But Peters plunged on and in a moment had the other by the shoulders. With insane strength he tore the miner away from the machine and flung him a dozen feet. The stream of water shifted to the right as the hydraulic machine slewed around.
“Come away! Come away from that, Pop!” shrieked a voice, and the amazed Eastern girls saw Min Peters darting along the bench toward the scene.
Peters sprang astride the nozzle and shifted it quickly back and forth so that the water spread in all directions. He knew how to handle the machine; the peril lay in what he might decide to do with it.
“Come away from that, Pop!” shrieked Min again.
But her father flirted the stream around, threatening the girl and those who followed her. The men stopped. They knew what would happen if that solid stream of water collided with a human body!
“D’you hear me, Pop?” again cried the fearless girl. “You git off that pipe and let Bob have it.”
Bob, the pipeman, was just getting to his feet—wrathful and muddy. But he did not attempt to charge Peters. The latter again swept the stream along the hillside in a wide arc, bringing tons upon tons of gravel and soil down upon the bench. The narrow plateau was becoming choked with it. There was danger of his burying the hydraulic machine, as well as himself, in an avalanche.
The tourist party was in peril, too. They scarcely understood this at the moment, for things were transpiring so quickly that only seconds had elapsed since first Peters had approached.
The miners dared not come closer. But Min showed no fear. She plunged in and caught him around the body, trying to confine his arms so that he could not slew the nozzle to either side.
This helped the situation but little. For half a minute the stream shot straight into the hillside; then another great lump fell.