"Look!" sobbed Adair. "They know--they've discovered that box-car! Oh, why in the name of the pitiful Christ don't they drop it and run?" This from the man who had laughed, and aimed and fired and laughed again, in the heat of battle. But Ford's rejoinder was the bitter malediction of the defeated industry captain. "Damn their worthless lives!" he stormed. "In the next half-minute the Pacific Southwestern stands to lose a quarter of a million dollars!" It was but a vanishing glimpse that they had of the handful of madmen stamping and dancing under the masthead light in front of the commissary; a glimpse withdrawing swiftly into a dim perspective as the Nadia was whisked around the curve and up the Horse Creek grade. It was after Gallagher had picked up the lights of the waiting train of armed track-layers, and was whistling to announce his success, that the end came. For the three watchers on the rear platform of the president's car the little constellation of arc-stars in the valley below was suddenly blotted out in a skyward belching of gray flame; a huge volcano-burst of momentarily illuminated dust. Instinctively they braced themselves for the concussion that followed,--a bellowing thunderclap and a rending of earth and air that shook the surrounding hills and drowned the shriek of Gallagher's whistle. A blast of air, down-drawn from the heights to fill the dreadful vacuum, was still rocking the stopped car when Frisbie climbed nimbly to the railed rear platform and swung his lantern to light the faces of the three men braced in the doorway. "A close call, gentlemen," was his only comment; and then he appealed briefly to Ford for orders. "Back us down slowly," said Ford shortly, "and follow with your train. We may need the men." Frisbie went forward through the wrecked private car, returning presently to flag Gallagher along with the lantern swung over the railing. Down in the valley of the Pannikin the heavy, sickening fumes of the burned explosives hung in the air, and when the car swung in on the straight line the red glare of a wrecked and burning oil tank lighted the scene. The camp site was blankly unrecognizable. Where the ten-tracked yard had been there was a vast depression, half-filled with distorted steel and debris indescribable, twisted iron and splintered wood, with the water from the river pouring into it. The commissary buildings and the surrounding bunk-shanties were gone, swept away as with the stroke of a mighty broom; and the trees on the hill-sides above were scorched and shriveled as if a forest fire had blasted them. Frisbie was the first to speak after he had flagged Gallagher to a stand on the farthermost edge of the devastation. "Any use to turn out the crew and hunt for them?" he asked. Ford shook his head. "No. Leave M'Grath and a few others to stand guard and to flag the incoming steel trains, and let's get out of this. I'm sick; and so is Mr. Adair." XXVI THE STAR OF EMPIRE