At first Ross had raised the lid of this box with chills creeping down his spine. His hair had stirred under his cap when he first saw Weimer stuff the sticks carelessly into his pocket and enter the tunnel. But familiarity with the use of the sticks had robbed them of their terror, although Ross was always cautious in the handling. "Hold on, Doc." Sandy's voice at his elbow finally brought the frantic boy to his senses. "Ye can't do nothin' with yer hands. Stand aside there, and I'll shovel the snow away from the door." Ross stood back, unconscious of the nip of the cold on his nose and cheeks, and watched Sandy shoveling with a will, the while talking consolingly. "I don't believe the thieves have come anigh ye; don't look so, anyway. It's likely some one who's a grudge against some of us. There's plenty holds grudges agin Lon. Wisht he'd stayed in the valley--here ye be! Ketch a holt of this side of the door. Now, one, two, three!" The door yielded to their combined efforts, and Ross rushed in with Sandy at his heels. His fingers were so numbed he could scarcely raise the lid of the dynamite box. A film seemed to cover his eyes, and in the light which entered grudgingly only by way of the door he could see nothing. He bent his head further over the box, but it was Sandy's voice which confirmed his worst fears. "Not a stick left. They've made a clean sweep of Medder Creek Valley!" The film cleared from Ross's eyes, but not from his brain. The box was empty--the box which had contained the stuff absolutely necessary to the work in the tunnel. Ross glanced up and met Sandy's eyes. Sandy's eyes looked steadily and guilelessly into Ross's, and Sandy's face expressed all the sympathy and commiseration of which Ross stood in need. The boy sat down on the edge of the box. "What shall I do?" he asked, his thoughts in a whirl. "Do about th' same as we've got t'--git out!" quoth Sandy with a lugubrious shake of his head. "Here we got Lon up here t' help push our work, and now we're up a stump; for ye know"--here Sandy's eyes held Ross's while he spoke slowly--"there's no use thinkin' about gittin' any over from Camp. No one 'ud be crazy enough to resk packin' a load of sticks around the shoulder this time of year." Ross shivered as he thought of the shoulder under its body of snow. "When are you going?" he asked. "To-morrow," answered Sandy promptly. "We'll start then, but we'll have to shovel through. You'll have t' lead Weimer, won't ye?" Ross swallowed twice before he answered. "Yes, I suppose so." "We'll help ye." Sandy's tones were good-natured and soothing. He seemed suddenly to have lost all regret at the disappearance of his store of dynamite. "We'll break open the trail, and then we can rope ourselves together around the shoulder. That's safer." "All right," Ross heard himself say in an unnatural voice. He could not in an instant adjust himself to this radical uprooting of his plans.