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Updated: June 7, 2025
Rathburn pointed toward the rift in the mountain on the left above them. Sautee looked and saw a man and a boy riding down the trail. "That looks to me like the man that held me up last night," said Rathburn. "He looks like one of the men, anyway. Maybe he's found out he didn't get much, eh? Maybe he's coming back because he didn't have enough to make a get-away with.
Sautee cowered before the deadly ferocity in Rathburn's voice. "I had it in the office downtown," he stammered. "There was blank paper in that package, Mannix. Let him go let him go, Mannix, or we'll all be killed!" Sautee cried. Rathburn was looking steadily at the deputy. "Carlisle is roped an' tied up the trail by the big rocks," he said. "Send up there for him an' bring him down here."
Rathburn dismounted and tossed the reins over his horse's head so the animal would stand. "That place looks like a natural jail," he commented. "It's the mine's powder house," said Sautee, wiping his wet forehead. "Sure," Rathburn rejoined, "that's just what it is. I expect there's enough powder in there to blow half this mountain off."
It'll be better for me and all of us!" Rathburn laughed bitterly. "I can't go because I'm a worse fool than you are," he said acridly. "Get in there. Sneaking lizards, man, can't you see I'm tempted to put a shot into one of them boxes and blow us both to kingdom come?" Sautee shrank back into the powder house, and Rathburn slammed the door.
In this instance it would be a hard matter to become lost, for the ridges rose steadily upward toward the summits of the high mountains, the town was in the narrow valley below, and the foothills ranged down to the desert in the east. He was halfway to the mine when he saw the gleam of an automobile's lights in the road far below. "Sautee got busy right quick," he said aloud.
He had surmised that the men had seen him coming back down the trail to the powder house with his human burden. Now he called Sautee into view. They would most naturally assume that it was the mine manager he had been carrying. "Come to the door where they can see you," he called to Sautee. The ring in his voice brought Sautee, white-faced and shivering, to the doorway beside Rathburn.
"I've got him dead to rights," replied Rathburn shortly, taking some paper and a pencil from a pocket. Sautee looked at him curiously as he started to write on the paper. "Going to write it all out and leave it?" he asked sneeringly. "I'm going to put it outside the powder house in a place where Mannix or some of the others will be sure to find it," was the puzzling answer.
"Listen, Sautee," said Rathburn coolly. "When that stick of powder explodes it'll set off the box an' the other boxes, an' instead of a powder house here there'll be a big hole in the side of the mountain." "Man man you're not going to do that!" Sautee's words came in a hoarse whisper.
"One of the accomplices," he said briefly to Sautee, as he put the lad down and loosened the shirt at the throat. "He'll come around in a minute." Sautee's eyes were popping from his head. He leaned back upon the cases of dynamite and passed a clammy hand over his brow. "I've got Carlisle, too," said Rathburn. "Takin' it all around from under it ain't a bad morning's haul."
But I'd have to stop you if you made a break to leave the present company." Sautee plodded on, his breath coming in gasps, the perspiration standing out on his forehead. The trail joined with another well-worn path a short distance above the mine. The eastern sky now was light, and Rathburn saw a stone building above them.
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