“Good gracious! they’ve sure got us where the ax got the chicken, this time!” Dick groaned. “Our wires are gone, and we can’t even get word to Red Butte for more help—or to tell Mr. Ackerman what’s been done to us.”
“Mr. Ackerman is in Red Butte?” Larry asked.
“I suppose he is there yet. Mr. Goldrick told me he went down yesterday.”
Larry had planted himself on a flat rock with his elbows on his knees, and the “brown-study” frown came to wrinkle between his level, wide-set eyes.
“I was just thinking, Dick,” he said. “Doesn’t it strike you that these O. C. people have put a pretty big rod in pickle for themselves?”
Dick shook his head.
“I don’t see it—yet.”
“Think a minute. We’ve just naturally got to get rid of this dam; we can’t hit another lick until we do. If you were in Mr. Ackerman’s place, what would you do?”
Dick took his turn at the brown-studying, dived deep and came up with his decision.
“I guess I’d sink about half a car-load of dynamite down behind that pile of rock and touch it off. I’ll bet that would move it out in a hurry.”