The Mystery of The Barranca

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ag spout, blast pipes, or tuyeres, and canvas blowers, even the inclined way that led up to the platform over the loading trap, all were finished, and from the solid bed to the tip top of the brick chimney shaft Billy's vision embraced it all. Including th

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t quickly appeared-a thin blue spiral which waxed in volume and blackness. In thirty minutes it laid a sooty finger halfway across the Barranca above the hills,

ings. Independent of the gold values it carried, one smelting would transmute their thirty-dollar ore into copper matte worth a hundred and twenty dollars a ton. At a liberal estimate the extra twenty would pay expenses, and with a profit of a hundred dollars on an output of sixty or seventy a week during the two months before the rains, there was a small fortune in it. Next year they could both import their labor and put in a regular plant. Thereafter t

As on the other day, he watched Francesca bending over her godchild, and while he was contrasting her air of tender solicitude with the cold hauteur of her

with force that drew a yell of anguish. "It's a mint, boy! A blooming mint! I wouldn't

r jackets!" Billy enthusia

wn on the flat by the riv

l cable-self-du

fine our

hen for a rest and a trip. New York, London, Paris, with Nice and Monte Carlo thrown in. Europe in a t

rth-"remember, please, that this is your trick. G

nd the two peons would rest the entire weight of running the smelter at its full capacity. Besides the breaking of the ore, tapping of the slag, continuous firing, they would have to bu

watched Billy and Calixto, both now of one color, each at his task, one working the blowers while the other dumped fresh ore and charcoal into the loading trap. At such times the blast would send a burst of flame high over the chimney top, lightin

a cooled sample. Then, waving his hand at the huge ore mounds, he groaned: "What a shame t

chest. "Think how much worse off we should have been if we had had to mine it. Go do

well. It was the culmination of their long labor, but he was too tired even to thin

go to bed. You stil

ut waiting to remove even his boots, and fell into slumber at once so dead and dreamless that it s

Bob. I gave yo

thunder, but with a peculiar vibrant note, brought him swiftly to his feet. A second later the door banged to and stu

losion! Una explosion, se?ores!" to tell them what had happened. The first glance, as they rushed out over the broken door, merely filled in the details of the vivid mental picture each had formed for himself. Hundreds of feet in mid air, the explosion

t was the last

call Caliban while I came for y

gan to pick up and break the larger pieces. And it was only a few minutes before he called out: "Lo

glanced toward the peo

g to lose. It was the easiest thing in the world for anybody to steal i

we think of it?

ing gloomily over the wreck big tears slowly forced themselves out of Billy's inflamed eyes and washe

ou gone crazy? Get a grip on yo

as hysterical. Somehow the thought of the pain and travail, trouble, anxiety, and d

lean job," he said, wiping his eyes. "Let's

Billy called out, as

hours on all that I have lost in the

I cou

led up and snoring hard under the shade of the palm mat that Caliban had stretched between him and the sun. "Qu

corrected. Kicking a chunk of cooled matte, he added: "Bu

," he demanded, "with every spare dollar in California locked up in the Nevada gold fields? If this had

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well give them the mine at once. No, Bob, it's all off. We're done-cooked a lovely brown

peon doesn't habitually walk around with dynamite in his jeans. If I was going to lay any money, I'd place it o

yielded no results, for, while the wreck lay there under their eyes to emphasize the possibility of similar future troubles, they could not but feel it to be a hazardous venture for any person of limited means. Night brought no conclusion. B

er the edge of the grade. On the contrary, it is doubtful whether smiling fortune was ever met with a blacker scowl than Billy's. Growling, "He

t at the extent of the ruin. "We but heard of it last night," he told them. "It was, I suppose, accidental? I understand that these

well try to single out a flea on a peon's dog. I warned you, se?or, to expect an enemy in every stone of the Barranca. It wou

-as soon as we ca

ly compounded of admiration and irritation. When he spoke again, shrewd calc

d supplied th

hat the larger the plant

rows. "Fifty thousand

your rich Americ

. No, we shall have to get

. After a pause, to their utter astonishment, it too

use of talki

to lend i

. Seyd added, after a pause, "But we have no s

uggested, grinning. "Took you

me in this valley, se?or, who might not count it too high a price. But as you say"-he bowed to Seyd-"the

y supplied the

w l

ld then require a little time to smel

panish. "Si, one would not expect immediate repaymen

and of a first payment, fifteen for the seco

say five per-cent.? Bueno! You will, of course, have to make a trip to the United States to buy your material. If y

the complete destruction, wagged a grave head over the half bushel of dynamite that the peons had picked out of the charcoal, curiously examined a piece of copper

fined their mental condition. "Hit me,

ath: "Fifty thousand dollars! By golly!

ts." Seyd took up the tale again.

al ca

self-dumpi

ttomed ster

opper down t

me time looking out over the Barranca with shining eyes which saw a small mining town ris

s? Seems rather funny that the o

ar as I am concerned, at fifty thousand a throw he

d mused, "I'd give

ough the jungle out to the first village beyond the forks of the trail. As he passed the littl

I waited. What news? Did the gringos go up with their furnace

Don Luis's answer. "No,

the agent at the station w

massive face, but now it expressed just a shade of malic

as completely disrupted. In his vast astonishme

third on their lives, and all badly bungled. So do not wonder that I thought it time to take them into my own hand. Now tha

give th

se lads is no common man. By hook or by crook he would have raised a company-if he had to rope and tie down his men on the run. Th

it was possible to see Santa Gertrudis, and, turning in

not