STARTLED AS MUCH by the tone as by the words, Montana swung about, to see Wagner pointing with a shaking finger. His own face was flushed with exertion, but it lost color as he understood.
Here was more proof that the Mandarin had not intended to take any chance that they might somehow escape. A white man posing as a Chinese nobleman, he was a strangely contradictory character, indulging in meaningless gestures, yet making sure that they amounted to no more than that.
High in the wall as the side of the tunnel, set back in a hole, something gleamed dully as Wagner shone the lantern light more directly upon it. With a sense of chill, Montana recognized several sticks of dynamite. Only the tips were visible, and in the uncertain light, Montana, intent upon the door, had missed them completely.
Wagner, more accustomed to the gloom of these cavernous depths, and shining the lantern about, had spotted them. Dropping the bar, Montana studied the trap with the wariness of a fox.
A wire was anchored to a small peg beside the bundle of explosives, with a dynamite cap attached. It led down alongside, then under the heavy door. It was already taut, and Montana understood how it was designed to operate. If the door was opened, the increased pressure on the wire would automatically set off the cap and explode the charge.
Tons of earth and rock would be shaken loose. The tunnel would be filled, an instant grave.
This arrangement was new to him, but great strides had been made in the use of explosives during the war years. He had no desire to test precisely how this might work.
“It’s sharp eyes you have, George, which is lucky for both of us,” he breathed. “Let’s have a better look, now.”
Wagner held the lantern as Montana studied the situation. Then, on tiptoe, working carefully, he disconnected the wire.
“As infernal a machine as a true Oriental mind might devise,” he observed. “But its teeth are now pulled. So we’ll proceed.”
Again he set the bar and pried, and the door yielded without much effort.
“A careful man, the Mandarin, and logical,” Montana commented. “Too logical. He foresees every possibility and tries to guard against it. But sooner or later there comes the unforeseen, and it is that which trips a man.”
There their natures were diametrically opposed. Montana was not adverse to foresight and planning, but he was always ready to take things as they came, solving them as they presented themselves. Emergencies had a way of coming without warning.
A rise of the ground was ahead, and there had been a change in the past few hours. A line of track had been laid, the rails wooden, small and close together, to accommodate an ore car such as was used in mines. Such cars would be faster and more efficient than the wheelbarrows that had been employed.
Grayness showed ahead, and he realized that the dawn was breaking outside. It had been a busy night; much of the town had been sleepless, celebrating in advance what was scheduled to be a big day. Even at that hour, when a let-down was inevitable, the noisy tumult of the crowd sounded faintly.
If the general contagion was not enough, the conspirators would provide diversions, so that no one would have time to think. Confusion would be increased at every turn.
“At least there’s nothing to stop us from walking out into the open,” Montana observed, “though we may be a bit conspicuous once we are out. Let’s see what we can do to relieve you of that chain, now.”
A chest of tools had been left by some hurried and harried workman at the edge of the secret hallway. There was a collection of files, and Montana worked swiftly, filing a link, until presently Wagner was loose from his burden. Color was returning to his cheeks with the pressure of excitement.
The bank was ahead. On that side it was deserted, but there was a crowd already gathering in the street in front. A door, the upper half of glass, barred their way. Montana tried the knob, but found it locked.
Looking through, he was astonished to see that the locomotive, so laboriously transported overland and set up between the pillars of the bank, was stirring to activity. Smoke came pouring from the wide stack, twisting about, then rolling fitfully through the open front doors. The track from the street outside had been completed up to the big wheels. Everything indicated that the engine was ready to roll.
This part of the show had been scheduled for high noon rather than dawn. Montana had a notion that it had actually been planned for the middle of the night, but perhaps there had been unforeseen delays.
A man who looked like an engineer emerged from the wreathing smoke, attired in overalls and a cap. Climbing into the cab, he jerked the whistle cord, and the resultant screech tore shrilly through the confines of the building. A ragged, uncertain cheer went up from the onlookers and was drowned out as the engineer opened the throttle. The blocks for the wheels had been removed, and the engine started to move.
“What on earth is all this?” Wagner demanded, astonished. The sight of a locomotive seemed utterly incredible.
Montana had no time for explanations. The turning wheels revealed something which until then had been carefully hidden. He shouted a warning, but his voice was swallowed in the increasing pandemonium. The engineer, looking ahead to the short stretch of track outside, was clearly unaware that anything was amiss.
The big drive wheels hesitated, then took hold. A pair of steel cables, small but strong, had been attached to the rear coupling, then looped around the bases of the pillars which loomed so imposingly in front of the bank—and which supported a large part of the weight, not only of the bank but also of the opera house adjoining.
The result was almost instant. Before any of the startled onlookers suspected that something might be wrong, the damage was done. The locomotive rolled out into the street barely in time to escape the collapsing ruin of both buildings as the pillars were jerked loose.
Destruction came raining in a splintering, crashing avalanche. Montana jerked Wagner back as the wreckage piled around them. A shower of loosened plaster descended from the ceiling, seeming to explode as it hit the floor, sending up a choking cloud of dust. A heavy ceiling beam, torn loose, swung outward and poised. The piling debris made it impossible to run, and Montana could only watch as it came hurtling, narrowly missing them. The wall trembled under the impact, threatening to collapse.
The door through which they had looked was now windowless, and completely blocked. So was the route by which they had come. But there was a gap in the far wall, as it threatened to come tumbling. Montana grabbed Wagner’s hand, tried to pull and felt him stumble and go limp, knocked out by the glancing blow of a falling timber.
Even a second’s delay might be fatal, but Montana had acquired a sort of fatalism. He caught Wagner as he was collapsing, shifted his hold and staggered ahead. He was almost past being astonished, but here a stairway was crazily askew, leading up. With wreckage blocking every other exit, it was the only way.
He struggled to the top, and found that the second floor was gone, spilled downward with the other rubble. An outer wall remained.
A rending sound was heard as a gap opened in the wall. It was a chance, and he crowded into the gap, then paused as he saw only blankness below.
A spreading haze of smoke and dust shrouded details. The suddenly frightened crowd had fallen back, staring uncomprehendingly from the far side of the street. The locomotive had been halted short of further disaster.
Jay Desmond had been prepared for trouble, and he was there, shouting for some of his men. At Montana’s shout, he looked up, then responded, racing to the base of the wall despite the still falling wreckage. Montana lowered Wagner to him.
“Look after him,” Montana shouted. Then, before the horrified eyes of the onlookers, he dashed back amid the crumpling wreckage.
The sane procedure would be to jump, but he had set out to do a job, although he had the dismal conviction that it might already be too late. If there was any chance for success, it had to be taken now. Once the bank collapsed, it would be too late.
Desmond had gathered bis crew, as Montana had requested, and was ready to help, but however willing, they could not really hinder the Mandarin’s plan. He had foreseen such a contingency and guarded against it by what was now happening.
Along with the careful planning, the factor which Montana found most impressive was the ruthlessness with which it had been executed. The plan had been to rob and swindle an entire community, and everyone who had gotten in the way had been dealt with swiftly, drastically.
Now the bank and the theatre were being wrecked to insure success. The vast pile of debris would block the newly dug tunnels underneath, providing whatever leeway might be necessary to complete the robbery.
The accumulation of deeds, promissory notes, bets and cash money had probably been removed already, a picked crew working during the last part of the night to reach and break open the vault. With the bank locked and guarded from without, no one had thought of danger from underneath.
Even Jay Desmond probably believed, along with the mass of the populace, that the vault was untouched, the treasure safe amid the collapsing walls. That was what they were supposed to think.
The timing had been precise. The final blasting through heavy rock and soil, to make the final break to the vault, had been accomplished under cover of the barrage of fireworks, while the show went on and the victims were being entertained. As soon as the loot had been gotten out, the locomotive had played its part, bringing down the pillars, wrecking the buildings. Ordinarily, at least a day or so would have to elapse before the wreckage could be cleared away and the robbery discovered. Ample time for a getaway.
Montana fought his way through the worst of the clutter, back toward the tunnels which he had recently quitted. He looked about, hoping to find a lantern, but there was nothing. Here, however, was the newly laid line of wooden rails on which an ore car could run.
He moved as fast as possible in the darkness, hands reaching out on either side, with the rails to guide his feet. He could tell that the ties which held the rails had been placed at regulation intervals. A novice at such a chore might have been tempted to skimp, placing fewer ties than normal, since the line was designed to be used only once. The Mandarin had made no such mistake. The ore car, as it passed, would carry a heavy load.
It was impossible to move fast, but Montana was making good time. Rounding a gradual bend, he heard a faint noise, the turning of wheels along the rails. Somewhere ahead, still inside the tunnel, the car was moving.
He had no doubt that the Mandarin would be with it. The car carried the stake for which he had played, and he would handle this part himself.
It occurred to Montana that, once again, he was without a gun. Somehow that happened with monotonous regularity.
Daylight showed ahead, and he increased his pace. The track led out to where the coolies had trundled their wheelbarrows of waste, by sheer boldness fooling everyone into believing that whatever they were about must be legitimate.
Ahead was the answer he had expected to the second part of the plan for removal. The big covered wagon which he had seen the other day was backed up to a platform where the track ended. It was the same wagon that Prentiss O’Leary had talked so glibly of using for a fishing trip. A lot of cash money would be heavy, and there were six horses hitched to it, instead of two.
The car had rolled up to the rear of the wagon and stopped, and already men were at work unloading it. The tailgate of the wagon box was being set back in place as Montana came to a spot where he could see, the spread of a canvas tarp dropped for a cover. The driver snapped his whip, and the wagon started to move.
Montana wasted no time yelling, since a shout would merely be a warning. He sprinted, and as he did so, the six horses broke into a trot, the spokes of the wheels blurring. As usual, especially at that early hour, the back street was virtually deserted, a perfect place for that part of the operation.
But some all-night reveler had left his horse, saddled and disconsolate, at a hitching post. Montana appropriated it, the horse coming to life with a snort.
As he swung into the saddle, a new sound added to the confusion from the street behind—the wailing bawl of distressed cattle. Once more, with precise timing, a herd of milling, stampeding cattle swept out from a side road between him and the wagon, filling the street from wall to wall.