With a low, cruel laugh, Maverick withdrew, and a few moments later was shuffling along in the direction of the mines intent upon the work of destruction assigned to him, his face distorted with mingled fear and rage, his usually dull eyes gleaming with the fires of revenge.
Haight hastened to the house to take a hurried dinner, and having learned from Minty that Morton Rutherford had gone to the Y, he again charged her to immediately report to him whatever she might learn, and returned to the office to await further instructions from the company.
To Houston, constantly on the alert for danger signals, Haight’s hurried and excited manner was the first indication of approaching trouble. It was evident that the company had received some inkling of impending danger, but of the extent of their information, or the nature of their communications with Haight, he had no means of ascertaining. Stating that he wished to see Morton Rutherford immediately upon his return, and that he would be at the Yankee Boy, near the entrance to the incline shaft, he hastened back to the mines at an earlier hour than usual.
Finding Jack and Mike who had already returned, he told them of his surmises, and arranged a set of signals,––a certain number of blows on the rocks above them,––whereby he would give them warning if he found indications of immediate danger, upon which they were to make their escape in an opposite direction, by means of a tunnel, designated as tunnel No. 3, where he would speedily join them.
On returning to the shaft, he found the majority of the men returning to their work as usual, Maverick having given them no warning, partly through his own cowardice, and partly through a determination that Houston should have no hint of what was to follow.
Meanwhile, the long threatened storm was rapidly approaching with signs of unusual severity. Heavy clouds had obscured the sun and were, moment by moment, growing denser and blacker, while the heat was, if possible, more intense than before. There was that ominous calm that presages the coming of the tempest, while the air grew oppressive almost to suffocation. In the distant canyons, far up among the mountains, could be heard the muffled roaring of the wind, while the branches began to sway occasionally under the first hot breath of the approaching hurricane, which seemed like a blast from a furnace.
On through the fast-gathering storm rode Morton Rutherford, urging forward his foam-covered horse, feeling by a certain, unerring intuition, that that ride through the winding canyon was a race between life and death. Having reached the camp, and left his dripping, panting horse at the stables, he walked rapidly on to the house, arriving shortly after Houston had left, and just in time to meet Maverick, hurrying to the house for a bit of food, his work of preparation having taken longer than he anticipated.
One look at his malignant, demon-like face convinced Rutherford that he had arrived none too early, and that his own plans must be put in execution very soon.
Pausing only long enough to exchange a few words with his brother and the ladies, in reply to their eager questions, he hurried on to the mines, he and they all unaware of a figure skulking behind him, in the fast-deepening gloom, in the direction of the mills. From an open window, aided by the peculiar condition of the atmosphere in those altitudes before a storm, which transmits the slightest sound with wonderful distinctness, Minty had overheard most of the conversation, and was hastening to fulfill her contract with Haight.