shots like those three times in a lifetime, and there'll not be another
for us between here and the bay. What's the matter with Thorne?"

Without waiting for a reply MacDonald walked swiftly in the direction of
a ridge to the right. Already guards had been thrown out on all sides of
the mountain and their thrilling warnings of "Fire--Fire--Fire," shouted
through megaphones of birch-bark, echoed with ominous meaning through
the still wilderness, where for the time all work had ceased. On the top
of the ridge half a hundred of the workmen had already assembled, and as
Howland and the superintendent came among them they fell back from
around a big, flat boulder on which was stationed the electric battery.
MacDonald's face was flushed and his eyes snapped like dragonflies as he
pointed to a tiny button.

"God, but I can't understand why Thorne doesn't care to see this," he
said again. "Think of it, man--seven thousand five hundred pounds of
powder and two hundred of dynamite! A touch of this button, a flash
along the wire, and the fuse is struck. Then, four or five minutes, and
up goes a mountain that has stood here since the world began. Isn't it
glorious?" He straightened himself and took off his hat. "Mr. Howland,
will you press the button?"

With a strange thrill Howland bent over the battery, his eyes turned to
the mass of rock looming sullen and black half a mile away, as if
bidding defiance in the face of impending fate. Tremblingly his finger
pressed on the little white knob, and a silence like that of death fell
on those who watched. One minute--two--three--five passed, while in the
bowels of the mountain the fuse was sizzling to its end. Then there came
a puff, something like a cloud of dust rising skyward, but without
sound; and before its upward belching had ceased a tongue of flame