“I guess it’s about time for Thorne to get back into civilization.  There’s something bad in his system.  Weston told me yesterday that his injuries are coming along finely.  I don’t understand it.”

A little later they returned with Thorne to his room.

“I want Howland to see this south coyote go up,” said MacDonald.  “Can you spare him?  We’ll be back before noon.”

“Certainly.  Come and take dinner with me at twelve.  That will give me time to make memoranda of things I may have forgotten.”

Howland fancied that there was a certain tone of relief in the senior’s voice, but he made no mention of it to the superintendent as they walked swiftly to the scene of the “blow-out.”  The coyote was ready for firing when they arrived.  The coyote itself—­a tunnel of fifty feet dug into the solid rock of the mountain and terminating in a chamber packed with explosives—­was closed by masses of broken rock, rammed tight, and MacDonald showed his companion where the electric wire passed to the fuse within.

“It’s a confounded mystery to me why Thorne doesn’t care to see this ridge blown up!” he exclaimed after they had finished the inspection.  “We’ve been at work for three months drilling this coyote, and the bigger one to the north.  There are four thousand square yards of rock to come out of there, and six thousand out of the other.  You don’t see shots like those three times in a lifetime, and there’ll not be another for us between here and the bay.  What’s the matter with Thorne?”

Without waiting for a reply MacDonald walked swiftly in the direction of a ridge to the right.  Already guards had been thrown out on all sides of the mountain and their thrilling warnings of “Fire—­Fire—­Fire,” shouted through megaphones of birch-bark, echoed with ominous meaning through the still wilderness, where for the time all work had ceased.  On the top of the ridge half a hundred of the workmen had already assembled, and as Howland and the superintendent came among them they fell back from around a big, flat boulder on which was stationed the electric battery.  MacDonald’s face was flushed and his eyes snapped like dragonflies as he pointed to a tiny button.

“God, but I can’t understand why Thorne doesn’t care to see this,” he said again.  “Think of it, man—­seven thousand five hundred pounds of powder and two hundred of dynamite!  A touch of this button, a flash along the wire, and the fuse is struck.  Then, four or five minutes, and up goes a mountain that has stood here since the world began.  Isn’t it glorious?” He straightened himself and took off his hat.  “Mr. Howland, will you press the button?”