s
lights the fire."

"Never fear, Blossom. I'll take good care of Dad. If Jack does what I
want, there'll be no more of the nasty tizwin to make Dad cross and
sick."

Lennon found himself regarding the girl with rekindled admiration for
her ingenuity and daring.

"So this is why you saved the dynamite?" he remarked. "Will it not be
dangerous--I mean, to anger that man Slade, you know?"

"Anything to save Dad---- If you're afraid, just tell me how to fix it.
I'll do the work and take all blame--if it fails. You can go back with
Elsie and be able to swear you didn't have a hand in it."

The girl's tone was as contemptuous as when, at their first meeting on
the trail, she had jeered him into cutting across the desert with her.
He looked the still over with a professional eye.

The chimney stones were laid in mud plaster. But the stones of the
firebox, or furnace, were loose. On one side they extended out in a
rough platform that held the water-cooled vat of the condensation worm.
From the two-foot space between the furnace hole and the vat Lennon
began to pull out the stones. He was able to make a hole down to the
solid stone floor.

A crack gave opening enough to thrust the stiff fuse from the firebox
into the hole. To make certain of results, Lennon used three pieces of
fuse, which were attached with caps to the sticks of dynamite, in the
bottom of the hole. He then put the stones back in their places. The
ends of the fuses were hidden by the tinder of the fuel in the firebox.

When Lennon stood up and dusted off his hands, no slightest sign was
left to betray that the charge of dynamite had been planted.

"There you are," he said. "The fuses are cut for fifteen seconds, and
they will start burning as soon as the tinder is fired."

"You're sure the boiler will be blown up?" queried Carmena. "Your
dynamite is out from under it, and there's all the rock in the way."

Lennon smiled at her ignorance of explosives.

"The stones will double the destruction. After that charge detonates,
there will be a hole in the floor, a good deal of shattered stone, and
some splinters and shreds of metal. Everything in the room will be
smashed. Is that satisfactory?"

Carmena shuddered as if seized with a fever chill, but pulled herself
together. "All right. We'll go now."

She picked up her basket and backed out after the others, scrutinizing
the floor to make certain they had left nothing to tell of their visit.

"It's a