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."

"For God's sake give a man a chance," implored the man who had
trespassed in the night. "I'll move the shack to-morrow."

"You won't have to," Van informed him, "but you'd better move your meat
to-day."

He took out a match, scratched it with quiet deliberation and lighted
the end of the fuse.

"For God's sake--man!" cried the carpenter, and without even waiting to
climb from the roof he rolled to the edge in a panic, fell off on his
feet, and ran as if all the fiends of Hades were fairly at his heels.

Van and Napoleon also moved away with becoming alacrity. Three minutes
later the charge went off. It sounded like the crack of doom. It
seemed to split the earth and very firmament. A huge black toadstool
of smoke rose up abruptly. Something like a blot of yellowish color
spattered all over the landscape. It was the shack.

It had moved. The smoke cloud drifted rapidly away. On the hill was a
great jagged hole, lined with rock, but there was nothing more. The
cabin was hung in lumber shreds on the stunted trees for hundreds of
feet in all directions. With it went hammers, saws and a barrel of
nails whose usefulness was ended.

Gettysburg, aproned, and fresh from his labors at the stove, came
hastening out of the cabin to where his partners stood, in great
distress of mind.

"Holy toads, Van!" he said excitedly, "it must have been the shot!
I've dropped an egg--and what in the world shall I do?"

"Cackle, man, cackle," Van ans