She inquired about the location of the butte; the shortest trail, and then
ran out to her horse. Once in the saddle she drew a deep breath and sent
the animal scampering into the flood of moonlight.
* * * * *
Down toward the cut the two men ran, and when they reached a gully at a
distance of several hundred feet from the dynamite shed they came upon
their horses. Mounting, they rode rapidly down the track toward the butte
where the mining machinery was being erected. They had taken the
handkerchiefs off while they ran, and now Trevison laughed with the hearty
abandon of a boy whose mischievous prank has succeeded.
"That was easy. I thought I heard a noise, though, when you backed against
the door and shoved it open."
"Nobody usually monkeys around a dynamite shed at night," returned Levins.
"Whew! There's enough of that stuff there to blow Manti to Kingdom
Come--wherever that is."
They rode boldly across the level at the base of the butte, for they had
reconnoitered after meeting on the plains just outside of town, and knew
Corrigan had left no one on guard.
"It's a cinch," Levins declared as they dismounted from their horses in
the shelter of a shoulder of the butte, about a hundred yards from where
the corrugated iron building, nearly complete, loomed somberly on the
level. "But if they'd ever get evidence that we done it--"
Trevison laughed lowly, with a grim humor that made Levins look sharply at
him. "That abandoned pueblo on the creek near your shack is built like a
fortress, Levins."
"What in hell has this job got to do with that dobie pile?" questioned the
other.
"Plenty. Oh, you're curious, now. But I'm going to keep you guessing for a
day or two."
"You'll go loco--give you time," scoffed Levins.
"Somebody else will go crazy when this stuff lets go," laughed Trevison,
tapping his pockets.
Levins snickered. They trailed the reins over the heads of their horses,
and walked swiftly toward the corrugated iron building. Halting in the
shadow of it, they held a hurried conference, and then separated, Trevison
going toward the engine, already set up, with its flimsy roof covering it,
and working around it for a few minutes, then darting from it to a small
building filled with tools and stores, and to a pile of machinery and
supplies stacked against the wall of the butte. They worked rapidly,
elusive as shadows in the deep gloom of the wall of the butte, and when
their work was completed they met in the full glare of the moonlight near
the corrugated iron building and whispered again.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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