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taking it for granted that I was holding up my end of the job. I waited a moment or two longer, clearing my throat nervously, and he still didn’t give me a look or a word. So, finally, I took a cap and a fuse and went to work.
    I worked fast. A lot faster than I should have, since I wanted to get the job over with. Despite the stall I’d put up, I was finished ahead of Four Trey, and this did get a look from him—a long, thoughtful look. Then, lowering his eyes again, he began tying the unattached fuse ends together.
    “Got ’em all tamped down good, Tommy?”
    “Well, sure,” I said. “Hell, yes.”
    “You know what could happen if you didn’t.”
    “I got ’em in good,” I said. “Real good. I mean, hell, you can check ’em yourself if you want to.”
    “Why, thank you, Tommy,” he drawled. “Thank you very much.”
    He went down my line of shots, testing them with his tamping stick, occasionally bending over to examine one. I watched him, not quite sure which I was most afraid of—the blowup from the dyna or the one I’d get from him if he found something wrong. But he didn’t find anything, no thanks to me. I’d been lucky, and the shots were all in tight.
    “Very good, Tommy.” He gave me a cocked brow look of approval. “I’ll make a shooter out of you, yet.”
    He hunkered down, took the tied-together fuse ends in his hand. With the other hand, he struck a match to them, setting them all to burning evenly, so that the shots would all go off together. (If they didn’t, a live shot might be buried under the dirt and rock.)
    The twenty-four fuses sputtered; began to burn black-red toward the shot holes. Four Trey stood up.
    “Fire in the hole!” he shouted, and I echoed his cry:
    “FIRE IN THE HOLE!”
    I ran, then, a good long way back into the sage. Four Trey didn’t run at all. He just walked, not dragging his feet, of course, but not working up a sweat either. And he stopped before he was back even half as far as I was.
    He stood facing the shot, as the day seemed to blow up around us. Tons of rock and shale soared up into the air, some of it splashing out sidewise like water from a leaky sprinkler. Big chunks of it veered toward him, began to drop down around him. But he stayed where he was, weaving a little to let it go past, sometimes batting at it with his tamping stick.
    At last, everything was quiet again. The blown-up sky had sealed itself, and the air was clear of dust. We walked back to the latrine site.
    Four Trey walked around it, looking it over carefully. Examining the depth of the blasts. It was all okay apparently; no buried shots. So we picked up shovels and mucked out the loose earth and rock, banking it high in front and low in the back.
    It didn’t take long. Not nearly as long as I would have liked. We finished with work time still left and with a job still left to do. Four Trey said we’d better get to hell at it.
    It—the slop pit—was somewhat closer to camp. It had to be, since the cook and kitchen staff simply wouldn’t carry slops very far. Four Trey and I worked as before, one to each side. I put my shots down as before, by guess and by God, and hoping for the best.
    Again I finished ahead of him, but this time he didn’t ask if I had the dyna down good. He didn’t check the shots to see that I had. He simply fired them.
    I ran. I turned to find Four Trey running with me.
    The blast went off.
    It wasn’t like the first one. It didn’t sound like it, somehow. And it was ragged, to use a shooter’s term. A chunk of rock as big as a man’s head shot right toward the rear flap of the kitchen-tent. It struck against the tent pole, almost knocking it over. There were shouts and yells from inside, and the cook stuck his head out and shook his fist at us.
    Finally, the dust settled and Four Trey crooked a finger at me. I followed him to the site of the slop pit, my head hanging like a beaten dog’s.
    “Well, let’s see,” he said musingly, after he had