"I don't think he's hurt anybody," Buck Ogilvy whispered as he
crouched with Bryce beside the engine, "but that's due to his
marksmanship rather than his intentions."
"He tried hard enough to plug me," Bryce declared, and showed the
hole through his sleeve. "They call him the Black Minorca, and he's a
mongrel greaser who'd kill his own mother for a fifty-dollar bill."
"I'd like to plug him," Buck murmured regretfully.
"What would be the use? This will be his last night in Humboldt
County--"
A rifle shot rang out from the side of B Street; from the lumber-pile
across the street, Bryce and Ogilvy heard a suppressed grunt of pain,
and a crash as of a breaking board. Instantly out of the shadows
George Sea Otter came padding on velvet feet, rifle in hand--and then
Bryce understood.
"All right, boss," said George simply as he joined Bryce and Ogilvy
under the lee of the locomotive. "Now we get busy again."
"Safe-o, men," Ogilvy called. "Back to the job." And while Bryce,
followed by the careless George Sea Otter, went into the lumber-yard
to succour the enemy, Ogilvy set an example to the men by stepping
into the open and starting briskly to work with a shovel.
At the bottom of the pile of lumber the Black Minorca was discovered
with a severe flesh-wound in his right hip; also he was suffering
from numerous bruises and contusions.
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