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 assailants, 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 mass 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 hell!” 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.