The former convict continued through the tunnel to the face of the rock wall. He set his candle down on a niche of jutting sandstone. With his fingers he scraped away some sand from the ragged wall.
“What’s that?” Hollister’s voice was sharp. He held out his hand. “Let’s have it.”
From beneath the sand Cig had taken a stick of dynamite. He dug up five others.
The object of putting them there was plain enough. If a workman had struck any one of them with a pick, there would have been an explosion, and the sand beds round the rocks were precisely the places into which the pick points would have gone. The thing had been a deliberate attempt at cold-blooded wholesale murder.
“Sure you have them all?” Hollister asked.
“Yep. Had only six.” He added, with a whine: “Didn’t aim to hurt any o’ the boys, but only to scare ’em some.”
The engineer made no comment. He drove his prisoner before him back into the light. Tom met him at the entrance to the tunnel. The foreman examined the sticks of dynamite, listened to what Hollister had to say, and jerked his head toward Cig.
“The boys’ll fix him right so’s he’ll never pull another trick like this,” he told his chief.
“No,” opposed Hollister. “Nothing of that sort, Tom. I’m going to take him down to the sheriff. We’ll send him over the road.”
“Like blazes we will!” the foreman burst out. “If you hadn’t happened to see him this morning, three or four of us might be dead by now. Hanging’s too good for this guy.”