into that furnace blast from below and his lips moved soundlessly—Goddard joined him.
Thad Parker ran up, gibbering, an axe in his hands.
"It'll burn us all!" he screamed. "We can't get out!"
Some one grasped and shook him, but Thad would not listen. His eyes were those of a mad man and the cries that came from his throat grew inarticulate. He bit at the man who held him, tried to lift the axe and swing it at his captor. The other staggered away and Thad turned and fled into the smoke—
Joe and Milt fitted caps to the dynamite and Raymer came up on a gasping horse. He caught the idea at a word from Helen and began setting wires. It was delicate work, painful work under those conditions. Time sped!
The cars were backed out and down the grade, but Helen gave no heed. She followed closely the men who were making this, her last big play. The greasy sticks went into the ground, one by one, tamped carefully in their holes along the brink. For two hundred yards they were planted and when the last cap was being adjusted the furnace blast from below tore at the crowns of the pine trees above them with the strength of a tornado.
The girl was atremble as she settled herself beside Joe and the coil box behind a tree trunk, prostrate on the ground, screening her face with her hands from the heat. She could not speak, could not think, could hear nothing but that crescendoing roar from below. Black Joe crouched on his knees, skin blistering through his shirt, peered over the brink. He saw a streamer of flame leap upward through the broiling heat waves, wrenching at balsams as it seared them, saw another
