Nasmyth was silent for several moments; then he turned to the other two men with a wry smile.
“I don’t quite know how we drove this heading with the tools we had, but I can’t think of any means of saving it,” he said. “There are men with money––Martial, and more of them––in the cities waiting to take away from us what we expect to get, and since we have to fight them, it seems to me advisable to strike where it’s possible.” He laughed harshly. “There’ll be two feet less water in the valley before the morning.”
“But no heading,” cried Mattawa.
“Well,” replied Nasmyth simply, “we’ll start another one. I notice two holes yonder. We’ll drill a third one, Tom.”
Nasmyth had been in the saddle since sunrise, in bitter frost and whirling snow, but he picked up a hammer, and Mattawa seized a drill. There was no room to swing the hammer, and Nasmyth struck half crouching, while, chilly as the heading was, the perspiration dripped from him, and the veins rose swollen on his forehead. He was up against it, and a man strikes hardest when he is pressed back to the wall. Gordon sat and watched them, but––for the rock rang with each jarring thud––he wrapped the magazine in his wet jacket, and it was a relief to him when Nasmyth finally dropped the hammer.
“Now,” said Nasmyth, “we’ll fill every hole ram to the top.”
Mattawa placed the giant-powder in the holes, and they crawled back, trailing a couple of thin wires after them, until they reached the strip of shingle near the gully, when Nasmyth made the connection with the firing-plug.
A streak of vivid flame leapt out of the rock, and the detonation was followed by the roar of the river pouring through the newly opened gap. Nasmyth turned without 277 a word and plodded back to the shanty. A group of men who had scrambled down the gully met him.
“You were a little astonished to see me, boys?” he said with a question in his voice. Then he laughed.