The couplings were made deftly and without unnecessary stir. Then Benson
stepped back and gave the starting signal, twirling his lantern in rapid
circles. Synchronized as perfectly as if a single throttle-lever
controlled them all, the three heavy freight-pullers hissed, strained,
belched fire, and the long train began to move out.
It was Lidgerwood's challenge to the outlaws, and as if the blasts of
the three tearing exhausts had been the signal it was awaiting, the
strike storm broke with the suddenness and fury of a tropical hurricane.
From a hundred hiding-places in the car-strewn yard, men came running,
some to swarm thickly upon the moving engines and cabooses, others
swinging by the drawheads to cut the air-brake hose.
Benson was swept aside and overpowered before he could strike a blow.
Bogard, speeding across to take his post beside the _Nadia_, was struck
down before he could get clear of the pouring hornet swarm. Shots were
fired; shrill yells arose. Into the midst of the clamor the great siren
whistle at the shops boomed out the fire alarm, and almost at the the
same instant a red glow, capped by a rolling nimbus of sooty oil smoke,
rose to beacon the destruction already begun in the shop yards.
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