The Border Boys on the Trail

by John Henry Goldfrap

"There, there, that will do," said the Mexican impatiently. "When the dam bursts, those Americanos will be drowned like so many rats, and the soldiers will find an empty nest for their pains."

"G-g-good-bye. I will attend to it," quavered the old dam-tender. After responding to further warning from the other end of the wire, he was removed from the telephone and the receiver was replaced.

At the same instant the two Mexicans who had been despatched to the dam to close the sluice gates returned. Their evil smiles showed that they had done their duty well. The rain had now increased to a torrent and the small gauge on the side of the dam-keeper's hut showed that the water was rising rapidly.

"How long before the dam goes?" asked Ramon, bending over the old man, who was moaning and crying pitifully over the idea of his treachery.

"She can't last more than half an hour," he whimpered. "Oh, what shall I do? They will think it was my fault. They——"

There came a roar so dreadful that the hut seemed to be shaken like a leaf in a windstorm. At the same instant a blue glare filled the hut, hissing viciously like a nest of aroused serpents. A sulphurous odor permeated everything. Before any of the occupants of the place had time to move a step an explosion so loud that it seemed as if a ton of dynamite had detonated, rent the air.

Jack's eyes were almost blinded by the sudden glare and crash, and his senses reeled for an instant. The next moment, however, he realized what had happened. The hut had been struck by a thunderbolt.

Black Ramon, his clothing singed, stood in a dazed way in the center of the smoking hut—in the floor of which a great, jagged hole had been ripped. By his side stood two of his men. The rest lay senseless, perhaps dead, in various parts of the reeking place.

One of them had been hurled by the violence of the electrical shock close to Jack's side, and his knife lay within an inch of the boy's fingers. Bound as he was, however, he could not reach it, nor did he dare to move while the Mexican leader's eyes were on them.