Just as Lance was about to throw himself upon the men working for the mining company, a figure lounged into view before the party. It was that of a tall, slouching man, and he was heavily and prominently armed, having a brace of pistols slung about his body outside his coat. He was smoking a pipe.
“Hank Ledger!” ejaculated Philo Marsh.
“Yep,” drawled the foreman of the Hardin Ranch. “I run off your two friends this mawnin’. They’d got them holes drilled and the dynamite sticks set. All they waited for was that ’lectric battery you got thar in that thar leetle box, Philo.
“But it ain’t no go. I’ve extracted them dynamite sticks an’ they air soakin’ in the river right now. I tol’ yuh tuh let Miz White erlone. She’s er mighty able lady and I don’t kalkerlate tuh let no squirrel-faced, bald-headed feller, with a dyed mustache, interfere with her consarns. D’ye get me?”
Lance Petterby led the cheering as the party from the Hardin Ranch reached the scene and heard the foreman’s words. Lance rode right up to Philo’s pony and knocked the electric battery off the saddle-bow, and the box was smashed on the ground.
“What you doin’, Petterby?” yelled Marsh.
Lance leaned from his saddle and wagged a finger under the villain’s nose. “Gimme another word and I’ll smash you like I done your play-toy yonder. I’m achin’ tuh leave my mark on yuh,” whispered Lance, so that the girls could not hear him—or, he thought they could not.
“Isn’t he splendid?” cried Tavia to Dorothy. “Lance is a regular story-book hero.”
But Dorothy wanted to hear Flores’ story. “How did you come to be with those men, Flores?” she asked the Mexican girl.
“Oh, Señorita! I know—I see—I no can sp’ak da Inglese well, you know, Señorita. I know dey come here to blow up de river. I run to de beeg house to tell. Dey ketch me—mak’ me ride wit’ dhem——”