“Found this hanging on a bush about ten feet from the top of the cliff,” the watchman declared, answering Nash’s questions. “Guess the fellow made a try at the bush himself—half of it is missing. Only the hat stuck.”
Nash finally gave directions for the removal of the body, and watched as two Italians carried it to a wagon, preparatory to its being sent on to camp. A few necessary requirements and forms had to be observed—the notification of the county sheriff being the principal one; and after that, Macmillan’s body, unless claimed by relatives, would share the barren plot on the mountainside with the hundred-odd others who had met death, by fair means or foul, in Camp Forty-seven.
All the remainder of that day Macmillan’s death was on Nash’s mind. It wasn’t so much the final tragedy that worried him, as the events leading up to it. Revenge, doubtless, had been the motive. It was quite natural, after his discharge and his words with Hooker, that the former subforeman should seek revenge. Being interested in the construction of the conduit, and realizing full well that the loss of water would prove a serious blow, Macmillan had determined upon this damaging method.
The one question which still tortured Nash’s brain was how Miss Breen had become mixed up with such a man as Macmillan. And it stood to reason that she must be, else why had she warned him last night? The more he studied over the problem, the more entangled it became, so finally he gave it up.
In the two days which followed this tragedy Nash was so busily engaged in the final preparations of his “coyote” that the affair, at least for the present, was relegated to the background. This had not been his first experience with leveling off a mountaintop, but it was one presenting the greatest difficulties. Unusually hard rock had been encountered from the very beginning, an extra force of men had been engaged in the bore, and even then the work progressed slowly. It was exactly a week later that the final “shot” was touched off, and the last of the débris cleared from the tunnel.
Two hundred cases of dynamite were placed in the big rock chamber, together with a hundred bags of black powder. The wires were laid about them, and carefully adjusted. Then both dynamite and powder were covered with six feet of cement and broken stone. This was allowed to harden for three days.
On top of this new floor fifty cases of dynamite were placed. The first explosion would come from below, ripping away the concrete and shattering the walls. By leaving this air chamber, additional force would be created. The first explosion would explode the dynamite on the concrete floor.
Nash spent most of his time at the “coyote,” overseeing the thousand and one details which were necessary to the success of the undertaking.
Finally the last bag of powder was in place, and the wires carefully laid from the chamber, along the tunnel, out into daylight and across the valley—fully a mile—to the top of another hill. Here, at the given time, the batteries were to be adjusted, and the button pressed.
If things happened as Nash had forecast, the top of the big mountain—those rock-strewed, pine-covered acres which had smiled into the California heavens for so many ages—would be shattered, torn into a thousand pieces at the pressure of a finger on a harmless-looking button.