For a moment Sandy’s face was the face which had appeared at the window the night Weston was indulging in mimicry, but for a moment only. Then he rallied and assumed an air of concerned astonishment.
"What? Not ready? Why, man alive, yer chance may be gone if ye wait another day. Uncle Jake, you ought to know that, if Doc here don’t. Why, we’re afraid we can’t come it even by ropin’ together. Better hustle up and come."
Both Weimer and Ross sat still, and after a little further parley Waymart called angrily:
"Hike along here, Sandy. Guess they know what they want t’ do better ’n you do. Make tracks here!"
The three "made tracks," while Ross stood and watched them out of sight.
But after they had gone the boy, uneasy lest they should return to do the tunnel some damage, climbed the trail and entered the tool house. The house was fastened between two trees which grew at one side of the dump, the side furthest from the trail across the mountain toward Miners’ Camp.
Ross had entered aimlessly after assuring himself that the door at the mouth of the tunnel had not been opened. He stood silently looking out of a crack down on the mass of snow which glistened at the foot of the dump, when he was startled by seeing Sandy on snow-shoes creep around the dump and look up.
Only a glance upward did Sandy give, and them, turning, disappeared. Yet his face had appeared anxious before that upward glance, while afterward there was on it a satisfied smile.
The hours that followed were anxious ones for the two remaining in Meadow Creek Valley. They began a hunt for the dynamite as soon as the McKenzies had disappeared. Starting at the McKenzie shack and discovery hole they widened the search in a circle which finally included the valley and the sides of the adjoining mountains, with a single important omission; it did not occur to either of them to examine their own premises further than to assure themselves that neither tool house nor tunnel had suffered any damage from their "friends the enemy."
At four o’clock came the first signs of dusk and, discouraged, the partners moved slowly across the valley. Half-way across, Ross chanced to glance up at the stovepipe projecting from the roof of their shack.