With the information given him by the guard posted at the spring Weir immediately grasped the true nature of the plot. The "whiskey party" was but a means of withdrawing the workmen from the scene, of weakening the camp, while a picked company of ruffians wrecked the property. It was an assault intended to wipe out the works and end construction, coincident with his arrest. Both the company and he were to pay the penalty for resisting the powers that rule San Mateo. And if the tale were spread that the destruction had been wrought by his workmen while drunk, who would doubt it? Like shadows the band of Mexican desperadoes would come, dynamite the dam, fire the buildings, stampede the horses, and like shadows vanish again. In the unexpectedness of the raid, in the confusion, in the dim light, no one would with certainty be able to say who the assailants were. A scheme ferocious in its conception and diabolical in its cunning! But there was one flaw--the element of chance. Chance had given Weir warning. A strong man warned is a strong man armed. As the engineer stood in the office, swiftly measuring the imminent menace of which he had just been told, calculating the meager instruments of defense at hand, his mind sweeping up all the salient aspects, features, advantages and disadvantages of the situation, he seized on the one weak spot in the attacking party's plan. At that spot he would strike. So giving Johnson and Madden the order to take charge of the little handful of guards, he had plunged out into the night. The men from the bunk-house were already running toward the office, before the door of which the rancher gathered them together to make sure of their arms and ammunition. All told, when Martinez and Pollock presently came from the store with guns, the little party numbered eleven. "Is this all there are of us?" Dr. Hosmer asked. "We are worth all that crowd that's coming," Johnson exclaimed, taking a spare gun Martinez had brought him. "Did Weir send the rest of the engineers down to that house? I understood so." "That's where they are, I reckon." Dr. Hosmer considered for a minute. "I can be there in five minutes in my car. The road is on the north side of the stream, as is this camp: the gang that's heading here to blow things up is coming up from the south, so it will not block the way. Men could be here in twenty minutes from down yonder by running." "A good suggestion, doctor," Pollock said. "It may take you a bit longer to find and tell them what's occurring, but even so they may return in time. Fifty, or even twenty, might give us enough assistance to beat off the attack." "There comes the moon," said the man who had been at the spring. "They must be near now."