The visiting builder took out a huge revolver and laid it on a block.  He said nothing at all.  Van felt his impatience rising.

“I’m talking to you, Mr. Carpenter,” he added.  “Come on, now, I don’t want any trouble with neighbors, but this cabin will have to be removed.”

“Go to hell!” said the builder.  He continued to pound in his nails.

“If I go,” said Van calmly, “I’ll bring a little back.  Are you going to move or be moved?”

“Don’t talk to me, I’m busy,” answered the intruder.  “I’m an irritable man, and everything I own is irritable, understand?” And taking up his gun he thumped with it briskly on the boards.

“If you’re looking for trouble,” Van replied, “you won’t need a double-barreled glass.”

He turned away and the man continued operations.  When he came to the shack Van selected a hammer and a couple of drills from among a lot of tools in the corner.

To his partner’s questions as to what the visitor intended he replied that only time could tell.

“Here, Nap,” he added, fetching forth the tools, “I want you to take this junk and go up there where the neighbor is working.  Just sit down quietly and drill three shallow holes and don’t say a word to yonder busy bee.  If he asks you what’s doing, play possum—­and don’t make the holes too deep.”

Napoleon went off as directed.  His blows could presently be heard as he drilled in a porphyry dike.

His advent puzzled the man intent on building.

“Say, you,” said he, “what’s on your programme?”

Napoleon drilled and said nothing.

The carpenter watched him in some uneasiness.

“Say, you ain’t starting a shaft?”

No answer.

“Ain’t this a placer?  Say, you, are you deef?”

Napoleon pounded on the steel.

“Go to hell!” said the builder, as he had before, “—­a man that can’t answer civil questions!”

He resumed his labors, pausing now and then to stare at Napoleon, in a steadily increasing dubiety of mind.

In something less than twenty minutes he had done very little roofing, owing to a nervousness he found it hard to banish, while Napoleon had all but completed his holes.  Then Van came leisurely strolling to the place, comfortably loaded with dynamite, of which a man may carry much.

With utter indifference to the man on the roof he proceeded to charge those shallow holes.  As a matter of fact he overcharged them.  He used an exceptional amount of the harmless looking stuff, and laid a short fuse to the cap.  When he turned to the builder, who had watched proceedings with a sickening alarm at his vitals, that industrious person had taken on a heavy, leaden hue.

“You see I went where you told me,” said Van, “and I’ve brought some back as I promised.  This shot has got to go before breakfast—­and breakfast is just about ready.”