Sheer below the rancher, the naked rocks shot down, bare of foothold. Deep down at the bottom rushed the river which carried water from the land company's dam down to the valley. The dam lay up the cañon to the west.
Bud Wilson was crawling about dazedly on his hands and knees. All about were plunging horses and rock-wounded men. The still stupefied Bud looked up as the rancher impatiently repeated his question.
"Dynamite!—the yellow-skinned reptiles," he growled, "and if that charge had been touched off right we should all have been at the bottom of that gorge with my poor horse."
He gazed over the ragged, explosive-riven edge, and shuddered, as far below him he sighted a dark mass lying among the brush and trees at the bottom of the gulch.
"Yes, it was dynamite beyond a doubt," agreed the rancher; "but how did we escape the dreadful fate they had prepared for us?"
Bud Wilson shrugged his shoulders.
"I reckon the feller they left to press the button got rattled and touched it off too soon," he rejoined. "They're a jumpy lot, these greasers."
"Thank Heaven that none of us is seriously hurt," said Mr. Merrill, looking about him. "I do not believe that any one has suffered more than a few cuts from flying rocks."
This proved to be the case. The escape of the party when the bridge had been blown up had indeed been miraculous.