The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1922-03-02

sAoh+ Al ANN AItAiASES IlC StGStAt
pressure had dropped to a point a
which 1t would no longer drive any o.
the pumps. either ours or the n out
side, and the window cataract stopped
This will be only a breathing
space I prophesied, getting up te
squeeze some Of the superfiuous water
out of my clothes. Fullerton will dc
one of two things: fire the other two
boilers, Or disconnect this steam pipe
| Of ours"
Reckon SOP said Daddy.
You'll see in a minute or so"
The attack began even while We
were speaking, sundry hammerings
and twistings that shook the pipe over
head proving that the besiegers were
going to stop the leak by cutting US
off from the boilers.
Take your whirl at the inventions,
this time, Daddyt" I urged. when
they get this supply pipe cut out, we'll
be III for another ducking-and one
that we can't STOP"
Daddy was shaking his head and
wringing the moisture-and mud-out
Of his beard.
"Jerusalem-to-gosh, Stannie. we got
to take a chance" he muttered. "Any-
ways, I'd about as lief die as be
drowned to death. Wen have to muss
that blacksmith shop up and get 1t out
o he way, somehow. Gimme a match
nJlf ~ that rim hnv n, yn,1rsr lie thnv
amt all soaked to a ~jiz-whizzlin' sop"
l found the matches, which, luckily,
were still dry. and handed him one.
Before l fairly realized what he was
going to do, he had taken one of the
dynamite cartridges out of its bucket
hiding place and was splitting the fuse
with his po~cketknife.
open that there door into the shop"
he commanded; and when l obeyed
mechanically. out went the bomb, fig
zing and Sputtering, to land in a heap
of scrap iron piled on the farther side
Of the stone-built forge. The sight of
it smoking and splitting sparks in the
heap of scrap half hypnotized me, I
guess, for l stood gaping at it, with
the door held open, until Daddy Hiram
ierked me away. slammed the door and
yelled to me to help him bar It,.
We had barely time to get the door
closed and fastened with the heavy
wooden bar and to throw ourselves
fat on the floor behind the hosting
machinery before the crash came. AS
I have previously said, the blacksmith
shop was a rather f1imsy, shed-like
affair, rooted with corrugated iron,
and 1t seemed to US as If broken tim
bers and pieces of sheet metal were
raining down for a full minute after
the blast went off.
The shock to everything in the vicin-
ity was. Of course, tremendous and
the stout old shaft-house itself rocked
and Swayed like q tree In a hurricane.
But the walls still stood intact, and
when we got up and peeped through
a hole which a piece of the flying
scrap had torn In the door, we could
see what we had done. 1t was a-plen-
ty. The blacksmith shop had disap-
peared, leaving nothing but a scatter
ing of w~reckage. The heavy anvil had
been thrown from its block and the
forge looked as If d giant had kicked
it. Out by the boiler-shed a rack of
cordwood had been toppled over and
under it a man was struggling to free
himself. When he saw the imprisoned
enemy that mild-mannered, ~soft-spoken
| old soldier that I was shut up with
| would have opened the door and shot
the struggler II / hadn't stopped him
This blowing up of the shop settled
| the shower-bath business for us def
initely. With the in%pediEent out OF
the way we had a clear view on this
third side; could command the row
Of miners cabins, as well as the boil
ers in their open shed. When I got
we couldn't afford to murder thu
wounded, the fellow who had beer
wrestling with the woodpile had made
his exit and there was nobody IL
sight. Shortly afterward a bullet
fired from somewhere in the fores
background, whanged upon Our root
and there were several to follow; blu
aside from punching a few more hole
in the iron they did no harm.
Looks like the Hercules is the on,
thing they're most skeered Of" sal
Daddy, with his queer little stutterin,
chuekle. "Now maybe they'll leave u
nave time to get ourselves dried on
q mite"
Totting up the results of the shower
bath we'd had, a bread famine prom
ised to be the worst of them. The fey
cans of beans, tomatoes and peache
the campers standbys-were ur
hurt. of course, and the muddied bacol
tcould be washed with water draw
from the flooded shaft. But the fiou
In its sack was merely a blob of past
and was beyond redemption and TIL
cornmeal was the same. In view O
the results I wondered IL BulIertol
hadn't shrewdiy calculated upon wash
ing our ~commissary out of existenc
when he planned his overgrown lawn
sprinkler. But maybe that was giVin,
him credit for more ingenuity than b
really had. 4 = T
Through what remained Of the after
noon the rife firing continued, comm,
sometimes from one angle and some
times from another, but always can
nfIy from d safe distance and alway
under cover OF the surrounding forest
Daddy Hiram, grizzly optimistic, ex
tracted 4 swallow or 30 az encourage
ment out of the persistent pot-shoot
Ina.