“All right, sir,” nodded Foreman Bell. “Any further orders?”
“None, except that your watchmen will do their best to guard both the line of roadbed and the camp. Further, tell the night engineer to be sure to have steam up so that he can blow a lot of signals at anytime in the night.”
“Very good, sir,” and the foreman hurried away.
“I'm disgusted with myself for having been caught in this fashion,” Tom admitted to Mr. Ellsworth. “But I hadn't an idea that Paloma held any dynamite. I can't imagine how a frontier town on the alkali desert needs dynamite.”
“It will probably be found that someone shipped it in a hurry,” suggested Mr. Ellsworth.
“But how? Any fellow would be detected who had it brought in on our trains. There has been no time to I stage I it from any other point since the row with Duff started.”
“It's a puzzle,” admitted Mr. Ellsworth.
“It is, but it won't be for long,” Reade declared confidently. “There are ways of finding out how that dynamite got into Paloma, there must be ways of finding out who caused it to be brought in.”
Then, suddenly, Tom's eyes grew wider open and brighter.
“Mr. Ellsworth, I believe that dynamite was brought in before the trouble opened.”