It seemed to him that the multitudinous small voices of the night had never been more active.  A faint trickle of water came up from the bed of the stream.  He knew this was caused by leakage from the reservoir in the gulch.  A tiny rustle stirred the dry grass close to his hand.  His peering into the thick brush did not avail to tell him what form of animal life was palpitating there.  Far away a mocking-bird throbbed out a note or two, grew quiet, and again became tunefully clamorous.  A night owl hooted.  The sound of a soft footfall rolling a pebble brought him to taut alertness.  Eyes and ears became automatic detectives keyed to finest service.

A twig snapped in the arroyo.  Indistinctly movements of blurred masses were visible.  The figure of a man detached itself from the gloom and crept along the sandy wash.  A second and a third took shape.  The dry bed became filled with vague motion.  Sanders waited no longer.  He crawled back from the lip of the ravine a dozen yards, drew his revolver, and fired twice.

His guess had been that the attacking party, startled at the shots, would hesitate and draw together for a whispered conference.  This was exactly what occurred.

An explosion tore to shreds the stillness of the night.  Before the first had died away a second one boomed out.  Dave heard a shower of falling rock and concrete.  He heard, too, a roar growing every moment in volume.  It swept down the walled gorge like a railroad train making up lost time.

Sanders stepped forward.  The gully, lately a wash of dry sand and baked adobe, was full of a fury of rushing water.  Above the noise of it he caught the echo of a despairing scream.  Swiftly he ran, dodging among the catclaw and the prickly pear like a half-back carrying the ball through a broken field.  His objective was the place where the arroyo opened to a draw.  At this precise spot Steelman had located his derrick.

The tower no longer tapered gauntly to the sky.  The rush of waters released from the dam had swept it from its foundation, torn apart the timbers, and scattered them far and wide.  With it had gone the wheel, dragging from the casing the cable.  The string of tools, jerked from their socket, probably lay at the bottom of the well two thousand feet down.

Dave heard a groan.  He moved toward the sound.  A man lay on a sand hummock, washed up by the tide.

“Badly hurt?” asked Dave.

“I’ve been drowned intirely, swallowed by a flood and knocked galley-west for Sunday.  I don’t know yit am I dead or not.  Mither o’ Moses, phwat was it hit us?”

“The dam must have broke.”

“Was the Mississippi corked up in the dom canon?”

Bob bore down upon the scene at the head of the Jackpot contingent.  He gave a whoop at sight of the wrecked derrick and engine.  “Kindlin’ wood and junk,” was his verdict.  “Where’s Dug and his gang?”

Dave relieved the half-drowned man of his revolver.  “Here’s one.  The rest must be either in the arroyo or out in the draw.”