And a moment later the gang of conspirators, firing another harmless shot, swept out of view.
A group of men swarmed from the store and adjacent shacks, roused by the early-morning shooting, and with amazement they greeted our friends and heard the strange story.
"What day is it?" asked Bud.
"Friday," some one answered.
The mystery-solvers looked at one another in amazement.
They had been in the tunnel nearly forty-eight hours without sleep, nor did they feel the need of it, so exciting were the events that transpired.
But late, or, rather, early as it was, they managed to get in the store to use the telephone. And when the gray dawn was breaking across Pocut River, Bud learned, over the wire, from one of his father's cowboys left at Flume Valley, that the reservoir was again being filled.
"Hurray! It's all right!" yelled Bud, almost as loudly as the Kid would have done. "I guess, from now on, we'll have no trouble. But I'm going to see if we can't get Del Pinzo. He and his gang certainly tried to blow up the place, and us with it."
"To say nothing of trying, as I believe, to drown, us like rats in there, by shutting off and turning on those queer streams," added Nort.
"Do you think they really meant to drown us or blow us up?" asked Dick.