A little later they returned with Thorne to his room.

"I want Howland to see this south coyote go up," said MacDonald. "Can
you spare him? We'll be back before noon."

"Certainly. Come and take dinner with me at twelve. That will give me
time to make memoranda of things I may have forgotten."

Howland fancied that there was a certain tone of relief in the senior's
voice, but he made no mention of it to the superintendent as they walked
swiftly to the scene of the "blow-out." The coyote was ready for firing
when they arrived. The coyote itself--a tunnel of fifty feet dug into
the solid rock of the mountain and terminating in a chamber packed with
explosives--was closed by masses of broken rock, rammed tight, and
MacDonald showed his companion where the electric wire passed to the
fuse within.

"It's a confounded mystery to me why Thorne doesn't care to see this
ridge blown up!" he exclaimed after they had finished the inspection.
"We've been at work for three months drilling this coyote, and the
bigger one to the north. There are four thousand square yards of rock to
come out of there, and six thousand out of the other. You don't see
shots like those three times in a lifetime, and there'll not be another
for us between here and the bay. What's the matter with Thorne?"

Without waiting for a reply MacDonald walked swiftly in the direction of
a ridge to the right. Already guards had been thrown out on all sides of
the mountain and their thrilling warnings of "Fire--Fire--Fire," shouted
through megaphones of birch-bark, echoed with ominous meaning through
the still wilderness, where for the time all work had ceased. On the top
of the ridge half a hundred of the workmen had already assembled, and as
Howland and the superintendent came among them they fell back from
around a big, flat boulder on which was stationed the electric battery.
MacDonald's face was flushed and his eyes snapped like dragonflies as he
pointed to a tiny button.

"God, but I can't understand why Thorne doesn't care to see this," he
said again. "Think of it, man--seven thousand five hundred pounds of
powder and two hundred of dynamite! A touch of this button, a flash
along the wire, and the fuse is struck. Then, four or five minutes, and
up goes a mountain that has stood here since the world began. Isn't it
glorious?" He straightened himself and took off his hat. "Mr. Howland,
will you press the button?"

With a strange thrill Howland bent over t