Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine, Vol. 107 No. 3 — page 149: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

COLD STEEL. Stepping to the edge of the dam, he peered downward. A vast hgle showed in the earth before the wall, though the wall itself was uninjured and only smeared with a layer of soil. Huge rocks lay where there had been none before, uprooted and flung aside by the explosion, dispersed by the gigantic blast. On the hillside half a dozen - men were picking themselves up and fight- ing wildly to flee. Nearer, a few other forms lay in the moonlight, mangled and still, or mangled and writhing in pain. Of all the rest—nothing. Almost completely Burkhardt’s predatory band had been blotted out. Weir’s thun- derbolt had struck down into its very heart; it had vanished. As he turned and walked toward the end of the dam, he staggered a little. The sight had shaken even his iron nerve. CHAPTER XXVIII. WEIR STRIKES WHILE THE IRON IS HOT. N his runabout, with Sheriff Madden at his side, and followed by Atkinson and ‘other men for guards in two other ma- chines, Weir sped along the road to San Mateo. They carried with them Burk- hardt, who had been found stunned and slightly injured, and two Mexican bandits - who had been captured.~ Those of the party of attackers yet alive but seriously hurt were being treated at camp by Dr. Hosmer, while the young engineers, armed and eager, were scouring the mountainside for the few Mexicans who had got away. It seemed a miracle that Burkhardt had escaped death, but the explanation was found no doubt in the fact he had started from the spot where the canisters fell, and so at the moment of explosion was outside ‘ the area of its full destruction. To Weir the matter went deeper than that. Provi- dence appeared to have saved him for pun- ishment, for the long term of imprisonment _he deserved for his crimes. “Td much rather have him alive than dead,”’ Steele had remarked to Madden when the man was brought up from the cafion, a prisoner. The tremendous thunder-clap of sound ‘ 491 from the camp had quickened the return of the superintendent and his men, already reached and warned by the doctor. More, it had startled even the drunken workmen so that when some one ‘shouted that the dam had been blown up the debauch came to an immediate end, the house was desert- ed, and the throng, incited by curiosity and wonder, went staggering and running for camp. The first of these had arrived, and the rest were tailing behind for half a mile, when Weir and his companions.set out for town, the blinding headlights of the ma- chines scattering on either side of the road the approaching workmen. It was not like- ly many would go back to the house when they were told at headquarters how narrow- ly. destruction of the works had been avert- ed, and how their spree had been a move in the plot. Between shame at being duped and drowsiness resulting from drink, they would want to seek their bunk-houses after | a look at the hole blown in the earth at the base of the dam. As they sped toward town Weir and Madden rapidly made their plans, for the sheriff, having witnessed with his own eyes the enormity of the plotters’ guilt, was all for quick action. “These engineers of yours with us and the other men Meyers will bring down can be thrown as a guard around the jail,” he stated. “I'll swear them all in as depu- ties. With Sorenson and Vorse locked up with Burkhardt — and I’ll throw Lucerio, the county attorney, in with them on the off chance he’s an accomplice—there will be high feeling running in San Mateo. As quick as I can make arrangements, we’ll take them to safe quarters elsewhere—to- | night if possible, to-morrow at the latest, in fast machines. These men have friends, remember.” “You’ve Burkhardt handcuffed. It might be well to gag him, too, for fear the crowd might make trouble if he yelled for help,” Weir replied. “‘'Yes, we'll do that, though I think we can rush him into the jail before any one knows what’s happening.” On the outskirts of the town, therefore, the cars stopped. When Burkhardt, who c|DOO Co S Co mM