Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/268

250 through the roof of this God-forsaken hole," he said in a low tone. "My sister-in-law used to go nigh crazy if they was a tap leakin' in the house. She cu'd hear it way down cellar. Me, I ain't goin' to la'f at her no more. Why in hell don't they start somethin'?"

Then, above them, hell broke loose. With thunder and with flame the high roof was riven and split apart, great masses of sandstone hurtling down amid a rain of flying fragments. Quong leaped to his feet, gun in hand, only to have the weapon struck from his grasp as he jumped out of the zone of the falling rocks. Sheridan sprang to give Red a hand with the wounded man. A ponderous mass struck his outstretched right arm and it fell to his side numbed and bruised. Red was hit a glancing blow on the head and staggered dizzily to the side wall, dragging with him the cowboy. The two other riders, wakening dazed to the roar, had jumped to their feet and both had dropped again under the bombardment. Sheridan, back to the wall beneath the sheltering curve of the vaulted roof, saw them scramble for safety. The scalp of one of them was torn and his face ran blood.

The flare wavered, almost went out, then flamed up again. A fog of dust rose, obscuring things. Above there showed a gap through which stars shone coldly. Through the gap fiery twisting snakes came whirling, sticks of dynamite, exploding just before they touched the floor, flinging them all flat, poisoning the already overladen air, blinding them with scattering silt and debris, driving the breath