"Up the canyon he said they were coming, didn't he?" he remarked at last, more to himself than to them. "Very well, so much the better. Johnson, you and Madden take charge of the men when they come and line them along the hillside this side of the dam. Put out all lights." With which he strode out of the building. They looked after him in uncertainty. "I'm not going; you may be hurt, and need me," Mary stated, with a stubborn note in her voice. "Then keep out of reach--and run for town if the ruffians get into camp," was her father's answer. "I stay too," Janet exclaimed, resolutely. CHAPTER XXV NO QUARTER The peril threatening the unfinished dam now alone engaged Steele Weir's mind. Personal considerations did not enter into his calculations, least of all thought of personal danger; for when he placed himself in an undertaking whatever rested under his hand, as in this case the irrigation company's property, became for him a trust to attend, to direct, to guard. Even more than if it had been his own property did he feel the obligation, for the interests concerned were not his. But the matter went deeper than a prospective money loss; it struck down to principles and rights--the principles of order and industry as against viciousness and havoc; the rights of law-abiding men who create as against the wantonness of lawless men who would destroy. Were it his own workmen who, inflamed by drink and incited by a spirit of recklessness, were coming to wreck the camp in a moment of mad intoxication, he would have made allowances for the cause. Before resorting to extreme measures in defending his charge, he first would have sought to bring them to their senses. Drunken men are men unbalanced, irrational. But here was another case: an attack by a secret, sober, malevolent band, who in cold blood approached to demolish the company works. Not liquor moved them on their mission, but money--money paid by his arch enemies. The men were simply hired tools, brazenly indifferent no doubt to crimes, desperate in character certainly, for a handful of coins ready to wipe out a million dollars' worth of property and effort. Such deserved no consideration or quarter. Weir proposed to give none. With enemies of this kind he had but one policy, strike first and strike with deadly force. One does not seek to dissuade a rattlesnake; one promptly stamps it under heel. One cannot compromise with ravenous wolves; one shoots them down. One does not wait to see how far a treacherous foe will go; one forestalls and crushes him before he begins. Moreover, if wise, one does it in such fashion that the enemy will not arise from the blow.