you you'll pay Evarts off in full to date and let
him go. He threatens to sue if he is not paid to the end of the month, but
if he wants to we'll let the courts do our worrying."

"All right, sir," nodded the superintendent.

Evarts had dropped into a seat just forward of the engine. He sat there,
regarding Tom Reade with a baleful look of hate.

"You're a success, all right, at one thing, and that's making enemies,"
muttered the discharged foreman under his breath.

Besides attending to the wheel Tom now reached out with one hand and
switched on the search-light, which he manipulated with one hand. Shortly
he found the spot where the portion of the wall had been blown away by the
first explosion. A hundred and fifty yards farther out he beheld the work
of the second explosion. Some seventy-five yards in length was the new
open space, where at least as much of the retaining wall as was visible
above the water had been blown out.

"Slow down, Cordon," ordered Tom. "All we want is headway."

"All right, sir."

Tom drifted in within a few feet of the former site of the retaining wall.
The "Morton" moved slowly by, Tom, by the aid of the searchlight, noting
the extent of the disaster.

"Get back aft, Evarts," ordered the young engineer, turning and beholding
the late foreman. "We don't want you here."

For a moment or two it looked as though Evarts would refuse. Then, with
a growl, he rose and picked his way aft. By this time the other men who
had been in his gang were awake. They regarded their former foreman with
no great display of sympathy.

"I'll confess I'm mystified," muttered Tom, watching the scene of the
latest explosion for some minutes after the engine had been stopped.
"When daylight comes and we can use the divers we ought to know a bit more
about how such a big blast is worked in the dead of night when the
scoundrels ought to make noise enough to be heard. It must have been a
series of connected blasts, all touched off at the same moment, Mr.
Renshaw, but even such a series is by no means easy to lay. And then the
blasts have to be drilled for, and then tamped."

"As you say, sir," replied the superintendent, "a much clearer idea can be
formed when we have daylight and the divers."

Tom held his watch to one side of the searchlight.

"Nearly two hours yet until daylight, Mr. Renshaw," he announced. "And,
of course, it will be two or three hours after daylight before we can get
the