“Of course the laborer is the chief factor in production,” he murmured wearily to himself, as he grew more and more dizzy.
At three o’clock, McKay, with a surveying party, reached the section of the grade where Loring was working. Stephen watched him, as he stooped over the level and waved his hand up and down. He heard him shout “O. K. back sight! Ready fore sight!” Then “O. K. fore sight! ’Sta ’ueno!” and somehow the cheery tones braced Loring for his work.
McKay, as he came up, nodded cheerfully: “I left that hat for you in the cook tent,” he said; “it will make you look like a real man!” Then noticing the agonized swings of the pick, he looked at Loring quizzically.
“Say, I reckon you ain’t done this sort of thing for some time, have you? I guess a short spell at flagging wouldn’t discourage you. Go up to the tool-house, and get a white flag that you’ll find there. Then go up to that point back there, where the wagon road crosses the grade. I’ll put another flagman on the point below, and when he waves, you stop anything that comes along. In a few minutes we are going to “shoot” all along here, and I don’t want to blow up any teams or people that are going up to the copper camp.”
Loring dropped his pick with alacrity, and started for the tool-shed. As he walked back along the grade, he looked with curious interest at the men who were still working. Somehow their labors seemed a part of himself. His back ached sympathetically as they stooped to their work. At the shed he found the dirty white rag and stick which served for flagging. Then he hurried to his place. He passed Sullivan, who waved joyously to him.
“The boss has set me flagging, too. Gee, what a graft! Me for a nap, as soon as they start to shoot. There won’t any teams go by, when they hear the shots, and I can get a good sleep.”
“You had better not,” answered Loring. Then, feeling that it was none of his business, he went on to the place which McKay had assigned to him. He seated himself on a large rock, from which he could see far in all directions. He was at the end of the grade nearest to the copper camp, and he could see the great iron chimneys of the smelter, protruding above the hills to the north, belching forth black smoke against the brilliant blue of the sky. “The whole country looks as if it had been made with a hack-saw,” he mused, as he looked at the jagged rocks and irregular mountains about him. “I would give a great deal to see something green besides this accursed cactus; but I suppose that grass and civilization go together.”
Then, watching for a signal, he fixed his eyes on the point of rock where Sullivan was stationed. After a few minutes he saw, against the brown background of the rocks, a spot of white move quickly up and down. He immediately ran out into the road, and stopped a line of coke teams that was coming down from the camp. The drivers merely threw on their brakes, and let the thin-boned, almost transparent horses tug uselessly at the traces, until they discovered the vainness of the effort. Then horses, like drivers, relapsed into the comatose acceptance of conditions, which in the land of the cactus becomes part of man and beast. McKay came up on horseback, calling out to the first of the drivers: “Hold your horses! The e-l-ephants are about to pass!” The Mexican, just as though he had understood, grinned, then again dozed off.
One by one, far down the grade, little puffs of smoke began to curl at the places where the drillers’ gangs had been working. The men, howling in mock terror, came tearing past the place where Loring and McKay were standing. They would run several hundred yards further than safety required in order to delay by a few moments their return to work when the blasting was finished. As the men surged by, McKay, in spite of his disgust, grinned.
“Trust a Mex to find some way to shorten work,” he said to Loring. In rapid succession the “shots” began to go off; whole sections of the cliffs seemed to swell, then gave forth a fat volume of smoke, and finally burst, hurling fragments of brown-black rock against the sky line. Then, a fraction of an instant later, the dull, muffled boom carried to the ear.
“Regular bombardment, ain’t it!” exclaimed McKay. “Wo-op! duck!” As a large jagged piece of shale came whizzing over their heads he and Loring simultaneously dropped to the ground.
“Ain’t it funny?” said McKay, as they got to their feet again. “Now time and again these things won’t go fifty feet, then all of a sudden they chase a fellow who is a quarter of a mile away.”
The heaviest “shot” of all was to be fired in a place near Loring’s position, where a deep spur of black diorite protruded across the grade. During five days gangs had been drilling on this spur, so that its face was honeycombed with ten deep holes, for diorite is almost as hard as iron, and to make any impression upon it requires an immense load of powder. McKay himself had superintended the loading, patting the charges firmly down with the tamping rod, until, as he expressed it, he had enough powder there to “blow hell up to heaven.” They had waited to fire these “shots” until the last of the others had exploded, and now the little group of men who were nearest began to look everywhere for shelter. The waiting teams were backed up close against the ledge, while the drivers crawled underneath the wagons for protection. Loring and McKay stood beside a large boulder, behind which they could drop when the explosion came. Into every niche men crawled, waiting for the shock.
The foreman bent over the first fuse, and a wisp of thin blue smoke arose at the touch of his hand.
“Hope he ain’t cut the fuses too long,” growled McKay anxiously. “If one of those loads misses fire, it won’t be safe to work in this neighborhood.” The foreman stepped quickly from fuse to fuse, and spurt after spurt of smoke began to curl from the rock, some hanging low, some rising. The foreman stooped over one of the fuses for a second time.
“It’s missed!” exclaimed McKay. “No, he’s got it. Hey, beat it! Quick!” he shouted, as the thin smoke began to turn from whitish-blue to yellow-brown. The foreman ran back a up the grade towards them.
“The damned fool!” breathed McKay. “Like as not he’ll kill himself, and it will take me a week to find another man who can shoot the way he can. About thirty seconds more, and that rock is going to jump!”
Loring raised his eyes. Far down the grade, beyond the point, he saw a speck. The speck grew larger and became a horse and rider.
McKay saw it too. “Sullivan will warn him,” he said tersely. “My God!” he yelled, “it’s a woman, and her pony is running away.”
Loring made a jump into the grade and dashed towards the smoke. The yellow-brown turned to the black-brown that just precedes an explosion. It poured forth from the ground like a volcano.
“He can’t even reach the ‘shots,’ ” gasped McKay. “Oh, my God, where was the other flagman! Only fifty yards more—He must make it!—He will!—He’s reached the spot; he’s past it. He will—God, and there’s ten shots there!” Even as he spoke the surface of the earth belched forth rumbling thunder and burst into fragments. McKay dropped flat on the ground, behind the sheltering boulder. A great cloak of brown smoke punctured with huge black rocks shut out the scene. Then, with dull, splashing thuds, the rocks began to fall into the muddy river which dragged itself along beside the grade. First came a few solemn splashes as the large rocks fell, then faster, a very hailstorm of fragments, as the smaller pieces showered down. The Mexicans were cursing frantically, adding to the roar a shrill pitch.
The first three “shots” went off in lightning succession. A pause, then two more.
“Five!” yelled McKay.
Then three more “shots” boomed deeply. McKay and the foreman knelt behind the boulder, pale, breathing hard, striving to guess what lay behind that wall of smoke. Another pause, then a terrific report.
“Nine, only one more!” shouted the foreman. They waited ten