“I wish to God you’d been in it!” remarked the master.

They went down the shaft, cleaned it out, drilled another hole, and put in another charge.

“Look here! How much fuse are you proposing to waste? Don’t you know how to time a fuse?”

“No, sir.”

“You don’t! Well, if you don’t beat anything I ever saw!”

He climbed out of the shaft and spoke down:

“Well, idiot, are you going to be all day? Cut the fuse and light it!”

The trembling creature began,

“If you please, sir, I—”

“You talk back to me? Cut it and light it!”

The boy cut and lit.

“Ger-reat Scott! a one-minute fuse! I wish you were in—”

In his rage he snatched the ladder out of the shaft and ran. The boy was aghast.

“Oh, my God! Help! Help! Oh, save me!” he implored. “Oh what can I do! What can I do!”

He backed against the wall as tightly as he could; the sputtering fuse frightened the voice out of him; his breath stood still; he stood gazing and impotent; in two seconds, three seconds, four he would be flying toward the sky torn to fragments. Then he had an inspiration. He sprang at the fuse; severed the inch of it that was left above ground, and was saved.

He sank down limp and half lifeless with fright, his strength gone; but he muttered with a deep joy:

“He has learnt me! I knew there was a way, if I would wait.”

After a matter of five minutes Buckner stole to the shaft, looking worried and uneasy, and peered down into it. He took in the situation; he saw what had happened. He lowered the ladder, and the boy dragged himself weakly up it. He was very white. His appearance added something to Buckner’s uncomfortable state, and he said, with a show of regret and sympathy which sat upon him awkwardly from lack of practice:

“It was an accident, you know. Don’t say anything about it to anybody; I was excited, and didn’t notice what I was doing. You’re not looking well; you’ve worked enough for to-day; go down to my cabin and eat what you want, and rest. It’s just an accident, you know, on account of my being excited.”

“It scared me,” said the lad, as he started away; “but I learnt something, so I don’t mind it.”

“Dammed easy to please!” muttered Buckner, following him with his eye. “I wonder if he’ll tell? Mightn’t he?… I wish it had killed him.”

The boy took no advantage of his holiday in the matter of resting; he employed it in work, eager and feverish and happy work. A thick growth of chaparral extended down the mountain-side clear to Flint’s cabin; the most of Fetlock’s labor was done in the dark intricacies of that stubborn growth; the rest of it was done in his own shanty. At last all was complete, and he said:


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