Simultaneously activating the detonators, Henry placed one explosive each in the center of the tents about 5 meters apart, then ran at high speed toward the outside of the camp while counting in his mind.
After feeling he had run for 12 seconds, Henry released two granite stones from his space, crouched behind them with his entire body, then covered his head with that thick oak table.
At this time someone was awakened by Henry's rapid footsteps, quickly crawling out of sleeping bags inside tents and trying to exit, but that was as far as they got.
"Boom!" With a tremendous roar, both explosive packages detonated simultaneously, creating high-pressure, high-temperature shock waves that swept across the scene at 6,900 meters per second.
Crouched behind granite stones about 100 meters away, Henry felt the heat waves from the blast and debris falling on his head.
The horses were so startled they neighed loudly.
After the explosion subsided, Henry put away the granite stones and oak table and walked back to the blast site.
All three campfires had been completely scattered, with only a dozen or so tree branches burning sporadically on the ground. All five horse lanterns were shattered and extinguished.
Not a single person remained standing in the entire area. Most had their souls scattered while still in dreamland.
Only a scant 5 people were still groaning, with 4 clearly not going to make it. Only one was still struggling - a middle-aged Hispanic man with an aquiline nose.
When Henry had collected those people from sleeping bags earlier, he had noticed this bandit gang was all Hispanic.
This aquiline-nosed man had severe burns on his left side, with the skin on his left cheek severely cracked and peeling from burns. His left arm hung limply, probably broken.
There were also two wounds that nearly cut across his body, with likely serious internal bone and organ damage.
The aquiline-nosed man was only struggling unconsciously, his consciousness apparently confused - he showed no reaction even when Henry walked right up to him.
"Who are you people, and why did you come to ambush me?" Henry asked coldly.
In the weak firelight, most of him was hidden in darkness, like an emissary from the abyss descending to earth.
The aquiline-nosed man showed no response.
By now it was 5:18 AM, with dawn breaking in ten minutes. There was no time to search for a second bandit gang under cover of darkness.
Henry paid no more attention to the aquiline-nosed man, took out three horse lanterns from his space and lit them, distributing them about seven or eight meters away in three directions, then searched the bodies one by one.
Then Henry also took out the thirty-two corpses he had just collected from his storage space and searched them one by one.
By the time this was finished, over half an hour had passed.
Dawn had now fully broken, and the aquiline-nosed man and the other four bandits had all fallen completely silent.
Two green pearls, 31 white pearls, and 37 gray pearls appeared below the release progress bar.
Of these, only one green pearl had skill or talent halos.
Henry matched this with the number of corpses he had searched and knew all 70 bandits here had been released to the underworld.
Besides harvesting some daggers, guns, and ammunition, the only special item was a wooden cylinder from the embrace of a prone half-gray bearded man - about 3 centimeters in diameter and 30 centimeters long.
After Henry unscrewed this cylinder, he found two leather maps inside with drawings and hieroglyphic-like symbols, very similar to what he had taken from that fraudster Louis earlier.
When Henry put these two maps together, he found they were still missing a piece - the piece from Louis.
Now the entire map was reassembled into a complete whole.
Henry found that although he couldn't understand those symbols at all, he knew this should point to Arizona, since there was a distinctive landmark drawing on it - that hill that looked like a monument.
He put all three maps into the wooden cylinder and stored it in his space to study slowly when he had time later.
It seemed this gang of bandits had targeted him because of this map, probably in league with that fraudster assassin Louis.
Finally Henry walked to those 70 horses.
To take these 70 horses, there wouldn't be enough space - he'd have to release at least 60 of the previously collected dead horses.
There was no choice then. These had saddles, so living horses were definitely more important.
Americans of this era had no habit of eating horse meat. Dead horses were basically sent to leather factories and weren't worth much - a dead horse couldn't even sell for one dollar.
Henry released all 100-plus dead horses, then fused 70 gray pearl shells to collect these 70 horses into his space.
Since it was already daylight, Henry simply spent over an hour removing saddles from the 100-plus dead horses and storing them in his space.
Saddles were often more expensive than horses, some costing over $100 each. Whether equipping his own future private cavalry or selling them, they were quite valuable.
Now Henry had 190 war horses in his space.
For a war horse to maintain proper nutrition, monthly feed costs were at least $10, equivalent to an ordinary person's monthly salary.
So many people in this era could afford to buy horses but couldn't afford to keep them.
For 190 war horses, calculated at one gray pearl shell lasting 2,160 hours or about 3 months, this was equivalent to saving at least $5,700, plus eliminating risks like labor, management, and disease.
Next, Henry ate and drank a little, then continued scouting other easily ambushed locations in the Guillotine section.
After another hour, Henry had finally scouted most of the dangerous ambush points with no other discoveries.
So he walked onto the mountain road, took out a horse, and rode back toward his camp.
When Henry returned to camp, it was already 9:16 AM and everyone had packed up.
Henry had been gone so long that people at the camp guessed he had encountered another ambushing bandit gang.
Seeing Henry finally return, everyone cheered excitedly again.
"There were 70 bandits at Guillotine trying to ambush us. I eliminated them all. We're leaving now. Hank, you drive that hardtop carriage. Charles and Owen scout ahead," Henry arranged everything.
Everyone sprang into action and began departing.
Henry and another ranch-born officer named Walton each took two horses.
——
At the McKinley family manor in Denver, Brendan had just received a telegram from Fresco Town committee member Ballack, learning that Richard had not yet arrived in town.
This made Brendan very agitated, as there were too many reasons that could cause this situation.
Richard's group might have been ambushed by large bandit gangs, might have encountered and fought with Henry's group, or might have encountered flash floods, landslides, or other road blocks.
As for Henry's group being able to completely eliminate his 31 guards plus Richard's 6 guards together, Brendan now felt this was also possible, just not very likely.
After all, Henry's battle record was just on paper for him - without witnessing it firsthand, the impression wasn't so vivid and profound.
He had great confidence in his family cavalry's combat qualities - they couldn't be compared to ordinary riffraff.
Brendan had always thought the incidents at Devonshire Manor and the smelting plant these past two days were caused by the Sinclair family deploying large private armed forces to counterattack his family's operations, with Henry at most being a leading enforcer among them.
(End of Chapter)
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