“No, indeed. That would never do. They have to bring an order signed by the boss on their particular section.”
Ram Chunda, however, appeared to have his supply of explosives elsewhere for they did not stop at the dynamite hut but passed on.
“How much dynamite is stored there?” asked Rob, as they hurried along.
“Oh, enough to blow the whole dam up, I guess,” was the careless reply, to which the boys did not attach much significance at the time, although they were to recollect those words with peculiar vividness later.
Before long they reached a place where ladders were stretched from the ground to the top of the dam.
“We’ll go down these,” announced Mr. Raynor, halting. “Ram, you go first. You boys can follow. All got steady heads, I hope?”
“I think so,” murmured Fred, with a vivid recollection in his mind of the scene on the ruined tower of St. Augustin, “two of us have, anyhow.”
The engineer did not, of course, understand the allusion nor, to the joy of Rob and Merritt, did he ask any explanation. Neither boy liked to recall those awful moments when they hung suspended in mid-air between life and death.
The ladders were long and steep, but the descent was made without incident. At the base of the dam, however, was a steep sort of embankment of loose sand and gravel. Tubby, who was behind Ram Chunda, looked down and saw this, which appeared to offer a secure “jumping off” place.
With a whoop he jumped from the last ladder while still several feet above the top of the bank. His feet struck it with a scrunch. But the loose, shaly stuff was treacherous. With an alarmed yell the fat boy, the cocoanuts round his belt rattling like castanets, rolled down the bank, revolving like a barrel.