“The damned fool!” breathed McKay. “Like as not he’ll kill himself, and it will take me a week to find another man who can shoot the way he can. About thirty seconds more, and that rock is going to jump!” Loring raised his eyes. Far down the grade, beyond the point, he saw a speck. The speck grew larger and became a horse and rider. McKay saw it too. “Sullivan will warn him,” he said tersely. “My God!” he yelled, “it’s a woman, and her pony is running away.” Loring made a jump into the grade and dashed towards the smoke. The yellow-brown turned to the black-brown that just precedes an explosion. It poured forth from the ground like a volcano. “He can’t even reach the ‘shots,’” gasped McKay. “Oh, my God, where was the other flagman! Only fifty yards more—He must make it!—He will!—He’s reached the spot; he’s past it. He will—God, and there’s ten shots there!” Even as he spoke the surface of the earth belched forth rumbling thunder and burst into fragments. McKay dropped flat on the ground, behind the sheltering boulder. A great cloak of brown smoke punctured with huge black rocks shut out the scene. Then, with dull, splashing thuds, the rocks began to fall into the muddy river which dragged itself along beside the grade. First came a few solemn splashes as the large rocks fell, then faster, a very hailstorm of fragments, as the smaller pieces showered down. The Mexicans were cursing frantically, adding to the roar a shrill pitch. The first three “shots” went off in lightning succession. A pause, then two more. “Five!” yelled McKay. Then three more “shots” boomed deeply. McKay and the foreman knelt behind the boulder, pale, breathing hard, striving to guess what lay behind that wall of smoke. Another pause, then a terrific report. “Nine, only one more!” shouted the foreman. They waited ten seconds,—no other shot. Then ten seconds more. They rose to their feet and started forward. “Two must have gone off at once,” yelled McKay. Another roar, and they had barely time to reach cover before the shower of rocks again fell. “_Ten!_ Come on!” roared McKay. The rocks had hardly fallen, before he, followed by a dozen others, was rushing through the smoke to what he knew must be beyond. The grade was blocked with great masses of rock, and by the time they had climbed over these barriers, the smoke had cleared. They found Loring lying on his face, his right hand still grasping the bridle of the dead horse. The girl was kneeling beside him. As McKay reached her side, he recognized the daughter of the manager of the mine. He raised her to her feet, while as if dazed by the miracle he repeated: “You ain’t hurt, Miss Cameron? You ain’t hurt?” She shook herself free from him, then knelt again by Stephen, trying to stanch with her handkerchief the blood that was flowing from a great cut in his temple. She looked up at McKay with an anxious appeal in her eyes. “Is he dead?” she asked. [Illustration: “The girl was kneeling beside him.” _Page 36_]