But before the other gunners on the bench who saw Brownell’s accident could shut off their streams, Hunt had acted. Some muckers tried to run in to seize Brownell or dig him out from under the gravel that had fallen, but the stream from the writhing pipe swept them aside like chips. Half a dozen were rolling in the mud of the bench. Hunt sprang directly for the seat of the trouble. That hose-pipe had to be controlled before a thing could be done to help the buried Brownell. Precious moments were lost signaling to the engineer below to shut off power. Hunt had not played football on his college team for nothing. He made an extremely low “tackle,” for he went down on his knees and then slid along through the mud to grapple with the writhing pipe that had broken away from its fastenings. He got hold of it and wrestled with it for a few seconds as two men might wrestle on the mat. When the other men came running from below Hunt had conquered the formidable thing, and the stream was shooting into the air, where all the harm it did was to shower some of the men as it fell back to earth. For thirty seconds or more he held it so, until the stream was shut off below. The others ran for the pile that had overwhelmed Brownell. They dug into it with their bare hands, got hold of one leg, and dragged him forth like a wet rag out of a pan of dishwater! He was alive; nor were there many bones broken. But he was a terrible sight, and they had to work over him for some minutes before he breathed again. Hunt went at this task, too, as coolly as did the superintendent. That first-aid kit came in very handily at this juncture. The men stood around for a little while and watched and talked. The accident had come near being a tragedy. “Believe me,” said one rough fellow, “that parson is a good deal of a man. I’m for him, strong!” “You’d even go to church for him, would you, Jack?” chuckled his mate. “Church? I’d go to a hotter place than that for him!” was the prompt and emphatic reply. CHAPTER XX—MURDER WILL OUT Joe Hurley had lost none of his admiration for his college friend whom he had encouraged to come West. He still believed the Reverend Willett Ford Hunt was the very man to find the heart of Canyon Pass. Nor did events as they developed disprove his pre-judgment of the result of Hunt’s coming. But it must be confessed a sour note had come into the life of the owner of the Great Hope. He was a worker; he was energetic; he never under any circumstances neglected business—not even when he had been most attentive to Betty Hunt. But he now had little joy in his work and looked for recreation to a means he had eschewed for the most part since the Easterners had arrived.