Part 41 (1/2)

”Oh, I don't want to see,” she said. But she continued to look with fascinated eyes at the lone, calm figure on the dam.

Presently Madden pushed his gun forward over the rock.

”They've caught sight of him,” he stated.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE THUNDERBOLT

The greater part of the number of bandits had stopped in a group a few yards from the base of the white dam core, though a few stragglers were some way behind. Among these Steele Weir made out the figure of one whom he recognized as a white man; he whom the guard from the spring had mentioned as directing the company; and when at a number of exclamations from Mexicans who perceived the engineer the man lifted his face, Weir saw he was Burkhardt.

No more than this was needed to show whose the hand behind this treacherous conspiracy. Clear, too, it was that Burkhardt, determined that no mistake or abandonment of the operation should occur, had come to see it through in person. Weir could ask nothing better; he had one of the plotters caught in the act.

Apparently orders had been to carry through the first part of the diabolical plan of destruction in silence, that of gaining control of the dam, for when two or three Mexicans flung up rifles to shoot at Weir a sharp word from another Mexican, seemingly their leader, had checked the volley and shouted to Burkhardt.

The latter had stopped; he stared for a few seconds at the man on the white wall above and finally signaled with a wave of his arm.

”Come down here,” he ordered.

But Weir made no move to obey. He continued to stand motionless, coolly regarding the party beneath. His eyes particularly considered two men who carried wooden boxes, square and stout, on their shoulders. At last he spoke.

”What do you want here?”

”Come down, then you'll learn,” Burkhardt shouted up, making no effort to hide the enmity in his voice.

Weir puffed at his cigar, removed it from his lips to glance at its glowing end, while the Mexicans stared up at him in silence, puzzled by this lone guard who carried no rifle, who did not flee away to spread an alarm and seek aid, and who so unexpectedly had appeared as if antic.i.p.ating their visit.

Murmurs broke out. Why were they not allowed to shoot him at once in the approved Mexican bandit fas.h.i.+on and proceed to their work? If he were not shot at once, he yet could escape for aid. The party had to ascend the hillside in order to mount to the top of the concrete work. Time would be required to place and fire their charges of dynamite--and they were eager to get at the loot in the buildings above.

”Kill him,” Burkhardt roared suddenly, jerking forth his revolver and blazing at the engineer.

The bullet sang past Weir's head. He did not duck; indeed, kept his place calmly while the Mexicans were raising their guns, as if to show his supreme contempt for their power. But at the instant Burkhardt fired again and a dozen rifles blazed he sprang back and dropped flat, leaving the deadly missiles to speed harmlessly above the dam.

Raising himself cautiously he seized the end of a fuse projecting from one of the canisters and held the crimson end of his cigar against it until a sputter of sparks showed that it had caught. From this fuse he turned to the one in the second can and repeated the operation.

This was the essence of his plan of defense. With guns the defenders on the hillside would be outnumbered and probably killed in an attack.

The information that the a.s.sailants were to steal up the canyon, however, was the key that would unlock a desperate situation, and his mind had grasped the mode and means of defeating the enemy.

With the first shots quiet had returned. The night seemed for Weir as peaceful as ever, the earth bathed in moonlight, the camp at rest.

Only before him there was the sputter of the two fuses, one at the right, one at the left, as the trains of fire burned towards the holes in the canisters. He watched these calculatingly. His cigar no longer of service had been cast aside.

All at once he rose erect again. A few men were starting along the wall to climb the hillside, but the greater number were gathered about Burkhardt and the Mexican leader. Now Weir glanced at them and now at the fuses.

”I warn you to leave this dam and camp, Burkhardt,” he shouted, when a few seconds had pa.s.sed. ”Don't say I didn't give you warning.”

Every head jerked upward at this surprising reappearance and voice.