Then the third fuse sparkled, and Brooke sprang down, grasped Jimmy's shoulder, and drove him before him. There was a fresh shouting, and now every one could see two men running for their lives for the shelter of the pines. It seemed a very long while before they reached them, and all the time three blue trails of smoke and sparkling lines of fire were creeping with remorseless certainty up the slope of stone. The girl upon the ridge above closed her hands tightly to check a scream, and bronzed men, who had braved a good many perils in their time, set their lips or murmured incoherently. In the meanwhile the two men were running well, with drawn faces, staring eyes, and the perspiration dripping from them, and there was a hoarse murmur of relief when at last they flung themselves into the shadow of the pines. It was followed by a stunning detonation, and a blaze of yellow flame, while the hillside trembled when the smoke rolled down. Flying fragments of rock came out of it, there was a roar of falling stones, a crashing in the forest where great boughs snapped, and the lake boiled as though torn up by cannon shot. Then a curious silence followed, intensified by an occasional splash and rattle as a stone which had travelled farther than the rest came down, and the girl in the white hat retired hastily as the fumes of giant powder, which produce dizziness and nausea, drifted up the hillside. Brooke sat down on a felled log, Jimmy leaned against a tree, and while the men clustered round them they looked at one another, and gasped heavily. "I figured you'd be blown into very little pieces less than a minute ago," said one of those who stood by. "What did you do it for, anyway?" Brooke blinked at the questioner. "Third fuse snuffed out," he said. "It would have spoiled the shot. I cut it to match the others, and lighted it." This was comprehensible, for to rend a piece of rock effectively, it is occasionally necessary to apply the riving force at several places at the same time. "Still, you could have pulled the other fuses out and put new ones back. It would have been considerably less risky," said another man. Brooke laughed breathlessly. "It certainly would, but I never thought of that," he said. Then Jimmy broke in. "What made me sit down like I did?" he said. "It was probably the same thing that tore my jacket half-way up the back." "Well," said Jimmy, "there's a big lump there didn't use to be on the side of my head, too, and it was the concernedest hardest kind of rock I sat down upon. Next time you try to blow yourself up, I'm not going after you." Brooke glanced at him quietly, with a curious look in his eyes. "What made you come at all?" he said. Jim appeared to reflect. "I've done quite a lot of foolish things before--and I don't quite know."