“Indian!” Barney gasped.

Even as he spoke he caught the gleam of a camp-fire through the trees; then another and another.  Without a moment’s delay Barney started for the camp two miles away.

He had reached the open space where the trading station had stood, had nearly crossed it, when out of the edge of the ruins there rose the form of a man, not an Indian but a white man.  Barney’s first thought was that it was Bruce or the Major.  His second look brought action.  He dropped flat behind some fire-blackened debris.  The man wore a tomato-colored mackinaw, such as was not to be found in their outfit.  Whoever he was, his back was turned and he had not seen the boy.

Creeping a little forward, Barney peered around the pile.  What he saw set the cold chills chasing up his back.  The man had torn two of the lead-wires from the frosted earth.  Slowly he placed their points together.  In that instant the boy understood.  He knew now the reason for the three wires leading to the power-house.  Two were for carrying light to the building.  If the third one was connected with the right one of the lighting-wires, an infernal-machine would be set going, and the power-house, with all in it, would be blown to atoms.  And, at this moment, Bruce and the Major were there.  The man, whoever he was, had, since the wires were broken, found it necessary to test the pairs out.  His first trial had been wrong.  He was bending over for a second try when something struck him, bowling him over like a ten-pin.  It was Barney.

The man was heavier than Barney, and evidently older.  He was fit, too.  One thing Barney had noticed—­the gleam of an automatic in the man’s hip-pocket.  In his sudden attack he had managed to drag this out and drop it upon the snow.

The struggle which followed was furious.  Holds were lost and won.  Blood flecked the snow, arms were wrenched and faces bruised.  Slowly, steadily, Barney felt his strength leaving him.

At last, with a gliding grip, the man’s hand reached his throat.  It was all over now.  Barney’s senses reeled as the grip tightened.  His lungs burned, his head seemed bursting.  He was about to lose consciousness, when through his mind there flashed pictures of Bruce and the Major.  He must!  He must!  With one last heroic effort, he threw the man half from him.  Then, faintly, far distant, there seemed to echo a shot, a single shot; then all sensation left him.

When the boy felt himself coming back to consciousness, he hardly knew whether he was still in the land of the living.  He dared not move or open his eyes.  Where was he?  What of the stranger?  The Major and Bruce; had they been blown into eternity?  Again and again these problems whirled through his dizzy mind.

Then all at once, he heard a voice.

“I think he’s coming ’round,” someone, very far off, was saying.

It was the gruff voice of the Major.  Barney opened his eyes to find his companions bending over him.