Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/240

 would cost the government, Brubacher said, about one hundred and thirty thousand dollars to build."

"And they built it?" asked Sadie.

"They called the man a crank, and got rid of him. Then he went to Indian Head and saw Hellweg. He was carrying a satchel full of the explosive and Hellweg let him have his talk out. They kept the man there for several days, or one pretext or another, and got hold of all his new explosive they could. Then they secretly tried it out at the Coast Artillery School at Fort Monroe—and it made good! It wasn't properly aged, for cannon powder needs half a year to dry out, but even with a twelve-inch gun they got a range of almost sixteen miles. And that was an eye-opener!"

"But what," demanded Wilsnach, "had this man Strasser hit on?"

"He'd hit on the idea of packing his explosive in a series of attenuated fibers instead of in a solid mass, so that combustion, diffused for even the infinite part of a moment, uniformly prolonged pressure throughout the entire length of the gun. That gave the push instead of the crack."

"Hully gee!" interrupted the wearied girl.

"Instead of being made into tightly packed flakes