"Yes," was the prompt reply, "if you don't mind good big bill funeral expenses, followed by labour riot."
"The colonel would lend it if--hold wire minute, Miss Elsa just crossing bridge in runabout. I'll ask her."
Ballard's sigh of relief was almost a groan, and he waited with good hope. Elsa would know why he wanted the Maxim, and if the thing could be done without an express order from her father to the Mexican mine guards, she would do it. After what seemed to the engineer like the longest fifteen minutes he had ever endured, the tapping began again.
"Gun here," from Bromley. "What shall I do with it?"
The answer went back shot-like: "Load on engine and get it down to end of branch nearest this camp quick."
"No; stay where you are, and you may be next Arcadian chief construction. Hurry gun."
Fitzpatrick was his own telegrapher, and as he read what passed through key and sounder his smile was like that which goes with the prize-fighter's preliminary hand-shaking.
"Carson'll need persuading," he commented. "'Tis well ye've got the artillery moving. What's next?"
"The next thing is to get out the best team you have, the one that will make the best time, and send it to the end of track to meet Bromley's special. How far is it--six miles, or thereabouts?"
"Seven, or maybe a little worse. I'll go with the team myself, and push on the reins. Do I bring the gun here?"
Ballard thought a moment. "No; since we're to handle this thing by ourselves, there is no need of making talk in the camps. Do you know a little sand creek in the hogback called Dry Valley?"
"Good. Make a straight line for the head of that arroyo, and we'll meet you there, Blacklock and I, with an extra saddle-horse."
Fitzpatrick was getting a duck driving-coat out of a locker.
"What's your notion, Mr. Ballard?--if a man might be asking?"
"Wait, and you'll see," was the crisp reply. "It will work; you'll see it work like a charm, Bourke. But you must burn the miles with that team of broncos. We'll be down and out if you don't make connections with the Maxim. And say; toss a coil of that quarter-inch rope into your wagon as you go. We'll need that, too."
When the contractor was gone, Ballard called the collegian into the pay office and put him in touch with the pressing facts. A raid was to be made on Colonel Craigmiles's cattle by a band of cattle thieves; the raid was to be prevented; means to the preventing end--three men and a Maxim automatic rapid-fire gun. Would Blacklock be one of the three?