"You see I went where you told me," said Van, "and I've brought some back as I promised. This shot has got to go before breakfast—and breakfast is just about ready."
"For God's sake give a man a chance," implored the man who had trespassed in the night. "I'll move the shack to-morrow."
"You won't have to," Van informed him, "but you'd better move your meat to-day."
He took out a match, scratched it with quiet deliberation and lighted the end of the fuse.
"For God's sake—man!" cried the carpenter, and without even waiting to climb from the roof he rolled to the edge in a panic, fell off on his feet, and ran as if all the fiends of Hades were fairly at his heels.
Van and Napoleon also moved away with becoming alacrity. Three minutes later the charge went off. It sounded like the crack of doom. It seemed to split the earth and very firmament. A huge black toadstool of smoke rose up abruptly. Something like a blot of yellowish color spattered all over the landscape. It was the shack.
It had moved. The smoke cloud drifted rapidly away. On the hill was a great jagged hole, lined with rock, but there was nothing more. The cabin was hung in lumber shreds on the stunted trees for hundreds of feet in all directions. With it went hammers, saws and a barrel of nails whose usefulness was ended.
Gettysburg, aproned, and fresh from his labors at the stove, came hastening out of the cabin to where his partners stood, in great distress of mind.
"Holy toads, Van!" he said excitedly, "it must have been the shot! I've dropped an egg—and what in the world shall I do?"
"Cackle, man, cackle," Van answered him gravely. "That's a mighty rare occurrence."