was Helen Savine, and considered that she had no need to maintain her dignity.
Geoffrey returned a conventional answer, and there was a buzz of voices as he and Bransome walked back together towards the gorge. The rancher halted discreetly when his companion, taking a brand from a fire near it, clambered over the boulders. Geoffrey disappeared among the rocks, and the voices grew louder when he came into view again walking hurriedly.
Several trails of thin blue vapor began to crawl in and out among the rocks. Bransome joined Thurston, and both men broke into a smart trot. They were heading for the bush until Geoffrey, halting near it, ran back at full speed towards the gorge. All who watched him were astonished, for they were already bracing themselves to face the heavy shock.
"He's mad – stark mad!" roared Graham. "Come back for your life, Bransome. It's smashed into small pieces both of you will be," and the eyes of the spectators grew wide as they watched the two running figures, for the rancher also had turned, and the lines of vapor were creeping with ominous swiftness across the face of the stone.
There was a roar as the behind man clutched at the other, missed him, and staggered several paces, leaving his hat behind him before he took up the chase again. Single cries sharper than the rest rose out of the clamor, "Blown to glory both of them! Two sticks of giant powder in most of the holes. All that's left of the Britisher won't be worth picking up!"
The two men disappeared among the boulders almost under the white foam of the fall, and for a brief space there was heavy silence emphasized by the song of hurrying water and the drumming of a blue-grouse on the summit of a fir. Helen Savine fancied she could hear the assembly breathing unevenly, and felt a pricking among the roots of her hair, while she struggled with an impulse which prompted her to cry aloud or in any wild fashion to break the torturing suspense. Jean Graham, whose eyes were wide with apprehension, noted that her face was bloodless to the lips. Neither had as yet been rudely confronted with tragedy, and both felt held fast, spellbound, without the power to move.
"The Lord have mercy on them," said the hoarse voice of a man somewhere behind the girls.
Once more a murmur swelled into a roar, and Jean, twining her brown fingers together, cried, "There! They're coming. They may be in time!"
A figure, apparently Bransome's, leaped down from a boulder close in front of one that climbed over the stone, and there followed harsh, breathless cries of encouragement as the two headed at mad speed for the sheltering forest, the rear runner, who came up with hands clenched and long swinging strides, gaining steadily on the one before him. They were near enough for those who watched to see that the fear of sudden death was stamped upon their perspiring faces. Then, as they passed a spur of rock out-crop, Thurston leaped upon the leader, hurled him forward so that he lost his balance and the pair went down out of sight among the rocks, while a shaft of radiance pale in the sunlight blazed aloft beside the outlet of the lake. Thick yellow-tinted vapor followed it, and hillside and forest rang to the shock of a stunning detonation.
The smoke curling in filmy wreaths spread itself across the quaggy meadows, while the patter of falling fragments filled the quivering bush, and was mingled with a loud splashing, or a heavy crash as some piece of greater weight drove hurtling through the trees or plunged into the lake. Then for the last time the assembly gave voice, raising a tumultuous cheer of relief as the two men came forth uninjured out of the eddying smoke.
Geoffrey, shaking the dust from his garments, turned to his companion with a somewhat nervous laugh:
"We cut it rather fine," he said, "but I felt reasonably sure there would be just sufficient time, and it might have spoiled the whole blast if the two bad fuses had failed to fire their shots. Of course, I'm grateful for your company, but as it was my particular business I don't quite see why you turned back after me."
Bransome, who mopped his forehead, stared at the speaker with some wonder and more admiration before he answered:
"There's a good deal of cast iron about you, and I guess I'd a long way sooner have trusted the rest than have gone back to stir up those two charges. What took me? – well, I figured you had turned suddenly crazy, and I was in a way responsible for you. Made the best bargain for your time I could, but I didn't buy you up bones and body – see?"
"I think I do," answered Geoffrey, and that was all, but it meant the recognition of a bond between them. Bransome, as if glad to change the subject, asked:
"Say, after you had fired the fuse what did you waste precious seconds looking for? If I wasn't too scared to notice anything clearly I'd swear you found something and picked it up."
"I did!" declared Geoffrey, smiling. "It was something I must have dropped before. Only a trifle, but I would not like to lose it, and – I had one eye on the fuses – there seemed a second or two to spare. However, for some reason my throat feels all stuck together. Have you any cider in your wagon?"
Half-an-hour later, when most of the spectators stood watching the released waters thunder down the gorge, for the blast had been successful, Helen Savine said:
"I don't quite understand what happened, Mr. Bransome."
"It was this way!" answered the rancher, glad to profit by any opportunity of interesting the girl. "That Thurston is a hard, tough man. Two fuses that were to fire small charges petered out, and sooner than risk anything he must light them again. I don't quite understand all the rest of it, either, for he's not a mean man, and why he should stay fooling on top of a powder mine looking for one dollar when I've a hatful to pay him is away beyond me. Yet I'm sure he picked up a piece of silver just before we ran. Curious kind of creature, isn't he?"
Helen thought the incident distinctly odd. She could not comprehend why a man should risk his life for the sake of a silver coin. She could not find a solution of the mystery until it was explained that evening.
Geoffrey Thurston, attired in white shirt, black sash, and new store clothes, had tramped over to Graham's ranch and by degrees he and Miss Savine gravitated away from the others. They were interested in subjects that did not appeal to the rest, and, though Jean smiled mischievously at times, this excited no comment.
Clear moonlight sparkled upon the untrodden snows above them, snows that had remained stainless since the giant peaks were framed when the world was young. The pines were black on their lower slopes, and white mists filled the valley, out of which the song of the river rose in long reverberations. Geoffrey and Helen leaned on the veranda balustrade, both silent, for the solemnity of the mountains impressed them, and speech seemed superfluous.
After a while, the girl told Geoffrey that he ought to be glad to live after his narrow escape from death. "There was really no great risk, and, if there had been, the results would have justified it," Geoffrey replied. "The failure of two charges might have spoiled all my work for me. Since I left you the Roads and Trails Surveyor voluntarily offered me a rock work contract he had refused before, and I at once accepted it."
"You have not been used to this laborious life. Have you no further ambition, and do you like it?" asked Helen, flashing a quick glance at him.
"It is not exactly what I expected, but as there appears to be no great demand in this country for mental abilities, one is glad to earn a living as one can," he said. "I am afraid I am a somewhat ambitious person. I consider this only the beginning, and Miss Savine responsible for it. You will remember who it was offered me my first contract."
"Don't!" commanded Helen, averting her eyes. "That is hardly fair or civil. You really looked so – and how was I to know?"
Geoffrey's pulse beat faster, and the smile faded out of his eyes as he noticed, for the moon was high, the trace of faintly heightened color in the speaker's face.
