"Yes; but I didn't give it away to the foreman. Their scheme is to make as much of a round-up as they can while it's light enough to see. There'll be a small piece of a moon, and that'll do for the drive down the canyon. Oh, I'll bet you they've got it all figured out to a dot. Carson's plenty smooth when it comes to plannin' any devilment."
Ballard turned back to the telegraph key and rattled it impatiently. Time was growing precious; was already temerariously short for carrying out the programme he had hastily determined upon in the few minutes of brown study.
"That you, Loudon?" he clicked, when, after interminable tappings, the breaking answer came; and upon the heels of the snipped-out affirmative he cut in masterfully.
"Ask no questions, but do as I say, quick. You said colonel had machine-gun at his mine: Rally gang stone-buckies, rush that gun, and capture it. Can you do it?"
"Yes," was the prompt reply, "if you don't mind good big bill funeral expenses, followed by labour riot."
"We've got to have gun."
"The colonel would lend it if—hold wire minute, Miss Elsa just crossing bridge in runabout. I'll ask her."
Ballard's sigh of relief was almost a groan, and he waited with good hope. Elsa would know why he wanted the Maxim, and if the thing could be done without an express order from her father to the Mexican mine guards, she would do it. After what seemed to the engineer like the longest fifteen minutes he had ever endured, the tapping began again.
"Gun here," from Bromley. "What shall I do with it?"
The answer went back shot-like: "Load on engine and get it down to end of branch nearest this camp quick."