The Danger Trail Part 9

With a strange thrill Howland bent over the battery, his eyes turned to the ma.s.s of rock looming sullen and black half a mile away, as if bidding defiance in the face of impending fate. Tremblingly his finger pressed on the little white k.n.o.b, and a silence like that of death fell on those who watched. One minute--two--three--five pa.s.sed, while in the bowels of the mountain the fuse was sizzling to its end. Then there came a puff, something like a cloud of dust rising skyward, but without sound; and before its upward belching had ceased a tongue of flame spurted out of its crest--and after that, perhaps two seconds later, came the explosion. There was a rumbling and a jarring, as if the earth were convulsed under foot; volumes of dense black smoke shot upward, shutting the mountain in an impenetrable pall of gloom; and in an instant these rolling, twisting volumes of black became lurid, and an explosion like that of a thousand great guns rent the air. As fast as the eye could follow, sheets of flame shot out of the sea of smoke, climbing higher and higher, in lightning flashes, until the lurid tongues licked the air a quarter of a mile above the startled wilderness. Explosion followed explosion, some of them coming in hollow, reverberating booms, others sounding as if in mid-air. The heavens were filled with hurtling rocks; solid ma.s.ses of granite ten feet square were thrown a hundred feet away; rocks weighing a ton were hurled still farther, as if they were no more than stones flung by the hand of a giant; chunks that would have crashed from the roof to the bas.e.m.e.nt of a sky-sc.r.a.per dropped a third and nearly a half a mile away. For three minutes the frightful convulsions continued. Then the lurid lights died out of the pall of smoke, and the pall itself began to settle. Howland felt a grip on his arm. Dumbly he turned and looked into the white, staring face of the superintendent. His ears tingled, every fiber in him seemed unstrung. MacDonald's voice came to him strange and weird.

"What do you think of that, Howland?" The two men gripped hands, and when they looked again they saw dimly through dust and smoke only torn and shattered ma.s.ses of rock where had been the giant ridge that barred the path of the new road to the bay.

Howland talked but little on their way back to camp. The scene that he had just witnessed affected him strangely; it stirred once more within him all of his old ambition, all of his old enthusiasm, and yet neither found voice in words. He was glad when the dinner was over at Thorne's, and with the going of the mail sledge and the senior engineer there came over him a still deeper sense of joy. Now _he_ was in charge, it was _his_ road from that hour on. He crushed MacDonald's hand in a grip that meant more than words when they parted. In his own cabin he threw off his coat and hat, lighted his pipe, and tried to realize just what this all meant for him. He was in charge--in charge of the greatest railroad building job on earth--_he_, Jack Howland, who less than twenty years ago was a barefooted, half-starved urchin peddling papers in the streets where he was now famous! And now what was this black thing that had come up to threaten his chances just as he had about won his great fight? He clenched his hands as he thought again of what had already happened--the cowardly attempt on his life, the warnings, and his blood boiled to fever heat. That night--after he had seen Meleese--he would know what to do. But he would not be driven away, as Gregson and Thorne had been driven. He was determined on that.

The gloom of night falls early in the great northern mid-winter, and it was already growing dusk when there came the sound of a voice outside, followed a moment later by a loud knock at the door. At Howland's invitation the door opened and the head and shoulders of a man appeared.

"Something has gone wrong out at the north coyote, sir, and Mr.

MacDonald wants you just as fast as you can get out there," he said. "He sent me down for you with a sledge."

"MacDonald told me the thing was ready for firing," said Howland, putting on his hat and coat. "What's the matter?"

"Bad packing, I guess. Heard him swearing about it. He's in a terrible sweat to see you."

Half an hour later the sledge drew up close to the place where Howland had seen a score of men packing bags of powder and dynamite earlier in the day. Half a dozen lanterns were burning among the rocks, but there was no sign of movement or life. The engineer's companion gave a sudden sharp crack of his long whip and in response to it there came a m.u.f.fled halloo from out of the gloom.

"That's MacDonald, sir. You'll find him right up there near that second light, where the coyote opens up. He's grilling the life out of half a dozen men in the chamber, where he found the dynamite on top of the powder instead of under it."

"All right!" called back Howland, starting up among the rocks. Hardly had he taken a dozen steps when a dark object shot out behind him and, fell with crushing force on his head. With, a groaning cry he fell forward on his face. For a few moments he was conscious of voices about him; he knew that he was being lifted in the arms of men, and that after a time they were carrying him so that his feet dragged on the ground.

After that he seemed to be sinking down--down--down--until he lost all sense of existence in a chaos of inky blackness.

CHAPTER VIII

THE HOUR OF DEATH

A red, unwinking eye staring at him fixedly from out of impenetrable gloom--an ogreish, gleaming thing that brought life back into him with a thrill of horror--was Howland's first vision of returning consciousness.

It was dead in front of him, on a level with his face--a ball of yellow fire that seemed to burn into his very soul. He tried to cry out, but no sound fell from his lips; he strove to move, to fight himself away, but there was no power of movement in his limbs. The eye grew larger. He saw that it was so bright it cast a halo, and the halo widened before his own staring eyes until the dense gloom about it seemed to be melting away. Then he knew. It was a lantern in front of him, not more than ten feet away. Consciousness flooded him, and he made another effort to cry out, to free his arms from an invisible clutch that held him powerless.

At first he thought this was the clutch of human hands; then as the lantern-light revealed more clearly the things about him and the outlines of his own figure, he saw that it was a rope, and he knew that he was unable to cry out because of something tight and suffocating about his mouth.

The truth came to him swiftly. He had come up to the coyote on a sledge.

Some one had struck him. He remembered that men had half-dragged him over the rocks, and these men had bound and gagged him, and left him here, with the lantern staring him in the face. But where was he? He shifted his eyes, straining to penetrate the gloom. Ahead of him, just beyond the light, there was a black wall; he could not move his head, but he saw where that same wall closed in on the left. He turned his gaze upward, and it ended with that same imprisoning barrier of rock.

Then he looked down, and the cry of horror that rose in his throat died in a m.u.f.fled groan. The light fell dimly on a sack--two of them--three--a tightly packed wall of them.

He knew now what had happened. He was imprisoned in the coyote, and the sacks about him were filled with powder. He was sitting on something hard--a box--fifty pounds of dynamite! The cold sweat stood out in beads on his face, glistening in the lantern-glow. From between his feet a thin, white, ghostly line ran out until it lost itself in the blackness under the lantern. It was the fuse, leading to the box of dynamite on which he was sitting!

Madly he struggled at the thongs that bound him until he sank exhausted against the row of powder sacks at his back. Like words of fire the last warning of Meleese burned in his brain--"You must go, to-morrow--to-morrow--or they will kill you!" And this was the way in which he was to die! There flamed before his eyes the terrible spectacle which he had witnessed a few hours before--the holocaust of fire and smoke and thunder that had disrupted a mountain, a chaos of writhing, twisting fury, and in that moment his heart seemed to cease its beating.

He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. Was it possible that there lived men so fiendish as to condemn him to this sort of death? Why had not his enemies killed him out among the rocks? That would have been easier--quicker--less troublesome. Why did they wish to torture him?

What terrible thing had he done? Was he mad--mad--and this all a terrible nightmare, a raving find unreal contortion of things in his brain? In this hour of death question after question raced through his head, and he answered no one of them. He sat still for a time, scarcely breathing. There was no sound, save the beating of his own heart. Then there came another, almost unheard at first, faint, thrilling, maddening.

Tick--tick--tick!

It was the beating of his watch. A spasm of horror seized him.

What time was it? The coyote was to be fired at nine o'clock. It was four when he left his cabin. How long had he been unconscious? Was it time now--now? Was MacDonald's finger already reaching out to that little white b.u.t.ton which would send him into eternity?

He struggled again, gnashing furiously at the thing which covered his mouth, tearing the flesh of his wrists as he twisted at the ropes which bound him, choking himself with his efforts to loosen the thong about his neck. Exhausted again, he sank back, panting, half dead. As he lay with closed eyes a little of his reason a.s.serted itself. After all, was he such a coward as to go mad?

Tick--tick--tick!

His watch was beating at a furious rate. Was something wrong with it?

Was it going too fast? He tried to count the seconds, but they raced away from him. When he looked again his gaze fell on the little yellow tongue of flame in the lantern globe. It was not the steady, unwinking eye of a few minutes before. There was a sputtering weakness about it now, and as he watched the light grew fainter and fainter. The flame was going out. A few minutes more and he would be in darkness. At first the significance of it did not come to him; then he straightened himself with a jerk that tightened the thong about his neck until it choked him.

Hours must have pa.s.sed since the lantern had been placed on that rock, else the oil would not be burned out of it now!

For the first time Howland realized that it was becoming more and more difficult for him to get breath. The thing about his neck was tightening, slowly, inexorably, like a hot band of steel, and suddenly, because of this tightening, he found that he had recovered his voice.

"This d.a.m.ned rawhide--is pinching--my Adam's apple--"

Whatever had been about his mouth had slipped down and his words sounded hollow and choking in the rock-bound chamber. He tried to raise his voice in a shout, though he knew how futile his loudest shrieks would be. The effort choked him more. His suffering was becoming excruciating.

Sharp pains darted like red-hot needles through his limbs, his back tortured him, and his head ached as though a knife had cleft the base of his skull. The strength of his limbs was leaving him. He no longer felt any sensation in his cramped feet. He measured the paralysis creeping up his legs inch by inch, driving the sharp pains before it--and then a groan of horror rose to his lips.

The light had gone out!

As if that dying of the little yellow flame were the signal for his death, there came to his ears a sharp hissing sound, a spark leaped up into the blackness before his eyes, and a slow, creeping glow came toward him over the rock at his feet.

The hour--the minute--the second had come, and MacDonald had pressed the little white b.u.t.ton that was to send him into eternity! He did not cry out now. He knew that the end was very near, and in its nearness he found new strength. Once he had seen a man walk to his death on the scaffold, and as the condemned had spoken his last farewell, with the noose about his neck, he had marveled at the clearness of his voice, at the fearlessness of this creature in his last moment on earth.

Now he understood. Inch by inch the fuse burned toward him--a fifth of the distance, a quarter--now a third. At last it reached a half--was almost under his feet. Two minutes more of life. He put his whole strength once again in an attempt to free his hands. This time his attempt was cool, steady, masterful---with death one hundred seconds away. His heart gave a sudden bursting leap into his throat when he felt something give. Another effort--and in the powder-choked vault there rang out a thrilling cry of triumph. His hands were free! He reached forward to the fuse, and this time a moaning, wordless sob fell from him, faint, terrifying, with all the horror that might fill a human soul in its inarticulate note. He could not reach the fuse because of the thong about his neck!

He felt for his knife. He had left it in his room. Sixty seconds more--forty--thirty! He could see the fiery end of the fuse almost at his feet. Suddenly his groping fingers came in contact with the cold steel of his pocket revolver and with a last hope he s.n.a.t.c.hed it forth, stretching down his pistol arm until the muzzle of the weapon was within a dozen inches of the deadly spark. At his first shot the spark leaped, but did not go out. After the second there was no longer the fiery, creeping thing on the floor, and, crushing his head back against the sacks, Howland sat for many minutes as if death had in reality come to him in the moment of his deliverance. After a time, with tedious slowness, he worked a hand into his trousers' pocket, where he carried a pen-knife. It took him a long time to saw through the rawhide thong about his neck. After that he cut the rope that bound his ankles.

He made an effort to rise, but no sooner had he gained his feet than his paralyzed limbs gave way under him and he dropped in a heap on the floor. Very slowly the blood began finding its way through his choked veins again, and with the change there came over him a feeling of infinite restfulness. He stretched himself out, with his face turned to the black wall above, realizing only that he was saved, that he had outwitted his mysterious enemies again, and that he was comfortable. He made no effort to think--to scheme out his further deliverance. He was with the powder and the dynamite, and the powder and the dynamite could not be exploded until human hands came to attach a new fuse. MacDonald would attend to that very soon, so he went off into a doze that was almost sleep. In his half-consciousness there came to him but one sound--that dreadful ticking of his watch. He seemed to have listened to it for hours when there arose another sound--the ticking of another watch.

He sat up, startled, wondering, and then he laughed happily as he heard the sound more distinctly. It was the beating of picks on the rock outside. Already MacDonald's men were at work clearing the mouth of the coyote. In half an hour he would be out in the big, breathing world again.

The thought brought him to his feet. The numbness was gone from his limbs and he could walk about. His first move was to strike a match and look at his watch.

"Half-past ten!"

He spoke the words aloud, thinking of Meleese. In an hour and a half he was to meet her on the trail. Would he be released in time to keep the tryst? How should he explain his imprisonment in the coyote so that he could leave MacDonald without further loss of time? As the sound of the picks came nearer his brain began working faster. If he could only evade explanations until morning--and then reveal the whole dastardly business to MacDonald! There would be time then for those explanations, for the running down of his murderous a.s.sailants, and in the while he would be able to keep his appointment with Meleese.

He was not long in finding a way in which this scheme could be worked, and gathering up the severed ropes and rawhide he concealed them between two of the powder sacks so that those who entered the coyote would discover no signs of his terrible imprisonment. Close to the mouth of the tunnel there was a black rent in the wall of rock, made by a bursting charge of dynamite, in which he could conceal himself. When the men were busy examining the broken fuse he would step out and join them.

It would look as though he had crawled through the tunnel after them.

Half an hour later a ma.s.s of rock rolled down close to his feet, and a few moments after he saw a shadowy human form crawling through the hole it had left. A second followed, and then a third;--and the first voice he heard was that of MacDonald.

"Give us the lantern, Bucky," he called back, and a gleam of light shot into the black chamber. The men walked cautiously toward the fuse, and Howland saw the little superintendent fall on his knees.

"What in h.e.l.l!" he heard him exclaim, and then there was a silence. As quietly as a cat Howland worked himself to the entrance and made a clatter among the rocks. It was he who responded to the voice.

"What's up, MacDonald?"

He coolly joined the little group. MacDonald looked up, and when he saw the new chief bending over him his eyes stared in unbounded wonder.

"Howland!" he gasped.