“Oh no, this was done deliberately. Like they wanted to keep the men from going down below. Like they wanted to keep us from working.”
The two men sighed. Jesse felt an uneasy tremor of fear slither down his spine. Could this Frank Thompson be sabotaging their operation?
“Have we had any other instances or problems in the last week or two?”
“Yeah, someone poured all of our kerosene out. I had to order more,” he said, his face suddenly becoming suspicious. “What’s going on? Is there a mine war?”
Not yet, but Jesse feared that someone was trying to destroy their operation to get even with them for marrying Mary.
“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out,” Jesse said.
“Tonight, I want two men with guns patrolling the mine,” Andrew told the man. “And if you can, make certain everything is locked up. We have someone sabotaging us and I’m not going to put up with it.”
The sooner they found this asshole, the better. He didn’t want his miners taking even more risks than they already were.
“How about the new hires? Anyone in the last week?”
“No, but you know, I did see a strange man sitting at the end of the drive looking at our operation.”
Jesse glanced at Andrew and shook his head. His gut instincts were telling him what he feared. “I think Frank Thompson has arrived.”
“Now we just need to find him,” Andrew said.
“No, someone needs to go home and stay with Mary. We don’t need to take a chance on her getting hurt.”
“I’m on it,” Andrew said. “I can do accounting from home.”