Ross Grant, Tenderfoot

by John Garland

"Ready to drill for another shot, ain’t we?" Ross asked. He pushed the car back out of the way. "Got to hustle to get it done this afternoon, too."

Under the stimulus of Ross’s presence and hustle the older man fell to work valiantly, but it was slow work. Down in Miners’ Camp machinery performed the task which Weimer was doing laboriously with the aid of a hand drill. Before him, at the end of the tunnel, was a seamed and uneven wall of rock a little higher than his head and a little broader than his reach had he extended his arms on either side. In this wall he patiently drilled three sets of holes, into which the "sticks" were placed for the next "shot," as the explosion of dynamite was called. In mining terms the old man was "putting a shot." Near the top of the wall he made three holes. Half-way down were two more, long and inclined toward each other at the top. These were the "cut-in holes." Lastly, at the foot of the wall were three large holes called "lifters." The contents of the top holes and the cut-ins were set off first, splintering and cracking the rock. Then the lifters were exploded, actually lifting the loosened mass above it and hurling it into the tunnel.

When quiet reigned again, and Ross had loaded his hand car with the débris, he pushed it out on the dump again through the moist, freezing atmosphere of the tunnel. There was water everywhere. Near the mouth of the tunnel it was frozen on the sides and the top, and carpeted the floor with slush. Further in it was unfrozen, oozing out of the sides, dripping from the roof, running along the track. It covered the oiled garments of the men at work. It put out their candles. It made muck of the quartz dust on the floor. It often destroyed the lighted fuses.

There was something maddening to Ross in its incessant drip and drizzle, and he always emerged on the dump with a feeling of relief, especially when the sun shone as it did that day in dazzling brightness.

He dumped the car, and was about to push it back when his eyes fell on Weston’s horse journeying on the back trail riderless.

"That means," thought Ross, "that he’s going to stay. Why?"

A feeling of relief was mixed with uneasiness. The relief was caused by this further link in the chain of evidence that when the trail to Miners’ Camp was closed it would not close on Weimer and him alone. The uneasiness had to do with the mission of the McKenzie outfit in Meadow Creek Valley. Why were they reinforced by Weston?

"Oh!" exclaimed Ross aloud in sudden disgust with himself. "He’s come to hunt, of course! His gun was strapped on behind. I never thought of that. If he belongs to the McKenzie outfit, he’d rather hunt than eat."

It seemed to him that the "outfit" bore him not the slightest grudge or ill will. Sandy, indeed, seemed openly to like him, Waymart tolerated him with a surly good humor, while Weston–here Ross knit his brow–Weston baffled him completely; still, considering the incident of the note in Cody, the boy looked on him as a friend albeit one who evidently did not care to pose in that capacity before the McKenzies.

From his position Ross could look down and across on the claims of the McKenzies and almost into the "discovery hole" in which they were supposed to be working. Waymart was leisurely drilling a hole in the rock to receive a stick of dynamite when Sandy came out of the cabin and walked rapidly toward him.