"Good Lord! the machinery has stopped! They've knocked off work on the dam!"
"Why not?" she said. "Did you imagine that your workmen were any less human than other people?"
"No, of course not; that is, I—but I haven't any time to go into that now. Is your telephone line up here in operation?"
"No, not yet."
"Then I must burn the wind getting down there. By Jove! if those unspeakable idiots have gone off and left the concrete to freeze wherever it happens to be——"
"One moment," she pleaded, while he was reaching for his hat. "This new madness will have spent itself by nightfall—it must. And yet I have the queerest shivery feeling, as if something dreadful were going to happen. Can't you contrive to get word to me, some way—after it is all over? I wish you could."
"I'll do it," he promised. "I'll come up after supper."
"No, don't do that. You will be needed at the dam. There will be trouble, with a town full of disappointed gold-hunters, and liquor to be had. Wait a minute." She ran into the house and came out with two little paper-covered cylinders with fuses projecting. "Take these, they are Bengal lights—some of the fireworks that Tig bought in Red Butte for the Fourth. Light the blue one when you are ready to send me my message of cheer. I shall be watching for it."
"And the other?" he asked.
"It is a red light, the signal of war and tumults and danger. If you light it, I shall know——"