"We've been at work for three months drilling this coyote, and the
bigger one to the north. There are four thousand square yards of rock to
come out of there, and six thousand out of the other. You don't see
shots like those three times in a lifetime, and there'll not be another
for us between here and the bay. What's the matter with Thorne?"
Without waiting for a reply MacDonald walked swiftly in the direction of
a ridge to the right. Already guards had been thrown out on all sides of
the mountain and their thrilling warnings of "Fire--Fire--Fire," shouted
through megaphones of birch-bark, echoed with ominous meaning through
the still wilderness, where for the time all work had ceased. On the top
of the ridge half a hundred of the workmen had already assembled, and as
Howland and the superintendent came among them they fell back from
around a big, flat boulder on which was stationed the electric battery.
MacDonald's face was flushed and his eyes snapped like dragonflies as he
pointed to a tiny button.
"God, but I can't understand why Thorne doesn't care to see this," he
said again. "Think of it, man--seven thousand five hundred pounds of
powder and two hundred of dynamite! A touch of this button, a flash
along the wire, and the fuse is struck.
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