Already guards had been thrown out on all sides of the mountain and their thrilling warnings of "Fire--Fire--Fire," shouted through megaphones of birch-bark, echoed with ominous meaning through the still wilderness, where for the time all work had ceased.

On the top of the ridge half a hundred of the workmen had already assembled, and as Howland and the superintendent came among them they fell back from around a big, flat boulder on which was stationed the electric battery.
MacDonald's face was flushed and his eyes snapped like dragonflies as he pointed to a tiny button.
"God, but I can't understand why Thorne doesn't care to see this," he said again.

"Think of it, man--seven thousand five hundred pounds of powder and two hundred of dynamite! A touch of this button, a flash along the wire, and the fuse is struck.

Then, four or five minutes, and up goes a mountain that has stood here since the world began.

Isn't it glorious ?" He straightened himself and took off his hat.