CHAPTER IX
In an instant my senses were flogged into a stupendous state of excitement, and my eyes must have bulged when I looked again at the blackened pad and then at the pencil point that had been blown off as though it had itself exploded. Then I thought of that crazy, love-sick Gus who had been driving nails into the case, and I sickened. Surely there is a Divine Providence that protects fools at least. Hiram had scratched matches against that case!
My knees shook and my hand trembled, and I do not think I could have uttered a sound. I looked for Strong. He was just coming out of the quarry office. I took one long step to rush back to the station, but saw the locomotive approaching, laboring hard with its immense load and throwing clouds of black smoke from its stack that slowly expanded into an immense dirigible in the still, sluggish atmosphere.
Should the conductor fling his report in at the window fastened to a spike or a piece of granite and hit that case of dynamite—what would happen? This had been done many times, and nothing occurred, but the law of average must prevail in due time. A sickening sensation took possession of me, and I became as rigid as stone. I felt as though ten pounds of lead was in the pit of my stomach; my mind was filled with monstrous forebodings, for one hundred persons were within easy range of that case of explosive—including Anna Bell. I could not prevent Hiram's arrest and trial for criminal negligence if the facts became known. But Gus was the culprit, if any one.
As I looked back, Hiram was approaching. Somehow I did not want to tell him. It seemed unnecessary, and I could save him that much apprehension. I must have looked strange to him when he came up to where I stood as one ossified. He took hold of my arm, and said fraternally: "Come on, Ben; you look as white as if you had seen a ghost." But I could not move. I only stared at the passing train.
Hiram plucked my sleeve. "Ben, you look as though you were standing before a firing squad—just as I must have looked when the Gold-Beater told me to 'git up and git.'"
I could only raise my hand warningly and stare at the passing train. It seemed to me the longest train I ever knew one locomotive to haul, and though it was moving at least twenty miles per hour it appeared to creep.
I raised my hand to my forehead and found it dripping with perspiration; Hiram grabbed my shoulders with both hands and shook me.