“I offered him two hundred dollars cash and a hundred a month to keep his mouth quiet,” the speaker explained to the superintendent, “and he refused it.”
“How about the Antelope viaduct, Mr. Finnan?” Alex asked as they rode away, he on one of Munson’s loaned ponies. “It wasn’t blown up?”
“No, but an attempt of some kind was made. Rather a mysterious affair,” the superintendent said. “Late last night an Italian of the fill gang was seen stealing to one of the main foundations, then kicking and tearing something to pieces. Norton followed him, and found some fuses, and fragments of paper that had been wrapped about some strange kind of explosive, which apparently had failed to ignite. The Italian has not been seen since.”
Alex was chuckling. “I think I can guess why that ‘strange explosive’ failed to go off, sir,” he said. “It was clay.” And continuing, he explained the mystery in detail. Superintendent Finnan laughed heartily.
“Well, Ward, you are certainly due a vote of thanks,” he declared seriously. “You saved the viaduct, and now you probably have brought about the ending of the entire trouble with the K. & Z. people. I’ll not fail to turn in a thorough report of it.”
XXII
THE DEFENSE OF THE VIADUCT
Thanks to the termination of the interference from the opposition road, the work on the extension progressed rapidly, and two weeks later found the rail-head seven miles beyond the Antelope viaduct, in the lower slopes of the Dog Rib Mountains. The coveted pass to the Yellow Creek gold-field lay but eight miles distant, and as the K. & Z. was still twenty miles east, it appeared certain that the Middle Western would win the great race.