“I’m betting on every detail in the mile and a quarter,” the young engineer was saying, as the two laggards closed up. “It’s my first big job, as Mr. Maxwell knows”—this also for the guest—“and I’ve simply got to make good on it. I could have had that waiting motor-engine out there pulling trains through the mountain this morning, but I made up my mind that we wouldn’t turn a wheel until Mr. Maxwell had seen everything for himself.”
“That’s business,” said Sprague, encouragingly. “Old Davy Crockett’s maxim, eh? ‘Be sure you’re right, and then go ahead.’ But let me tell you, Mr. Stribling: Mr. Maxwell will look wise and say, ‘Yes, yes,’ but he’ll have to take your word for it, after all. What we average people don’t know about modern electrical installations would fill a—” he looked around as if in search of a measure of capacity—“would fill a tank as big as that one across the track—the one you’ve dipped your wires into over there in that side cave.”
“The oil-switch, you mean? Yes, that is a little safety wrinkle we’re putting in wherever there’s a chance of an accident breaking down the power wires. I’ll explain it as we come back.”
When the young engineer led the way onward again a glance to the rear would have shown him that only three of the four were at his heels. Starbuck had seen his chance, and in a quick withdrawal he dodged into the side cavern housing the oil-switch. Two of the empty dynamite boxes enabled him to breast the top of the tall iron tank. What he saw was a little puzzling. Oil-switch tanks are usually left open to the air, but this one was fitted with a galvanized-iron cover made in the form of a shallow pan with double sides spaced about six inches apart. The inner compartment of the pan was half-filled with a transparent oily liquid, and the outer annular space around it was closely packed with chopped ice. Hastily breaking the seals of the package he had been carrying under his coat, he dumped the contents into the central receptacle and fled without waiting to prove Sprague’s assertion that nothing alarming would happen. When he rejoined the inspection party Sprague was still holding Stribling in talk, and the young mine owner made sure it was done to cover his own momentary absence.
The remainder of the trip through the tunnel was made without incident, and on the way back Stribling halted the party at the safety switch side cavern which, oddly enough, was charged with a curiously acrid odor that made breathing in it chokingly difficult. Coughing and gasping, Stribling explained the mechanism briefly. An electro-magnet, energized by the power current itself, held the switch in contact. If the current should be interrupted, as in the case of a breakage due to a wreck, the switch would be thrown and all the tunnel wires rendered instantly harmless.
“And these boxes are what your machinery came in?” said Sprague, pointing to a litter of small dust-covered packing-cases scattered about the tank.
“Oh, no; those are dynamite boxes,” was the hoarse reply. “They are empty—at least, Mr. Benson says they are, and he ought to know, since they are some of his leavings.” And then: “Suppose we move on. The air is frightfully bad in here. The engineer must have stopped the ventilating fans.”
Sprague had picked up a rusty bolt left by the timber-framers.
“You’ve got a good solid oil-tank here,” he said, hammering lustily on the iron with the bolt.
Starbuck was watching Stribling, and he would have sworn that the young engineer’s jump took him two feet clear into the air.