. He knew he had only to maintain the siege long enough to win; but he also realised that his followers had little stomach for a long struggle. The rising sun, too, was against every precedent as a time to attack authority. The doctrine of his kind was to stab in the dark, to hit and run--a foundation on which was based the successes of his organisation.