“Who? The workmen?” Weir demanded.
“No. I don’t know anything about the workmen, but a bunch of Mexicans, fifty or more, are headed this way to blow up the dam. I saw and heard them.”
“Where?”
“At the spring a mile south. I was watching down there, where Atkinson had sent me after supper, relieving the man who kept lookout during the afternoon. That was where the booze was dealt out last night, you remember. I was sitting there when I heard a crowd coming. At first I thought it was our men, but when they stopped to drink and smoke, I saw by their talk they were Mexicans. But there was one white man with them, a leader. He and a Mexican talked in English. They’re to raid the camp, crawling up the canyon, to dynamite the dam first, then fire the buildings.”
“Then they’re on the road here now?”
“Yes.” The speaker licked his lips. “I cut along the hillside until I got ahead of them, but it was slow going in the dark and stumbling through the sage. They must be close at hand by this time, though I came faster than they did. The white man said to the Mexican that they wanted to reach the dam just at moonrise, and that will be pretty quick now.”
“Go to the bunk-house and call the men waiting there, and get a gun yourself,” Weir ordered. “The storekeeper will give you one.” When the messenger had darted out, he looked at the others. “You must take these girls away from here, doctor, at once.”
“But I don’t go,” Johnson snapped forth, drawing his revolver and giving the cylinder a spin.
“I never could hit anything, and haven’t had a firearm in my hand for years, but I can try,” Pollock stated. “This promises to be interesting, very interesting.”