He forced himself to eat his breakfast when it was pushed under his cell door.  The messes that were daily dabbed into the compartments of the tin tray were never appetizing; that morning his emotions made everything as tasteless as sawdust.  But he ate for strength’s sake; he did not know what form of endurance would be demanded of him.

He put only a few of his letters into his pocket.  Cells were inspected every day after the convicts went forth to their toil.  He did not dare to excite suspicion by taking away any noticeable amount of his possessions.

The forenoon work went on as usual.  And Mr. Wagg gave no signs that this was the day of days according to his plans.  He constantly warned the convicts not to meddle with any of the wires.  He was even peremptorily short with a deputy warden who came poking around.  The warden asked if there was any danger.

“There’s always danger when a hill is full of wired-up, canned thunder,” stated Mr. Wagg.  “I maintain, as I always have maintained, that it’s notional stuff.  You’ll kindly remember that I told you so.”

The warden departed with an air that revealed how much he had been impressed.

With the crisis so near, irritability pricked Vaniman’s state of nervous tension.  He began to resent Wagg’s contemptuous silence in regard to details.  That the guard’s plans were concerned in some way with the mined hillock was evident enough.  But an explosion which merely would create a diversion to assist in an escape was not a device that would effectively solve his difficulties, Vaniman reflected.  Wagg’s general stolidity made him seem rather stupid; the young man felt that his own wits ought to be enlisted in the affair.  In the stress of circumstances he hankered to co-operate instead of being a sort of Ludlam’s dog, dumb and driven.

However, toward noon, Mr. Wagg was displaying a certain amount of tension of his own and his demeanor did not invite complaints or recrimination.  The convict decided that there was nothing for it except to let Mr. Wagg do the wagging.

When the noon bell clanged from the tower, the pit-job prisoners filtered into groups from their occupation in the yard and others filed from the doors of the shops.  They shuffled their way in double lines through the gaping door of the main building, received their tins of food, and went to their cells.

As usual, Vaniman remained with Wagg.

The warders on the walls relaxed their vigilance when the heavy door was closed behind the last men of the lines.  The guards went into the sentry boxes and set down the heavy rifles.

Wagg made a general survey of the scene.  No person was moving in the open area of the yard.  The veteran of the guard was well acquainted with the customary habits and movements of the noon hour.  He knew that the men in the main guardroom were reduced to a shift of two while the others went to their dinners; the two men were in the habit of giving the deserted yard only indifferent attention.  But Mr. Wagg had provided against even casual glances.