The old puncher had always liked Dave Sanders.  The boy had begun work on the range as a protege of his.  He had taught him how to read sign and how to throw a rope.  They had ridden out a blizzard together, and the old-timer had cared for him like a father.  The boy had repaid him with a warm, ingenuous affection, an engaging sweetness of outward respect.  A certain fineness in the eager face had lingered as an inheritance from his clean youth.  No playful pup could have been more friendly.  Now Buck shook hands with a grim-faced man, one a thousand years old in bitter experience.  The eyes let no warmth escape.  In the younger man’s consciousness rose the memory of a hundred kindnesses flowing from Buck to him.  Yet he could not let himself go.  It was as though the prison chill had encased his heart in ice which held his impulses fast.

After dusk had fallen they made their preparations.  The three men slipped away from the bunkhouse into the chaparral.  Bob carried a bulging gunnysack, Dave a lantern, a pick, a drill, and a hammer.  None of them talked till they had reached the entrance to the canon.

“We’d better get busy before it’s too dark,” Bob said.  “We picked this spot, Buck.  Suit you?”

Byington had been a hard-rock Colorado miner in his youth.  He examined the dam and came back to the place chosen.  After taking off his coat he picked up the hammer.  “Le’s start.  The sooner the quicker.”

Dave soaked the gunnysack in water and folded it over the top of the drill to deaden the sound.  Buck wielded the hammer and Bob held the drill.

After it grew dark they worked by the light of the lantern.  Dave and Bob relieved Buck at the hammer.  They drilled two holes, put in the dynamite charges, tamped them down, and filled in again the holes.  The nitroglycerine, too, was prepared and set for explosion.

Hart straightened stiffly and looked at his watch.  “Time to move back to camp, Dave.  Business may get brisk soon now.  Maybe Dug may get in a hurry and start things earlier than he intended.”

“Don’t miss my signal, Buck.  Two shots, one right after another,” said Dave.

“I’ll promise you to send back two shots a heap louder.  You sure won’t miss ’em,” answered Buck with a grin.

The younger men left him at the dam and went back down the trail to their camp.

“No report yet from the lads watchin’ the arroyo.  I expect Dug’s waitin’ till he thinks we’re all asleep except the night tower,” whispered the man who had been left in charge by Hart.

“Dave, you better relieve the boys at the arroyo,” suggested Bob.  “Fireworks soon now, I expect.”

Sanders crept through the heavy chaparral to the liveoaks above the arroyo, snaking his way among cactus and mesquite over the sand.  A watcher jumped up at his approach.  Dave raised his hand and moved it above his head from right to left.  The guard disappeared in the darkness toward the Jackpot.  Presently his companion followed him.  Dave was left alone.