“The fuses are all ready ter light.”
“Then snake him off down the level and we’ll finish this right up. See that you make a good job of it.”
Obeying a gesture from Clancy, Andy and Tex caught Wild Bill by the shoulders and dragged him some ten feet toward the shaft of the mine. Seth followed with a candle.
A stub crosscut opened off the level at this point, and Wild Bill was dragged into this and along it for fifteen feet, as he judged. That brought him to the end of the crosscut, which proved to be a blind wall.
“We’re going to put you in a pocket, Wild Bill,” said Lawless, who had followed, “and leave you there. You’ll not be able to bother anybody; and, of course, you’ll never live to get out, even if you’re not killed by the blast.”
“I’m not following you very clearly,” said Wild Bill. “Is it your intention to send me across the divide?”
“That’s it. You know too much, and we can’t take any chances with you. Look here.”
Lawless passed to the entrance of the crosscut and waved the candle back and forth. In the candlelight. Wild Bill saw the ends of three fuses, placed on a line.
“At the end of each fuse,” explained Lawless calmly, “there’s a heavy charge of powder. Clancy loaded the holes, and he knows just what a charge will do when it’s put down in any given place. He has set this blast so as to wall up the crosscut and leave you in a rock cell. Clancy says that you won’t be hurt by the flying rock when the blast goes off, but that you’ll be walled in so you can’t get out. You’ll not have any water or food, and you’ll not have much air. That can’t be helped.”
“You’re a fiend!” gritted Wild Bill, glaring at the calm face of Lawless.