and he feels he must get up and make a bang with it. After all, I
guess it's fortunate that he does."

"Are all men like that?" Laura asked with a strange undertone in her
voice.

"Most of them," said Wheeler, with an air of reflection. "Of course,
you do run across one here and there who would put the bottled power
carefully away for fear that, when it went off, it might hurt him or
somebody. The trouble is that when a man of that kind at last makes up
his mind to use it he's quite likely to find that the power has
gradually leaked out of the bottle. Power's a very curious thing. If
you don't use it, it has a way of evaporating."

Gordon had joined them in the meanwhile, and Laura looked at him.

"You agree with that?" she asked.

Gordon's smile was suggestively grim. "Oh, yes," he said. "I guess our
friend now and then says some rather forceful things. Anyway, he has
hit it with this one. For instance, there was that little matter of
the man who was sick at his mill. A surgeon with nerve and hands could
have fixed him up. We"--and he made an expressive gesture--"packed him
out to Victoria."

He laughed harshly as he went on: "Well, that's partly why we're going
to set our mark on this canyon, if it's only to make it clear that
we're not quite played out yet. You'll ram that hole full of your
strongest powder, Derrick."

Nasmyth turned and waved his hand to a man at the foot of the gully.

"Bring me down the magazine!" he ordered. "We're going to split that
rock before supper."

The man, who disappeared, came back again with an iron box, and for
the next few minutes Nasmyth, who scrambled about the rocks above the
fall, taking a coil of thin wire with him, was busy. When he rejoined
his companions, he led them a little further down the canyon until he
pointed to a shelf of rock from which they had a clear view of the
fall. A handful of men had clambered down the gully, and now they
stood in a cluster upon the strip of shingle. Nasmyth indicated them
with a wave of his hand before he held a little wooden box with brass
pegs projecting from it up to Laura.

"It's the first big charge we have fired, and they seem to feel it's
something of an event," he said. "In one way, it's a declaration of
war we're making, and there is a good deal against us. You fit this
plug into the socket when you're ready."

"You mean me to fire the charge?" inquired Laura.

"Yes," answered Nasmyth quietly. "It's fitting that you s