“... enough to blow the whole thing to matchwood, if you place it right,” he was saying.
There was no doubt what this meant. They were planning to blow up the viaduct.
“Oh, I fixa it alla right, alla right,” declared Big Tony confidently. “No fear. I usa da dynamite all-aready. I blow up da beega da house once.”
“A house and a big wooden bridge are quite different propositions. And a wooden bridge isn’t to be blown up like a stone or iron affair, you know.”
“Suppose you come, taka da look, see my plan all-aright, den,” the Italian suggested. “No one on disa side da bridge, to see, disa time night.”
The cowman hesitated. “Well, all right. It would be best to make sure.
“We don’t want to carry this, though. Where’ll we put it?”
As he spoke the man leaned over and picked up a good-sized parcel done up in brown paper. From the careful way he handled it there could be no doubt of its contents. It was the dynamite they proposed using.
“Here, I fin’ da place.”
Alex caught his breath at the display of carelessness with which the foreigner took the deadly package. Backing into a nearby clump of bushes, Big Tony stooped and placed the dynamite on the ground, well beneath the branches.