The contractor and the engineer, together before the fire, continued to talk in low tones.

“Haven’t told you yet,” said Pat, presently, “but we picked up that Mexican this evening who was trying to start a drunk Christmas Eve.  It was while you were at Sarita Creek.  Saurez told me he had sneaked into camp and meant mischief.  Some of us caught him behind the commissary tent with a can of oil, just ready to fire the camp.”

“A fine night for us all to have been left without shelter,” Lee remarked.  “Where is he?”

“In the hospital tied up, with a trusty man to watch him.  Here’s what I found on him.  Look inside.”  And Pat handed over a dirty leather bag with a long string.  “Found this around his neck.”

Lee extracted four pieces of paper from the sack—­all checks drawn to the order of F. Alvarez.  Besides these there were two twenty-dollar gold pieces, three rings, and several unset turquoises.

“Well, we can make use of these checks,” he said, after thought.  “I’ll talk to the fellow to-morrow.”  He restored the miscellaneous collection of property to the sack.

On the panes of the small windows the snow beat and the wind hammered.  Carrigan stuffed the stove with pine knots.  Afterward he refilled his pipe, cast a sharp glance about at the sleeping occupants of the room, and said: 

“You’ve got what you need now to mix medicine with the banker.”  He confirmed his words with several satisfied nods.

“Yes,” said Bryant.

Carrigan proceeded to meditate.

“Awhile back I sent for some more dynamite,” he stated, breaking the silence.  “Didn’t say anything to you about it at the time.  It was there in the commissary tent under a stack of cases of peaches and bags of coffee.  If this Alvarez had got his oil on that canvas and a fire going, there sure would have been some fire-works.  You would have had a reservoir blown right in the middle of your project, I’m thinking.”

“What in the name of heaven do you want with dynamite!”

“Well, my boy, there’s a lot of ground that can’t be dug, but I never saw any that nitro wouldn’t move.  What I got is dirt-blowing dynamite, the kind powder companies sell for making drainage ditches and blowing stumps and so on.  I didn’t know whether I should have to use it, but I always like to have a trick up my sleeve.  Powder is ordinarily too expensive to employ when fresnos can work, yet it’s just the thing in a pinch.  We’re in an emergency now.  If it should set in and snow right along, with one storm on top of another, as may happen after so long a mild season, powder even may not help us out.  These last eight hundred yards are going to make us weep before we’re through, I’m guessing.  But just the same, I’m counting on this dynamite.  It can’t blow like this forever, and the minute it quits we’ll grab hold.”

Lee twisted about to look at a window.  The particles of snow were biting at the glass relentlessly, while the howl of the gale told only too plainly how the drifts were being heaped on the dark mesa.