Scotty touched his nose with the back of his hand and examined the red trace. "Uhuh," he agreed.
"What happened?" Rick asked weakly. His voice sounded far away!
Scotty's answer was barely audible. "We found the missing dynamite. I saw a length of wire along the trail. Are you okay?"
"I think so." Rick got to his feet, feeling as though his body were in sections. "We must have been close when it went off."
The two held onto each other for mutual support while strength came back into them.
"We weren't too close," Scotty said finally. He gestured up the trail. Rick looked, and saw a gaping hole some distance away. Beyond it, coming toward them at as high a speed as the trail allowed, was Brad Connel in his jeep.
The geologist stopped as he reached the hole, then swung off the trail and plowed through some scrub and back onto it again. He drew up next to the boys.
"So it was you who stole the dynamite!" the geologist said grimly. "What happened? Did it explode while you were fooling around with it?"
The boys stared at him, dazed and openmouthed.
"You're crazy," Rick managed finally. "We didn't steal it, but we almost got blown up in it. If Scotty hadn't seen the wire, we both would have been blown to bits."