"Which way?"
"Sounded very close—that first ramp, perhaps——"
He went for the car; it would be quicker, and it might be needed.
As he cut through the gap, on the road just under the summit in front, parallel to the old dummy line, he noticed that the gap workings, and the second ramp, were deserted. The road turned sharply to the north, circling the long squat storehouse. He slowed mechanically, as a quick side squint caught the group on the steps: McArdle, the clerk, his anemic face, under the sparse scrub of beard, flushed from his emotional exertion, hectoring the dozen frightened negroes in front of him.
"What's wrong, Mac?"
The white man cursed the panicky negroes, the explosion, his job which kept him tied to the building.... "I can't get 'em to go back, Mr. Judson, the——" He was off again.
"Leave the store, come on with me——" He snapped open the door of the car.
"Got to watch the phone. The hospitals are sending doctors——"
"It's that bad?"
Pelham turned on the power again, and turned up the front of the hill. The air was clear here of the sickly odor that had reached the house—the wind swept this slope clear of the reminder of what lay beyond. Just before the ramp buildings showed beyond the trees, it came to him again—the stabbing, strangling odor of exploded dynamite. The tendency to nausea twisted his face into grotesque inhumanity; he held his breath as well as he could, and shoved on.