Never had Conniston seen a crowd of men like these. There were Americans there, and from the broken bits of conversation which floated to him he knew that they hailed from east, west, north, and south. There were Hungarians, Slavonians, Swedes—heavy, stolid, slow-moving men whose knowledge of the English language rose and set in "damn" and "hell." There were Chinamen and Japs—a dozen of the slant-eyed, yellow-faced Orientals—the Chinamen all big, gaunt men with their queues coiled about their heads. There were Italians, the lower class known to the West as "Dagoes." And almost to the last man of them they were the hardest-faced men he had ever seen.

There was a big, loose-limbed giant of an Englishman who walked like a sailor, who carried a great white scar across his cheek and upper lip, and who wore a long unscabbarded knife swinging from his belt. There was a wiry little Frenchman who showed a deep scar at the base of his throat, from which his shirt was rolled back, and who snarled like a cat when another man accidentally trod upon his foot. Conniston saw a dozen faces scarred as though by knife-cuts; twisted, evil faces; dark, scowling faces; faces lined by unbridled passions; brutal, heavy-jawed faces.

But if their faces showed the handiwork of the devil, from their chins down they were men cast in the mold of the image of God. From the biggest Dane standing close to six feet six inches to the smallest Jap less than five feet tall, they were men of iron and steel. Quick-eyed, quick-footed, hard, they were the sort of men to drive the fight against the desert.

Breakfast finished, the men dropped their cups and plates into one of two big tubs as they passed by the tent, their knives and forks into another, and went quietly and promptly to work. Each man had his duty and went about it without waiting to be told. They filled buckets at the water-barrels and watered their horses; they harnessed and hitched up to plows and scrapers; half a dozen of them hitched four horses to each of six of the wagons whose barrels had been emptied, and swung out across the plain toward the Half Moon for more water.

Truxton beckoned to Conniston and led him toward the south. And suddenly, coming about the foot of a little knoll, Conniston had his first glimpse of the main canal.

Here it was a great ditch, ten feet deep, thirty feet wide, its banks sloping, the earth which had been dragged out of it by the scrapers piled high upon each side in long mounds, like dikes. Truxton stood staring at it, his eyes frowning, his jaw set and stern.

"There she is, Conniston. A simple enough thing to look at, but so is the business end of a mule. This thing is goin' to make the Old Man a thousand times over—or it's goin' to break him in two like a rotten stick."

The workmen were coming up, driving their teams with dragging trace-chains to be hitched to the scrapers and big plows standing where they had quit work the night before. Truxton, tugging thoughtfully at his grizzled mustache, watched them a moment as they "hooked up" and dropped, one behind another, into a long, slow-moving procession, the great shovel-like scrapers scooping up ton after ton of the soft earth, dragging it up the slope where the end of the ditch was, wheeling and dumping it along the edge of the excavation, turning again, again going back down into the cut to scoop up other tons of dirt, again to climb the incline to deposit it upon the bank. Here Conniston counted forty-nine teams and forty-nine drivers. One man—it was the big Englishman with the scarred lip and cheek and the unsheathed knife—was standing ten feet away from the edge of the ditch, his great bare arms folded, watching.

"That's one of your foremen," Truxton said, his eyes following Conniston's. "Ben, his name is. He knows his business, too. He'll take care of this gang for you while you come along with me. I'll show you your other shift."

They followed a line marked by the survey stakes for a quarter of a mile past the camp. Here another fifty men were at work; and here, where the top of the sand had already been scraped away, a harder soil called for the use of the big plows before the scrapers could be of any use. The foreman here, a South-of-Market San-Franciscan by his speech, shouted a command to one of the drivers and came up to Truxton.

"Whatcher want to-day?" he demanded. "Ten foot?"

"Nine," Truxton told him, shortly. "Nine an' a half by the time you get to that first stake. Nine three-quarters at the second. Can you get that far to-day?"

The foreman turned a quid of tobacco, squinted his eye at the two stakes, and nodded.

"Sure thing," he said.

And then he turned on his heel and went back to the point he had quit, yelling his orders as he went.

"Another good man," Truxton muttered. "Thank the Lord, we've got some of them you couldn't beat if you went a thousand miles for 'em."

Still farther on was the third gang, and beyond that the fourth. These hundred men were at work on the "Seven Knolls." And there Truxton himself would superintend the work to-day. He stopped and stood with Conniston upon one of the mounds, from which they could see all that was being done. And with slow, thoughtful carefulness he told Conniston all that he could of the work in detail.

"You do a good deal of watchin' to-day," he ended. "Ben an' the Lark—that's what they call that little cuss bossin' the second gang—listen to him whistle an' you'll know why—know well what to do. Right now an' right here the work's dead easy, Conniston. Only don't go an' let 'em drive you in a hole where you have to admit you don't know. You've got to know."

The work here was in reality so simple that men like Ben and the Lark grasped it quickly. Conniston had little trouble in seeing readily what was to be done. The details Truxton furnished him.

When noon came they ate with the men. And at one o'clock Truxton called Ben and the Lark aside and told them shortly that Conniston was the new engineer and that they were to take orders from him. Whereupon Conniston took upon himself the responsibility of "bossing" a hundred men, the biggest responsibility which he had ever taken upon his care-free shoulders.

He had seen the slow, measuring glances which both of his two foremen had bestowed upon him when Truxton told them; knew that they accepted him as their overseer because they took orders from Truxton, but saw in their faces that they reserved judgment of him personally until such time as they could see how much or how little he knew. He was not greatly in fear of the outcome. The work was running so smoothly, there were so few possible difficulties to come up now, that it seemed to him that all he had to do was to stand and watch.

And at first he did little but watch and, as Truxton had suggested, try to study his men. He saw that both the Lark and Ben said very few words, that when they did speak they barked out short, explosive commands surcharged with profanity, that when they interfered there was a good reason for it, that their commands were obeyed without hesitation and without question. Not once in two hours did either of them so much as look toward him. And the long processions of men and horses came and went, scooped and dumped their big scraper-loads, and swung back into the ditch, each man of them moving like a machine.

It was after three o'clock when he noticed something which he would have seen before had he been used to the work and the men. He saw the long string of scrapers come to a halt for perhaps two minutes; saw that the cause of the halt was a big Northlander who had stopped just as he came upon the bank and was working over at race-chain which seemed to be causing trouble. In a moment he started up again, the other scrapers began to move, and Conniston dismissed the matter as of no consequence. This was the gang over which Ben was foreman. He glanced quickly at the big Englishman and saw that his eyes were upon the Northlander. Again, not twenty minutes later, came a second brief stoppage, again the Swede was working over a trace-chain—and now Ben had swung about and was striding toward Conniston.

"Hi say there," he said, as he came to Conniston's side. "Bat says Hi'm to take horders off you. Do you want me to 'andle those Johnnies? Hor do you figure on a-stepping in? Hi?"

"What do you mean?" demanded Conniston, a bit puzzled. "I haven't interfered with you, have I?"

"No. Hi just want to know, you know. Hi 'andle 'em my wi, hor Hi quit, you know."

"You are to do just as you have always done," Conniston told him, shortly. "If you can handle them, all right. Go to it. If you need any help—What's the matter?"

"Hi don't awsk any 'elp," muttered Ben. "Just one man—"

"You mean that Swede with the big white mare in the lead?" interrupted Conniston, quickly.

Ben looked at him swiftly. Grunting an answer which Conniston did not catch, he turned and went back along the edge of the ditch.

The Swede was again coming up the bank. At the top he did as he had done more than once before: turned out in a wide circle, letting two men pass him. The Englishman strode swiftly toward him.

"Hi, there, you big Swede!" he yelled, his words accompanied by a volley of insulting epithets born in the slums of London. "Wot you trying to do? Want the 'ole works to pawss you w'ile you rest? You blooming spoonbill, get inter that! Step lively, man!"

The Northlander's heavy, slow-moving feet stopped entirely as he turned a stolid face toward the foreman.

"I bane to like I tam plase," he muttered, slowly. "Yo bane go hell."

The big Englishman sprang back, swept up a broken pick-handle half buried in the sand, and leaped forward. As he leaped he swung the bit of heavy, hard wood above his head. The Swede dropped his reins and threw up his arms to guard himself, but the pick-handle, wielded in a great, sinewy right hand, beat down his arms and struck him a crashing blow across his forehead. Conniston heard the thud of it where he stood. The Swede's arms flew out and he went down like a steer in a slaughter-house.

"You bloody spoonbill!" cried the Englishman, standing over the prostrate body. "Wot are you laying down for? Get hup, hor Hi'll beat the bloody 'ead hoff your bloody shoulders! Get hup!"

Slowly, weakly, reeling as he got upon his knees, the Swede rose to his feet. A great, smoldering, cold-blooded wrath shone in his blue eyes, mingled with a surly fear. He made no motion toward the man who stood three feet from him threatening him. Nor did he stir toward his fallen reins. Instead he turned half about toward the camp.

"I bane quit," he muttered, thickly. "I bane get my time."

"Quit!" yelled Ben—"quit, will you!"

The Swede muttered something which Conniston did not catch. Ben took one short, quick step forward, swinging his pick-handle high above his head. For a moment the Swede paused, hesitating. And then, again muttering, he stooped, picked up his reins, and swung his team back into the cut.

The other men had all stopped to watch. Now Ben swung about upon them, his voice lifted in a string of cockney oaths, commanding them not to stand still all day, but to get to work. At almost his first word the teams began to move again, the men laughing, calling to one another, jeering at the defeated Swede, or merely shrugging their shoulders. And Greek Conniston, his face still white from what he had just witnessed, began to see, although still dimly, what it was he had taken into his two hands to do.

He glanced down at his hands. The middle finger of the right one, with which he had struck Brayley's heavy cheek-bone, was swollen to twice its natural size, stiff and sore. The nails were broken and blackened. There were a dozen scratches and little cuts. The palms were hard and calloused, with bits of loose skin along the base of the fingers where blisters had formed and broken and healed over.

He lifted his head, and his speculative eyes ran back along the ditch. The work was again running smoothly, quietly, save for the clanking of the scrapers and the men's voices calling to their horses and mules, each man intent upon his own duty, the face of the desert as peaceful as the hot, clear arch of the sky above.



CHAPTER XIV

Three days passed, four, a week, and still no word came of the men for whom the "Old Man" had wired to Denver. Conniston had nearly forgotten them. His day was from daylight until dark, often until long after dark. Upon more than one evening, after the men had had their suppers and crawled into their blankets, he and Truxton had sat in the tent at the cook's rude table, a lantern between them, figuring and planning upon the next day.

He began to notice a vague change in the older engineer as the days went by. At first he was hardly conscious of it, at a loss to catalogue it. But before the middle of the week he realized that each evening found Truxton more irritable, more prone to explode into quick rage over some trifle. The man's eyes began to show the restless fever within him, and some sort of an unsleeping, nervous anxiety. Throughout the days the men stood clear of him. His flaming wrath burst out at a blundering mistake or at a man's failure to follow to the last letter some short-spoken instructions. It was only one night when Conniston made careless mention of Oliver Swinnerton, and Truxton flew into a towering, cursing rage, that he began to believe that he saw the real reason for Truxton's growing ill temper.

"The thievin', mangy, pot-bellied porcupine!" Truxton had shouted, banging his fist down upon the cook's table so hard that the lantern jumped two inches in the air. "I'll just naturally rid the earth of him one of these days. Those men ought to have arrived from Denver three days ago. How am I ever goin' to get anything done, an' no men to work for me? With Colton Gray gone an' the rest of the P. C. & W. thieves playin' into that scoundrel Swinnerton's hands, where do we get off? We send for a hundred men, an' it saves Swinnerton the trouble an' expense of a wire. By now every man jack of them is makin' fences an' buildin' houses for him, or I'm the worst-fooled man in the country." And he swung off into a string of curses which would not have been unworthy of Ben the Englishman.

One afternoon when they had run the ditch through the Seven Knolls and were cutting rapidly through a level stretch with a double line of smaller hills a mile ahead of the foremost team, Truxton came striding along the ditch to where Conniston was standing.

"Think you can handle all four gangs without me for the rest of the afternoon?" he asked, as he came to Conniston's side.

"Yes," answered Conniston. "I can handle them."

Truxton laughed softly.

"You're comin' ahead, youngster. Wouldn't have wanted the job a week ago, would you? I believe you could handle 'em, too. But I'll do it this trip. I want you to go to the office for me. See Tommy and run over these figures with him. I told you last night that I was sure of 'em. To-day I'm gettin' balled up. Tell him that I'm puttin' a gang on that double line of hills first thing in the mornin'. Run over the thing with him and verify our figures. If there's anything left of the afternoon when you get through you can take it off an' see the sights in Valley City. Find out how they're fixed for water an' grub an' wood. Tommy's got all that dope at the tip of his tongue. An' be back here the first thing in the mornin'."

He went back to his work, and Conniston hurried away, decidedly glad for the change of work. Just to grip his horse between his knees, to swing out alone across the rolling fields, to drink deep of the untroubled stillness of the wide places, to be an independent, swiftly moving figure with nothing to break the silent harmony of the still, hot sky above and the still, hot sands beneath—a harmony which the soul leaped out to meet—brought a quiet, peaceful content. The day was serene and perfect, like yesterday and to-morrow in this land of dreary barrenness and of infinite possibility; the faint blue of the cloudless sky met the gray monotone of the earth between two mounds in front of him; and as his horse's hoofs fell noiselessly, as though upon padded felt, his sensation was that of drifting across the wide sweep of a gently swelling ocean toward a landlocked sea of pale turquoise.

It was shortly after four o'clock when he rode into Valley City. He passed the one-room school-house, with its distinctive little belfry and flag-pole, and a glance in at the open windows told him that the children had been dismissed. At the corner of the building he came suddenly upon a saddled horse biting and stamping at the flies which defied swishing tail and savage teeth. Half smiling, he stopped. He had recognized the horse as a Half Moon animal, one he had ridden several times, and thought that he could guess who was inside paying his respects to the schoolmistress. Even as he paused Jocelyn Truxton came out, opening her white parasol. And in all the holiday regalia of shaggy black chaps, bright-blue neck-handkerchief, and new Stetson hat, Lonesome Pete followed her.

Pete, as he emerged from behind the parasol, saw Conniston and called a hearty "Hello, Con!" to him. And Conniston turned his horse and rode back to the front steps.

"Miss Jocelyn says as how she ain't been interdooced," Lonesome Pete was saying, his hat turning nervously in his hands, his face flushing as he met Conniston's eyes. "Shake han's with Mr. Conniston, Miss Jocelyn."

Miss Jocelyn lifted her dropped eyelids with a quick flutter, favored Conniston with a flashing smile, banished her smile to replace it with a pouting of pursed lips, and said, archly:

"I have half a mind not to shake hands with Mr. Conniston! If he had wanted to meet me he would have come with Billy Jordan the other night."

But, none the less, she finished by putting out a small, gloved hand, and Conniston, leaning from the saddle, took it in his.

"I was sorry, Miss Truxton," he said, lightly. "Didn't Jordan tell you? Garton and I had a lot to do that night, and worked late. It was very kind of you to say that I might come."

"If you had wanted to come very much—" she said, shaking her head saucily. "You would have found time to come, wouldn't you, Pete?"

Lonesome Pete, his spurred boots shifting uneasily, put on his hat, noticed immediately that Conniston still held his in his hand, snatched it off again, spun it about upon a big forefinger, and grinned redly.

"I sure would, Miss Jocelyn," he declared with great emphasis.

Miss Jocelyn turned back to lock the school-house door, and then came down the steps and into the road.

"I'll go git my hoss an' walk along," Lonesome Pete said, and hurried around to the back of the house.

"Are you going my way, Mr. Conniston?"

Conniston said that he was, and swung down, walking at her side and leading his horse.

"If you really do care to come to see me," Jocelyn said, quickly, before the cowboy had rejoined them, "you may call this evening."

Conniston thanked her, and, not to seem rude, said that he would drop in after he and Tommy Garton had finished their work. Jocelyn smiled at him brightly.

"You may come early, if you like. I am sure that you will have a whole lot of things to tell me about the progress you and papa are making with the ditch. I'm so interested in the work, Mr. Conniston."

Pete had taken up his horse's dragging reins and led him into the street. Jocelyn, her chin a trifle lifted, her air more than a trifle coquettish as she smiled at Conniston, pretended not to see her red-headed adorer. Walking between the two men, she even tilted her parasol so that it did no slightest good in the world in the matter of protecting her from the sun, but served very effectively in shutting out Lonesome Pete. Conniston laughed and talked lightly with her, vastly amused at the situation and the discomfiture upon her ardent lover's expressive face. And so, with Pete trudging along in silence, unnoticed, they came to the office and stopped, Jocelyn and Conniston still talking to each other, Lonesome Pete tying and untying knots in his bridle-reins.

"Can't you give up enough of your precious time to walk on home with me? I have some icy cold lemonade waiting for me," she tempted.

"I'm sorry. I'd like to, but I've got a lot of work to get over with Garton—"

Only three or four doors from the office was the little cottage which he had helped Argyl to prepare for her father. Even while he was making his excuses he saw the door open, and Argyl herself, lithe and trim in her gray riding-habit, step out upon the tiny porch.

"I beg pardon," he broke off, suddenly. "I—Will you excuse me?"

And, jerking his horse's reins so that the animal started up after him at a trot, he strode down the street, his hat off, his face lifted eagerly to Argyl's. A moment later he was holding her hand in his, oblivious of Jocelyn, Pete, Valley City, everything in the world except the girl with the big gray eyes, the girl whom he had seen through his shifting day-dreams.

When the cowboy and the schoolmistress passed him Lonesome Pete was talking once more and she was being very gracious to him, but Conniston had no eye for such trifles. Jocelyn nodded a bit stiffly to Argyl, and, smiling at Conniston, cried gaily, "You won't forget, Mr. Conniston!"

But he had already forgotten. He had not hoped to see Argyl for many days yet, perhaps many weeks, and the unexpected sight of her thrilled through him, driving all thoughts of Jocelyn out of his mind. And when in a few minutes he was forced to remember that he had business with Garton he left reluctantly and with a promise to have dinner at six o'clock with her and her father.

Tommy Garton he found as cheerful as a cricket and heartily glad to see him. Billy Jordan had looked out as Jocelyn and her two escorts came by, and now was back at his typewriter, pounding the keys for dear life, the ticking and clicking of his machine keeping time to "Yankee Doodle," which he was whistling softly. He, too, shook hands, but his cheerfulness was of a grade noticeably inferior to Garton's. And immediately he went back to his machine and his rhythmical pounding.

Conniston was of a mind to get the business of the day done with before six. The first part of his errand took up the greater part of an hour. Then Garton reported upon the other matter which Truxton had wanted ascertained. There was water enough to last four days. Provisions were holding out well, but soon there would be a need for fresh supplies of sugar, flour, and jerked beef. There was enough of canned goods at the general store to last for a month, a fresh shipment having been recently received—two big wagon-loads from Crawfordsville.

"I expect Mr. Crawford to drop in on us some time before dark," Garton said, as he put away carefully into a drawer the papers he had taken from it during the consultation. "Miss Argyl is already here. Stopped in a minute to let us know that the Old Man is coming."

"Yes, I know. I saw her a minute just before I came in."

They chatted for a while longer, until Conniston saw by his watch that it was six o'clock. Then he got up and reached for his hat.

"You'll spend the night with me, Conniston," Tommy Garton offered. "I've got plenty of bedding; a man doesn't suffer for covers these nights. Drop in as soon as you and Billy get through supper. I think that I can beat you a game of crib."

"Much obliged, Garton. But I may not run in for an hour or so. Miss Crawford has asked me to eat with them to-night."

"Oh." There was a great lack of expression in Garton's monosyllable, but as he swung about upon his stool, bending over the box of cigarettes which he swept up, Conniston thought that he saw a little twitch as of pain about the sensitive lips. Not understanding, feeling at once that he would like to say something and not knowing what to say, he went slowly to the door. As he was going out Garton called to him, his voice and face alike as cheerful as they had been throughout the afternoon.

"I say, Conniston. Remember me to Miss Argyl, will you? She's a glorious girl. I never saw her match. She's got the same capability for doing big things that her father has. I said the other day that he was the whole brain and brawn of this war for reclamation. I ought to have been kicked. Do you know that the whole project, from its inception, has been as much hers as his? Why, that girl has ridden over every foot of this valley, knows it like a book. Dam Number Three, that auxiliary dam, is her idea. And a rattling good idea, too. The men call it 'Miss Argyl's Dam.' Better brush up on your engineering before you talk reclamation with her, old man. She's read all the books I've got. A glorious girl, Conniston."

Conniston came back into the room.

"See here, Garton," he said, gently. "Why don't you come along. She told me that she wanted you, that she had asked you and—"

Garton waved an interrupting hand, smiling quickly. But Conniston saw that his face looked tired.



CHAPTER XV

At Conniston's knock Argyl's voice from somewhere in the back of the cottage called "Come in!" He opened the door, went through the cozy sitting-room, which was scarcely larger than the fire-place at the range-house, and at a second invitation found his way into the rear room. There an oil-stove was shooting up its yellow flames about a couple of stew-pans, and there Argyl herself, in blue gingham apron, her sleeves rolled up on her plump, white arms, was completing preparations for the evening meal. She turned to nod to Conniston and then back to her cooking.

"You'll find a chair in the corner," she told him, as he stopped in the doorway, looking amusedly at her. "That is, of course, if you care to call on the cook? Otherwise you will find cigars and a last month's paper in the sitting-room."

"There isn't any otherwise," he laughed back at her. And after a moment, in which she was very busy over the stove and he very content to stand and watch her: "We're even now. Last time we were here I was the hired man and tacked down carpets for you. Now I'm the guest of the family, if you please, and you're the cook."

"You can have two cupfuls of water to wash your hands and one for your face. You'll find the barrel and basin upon the back porch. And don't throw the water away! I'll save it for you to use the next time you come."

"Thank you. But I washed over at Garton's. He lets me have two cupfuls for my face. And now I'm going to help you. What can I do?"

"Nothing. If you wanted to work, why did you wait until the last minute? Unless you know how to set a table?"

"I can set anything from an eight-day clock to a hen," he assured her, gravely. "Where's Mr. Crawford? Has he come yet?"

"No. I expect him any minute. But we won't wait for him. It's against the law in the Crawford home to wait meals for anybody."

Under her direction he found the dishes in a cupboard built into the walls, knives, forks, spoons, and napkins in drawers below, and journeying many times from kitchen to dining-room, stopping after each trip to stand and watch his hostess in her preparations for dinner, he at length had the table set. And then he insisted upon helping play waiter with her until she informed him that he was positively retarding matters. Whereupon he made a cigarette and sat upon the kitchen table and merely watched.

For many days Conniston had longed to see Mr. Crawford, to talk with him concerning the big work. Now, as he and Argyl sat down together, his one wish was that Mr. Crawford be delayed indefinitely. As he looked across the table, with its white cloth, its few cheap dishes, its simple fare, he was conscious of a deep content. He helped Argyl to the piece de resistance—it consisted of dried beef, potatoes, onions, and carrots all stewed together; she passed to him the biscuits which she had just made; they drank each other's health and success to the Great Work in light, cooled claret made doubly refreshing with a dash of lemon; and they dined ten times as merrily as they would have dined at Sherry's.

He told her of Tommy Garton, and suddenly surprised in her a phase of nature which he had never seen before. Her eyes filled with a quick, soft sympathy, a sympathy almost motherly.

"Poor little Tommy," she said, gently. "He laughs at himself and calls himself 'half a man,' while he's greater than any two men he comes in contact with once in a year. I call Tommy my cathedral—which sounds foolish, I know, but which isn't! Do you know the feeling you get when you steal all alone into one of those great, empty, silent churches, where it is always a dim twilight? Not that Tommy is as somber and stately as a great cathedral," she smiled. "Just the opposite, I know. But his sunny nature, his unruffled cheerfulness affect me like a sermon. When I allow myself to descend into the depths and see how Tommy manages it, I feel as if I ought to be spanked. I think," she ended, "that I have pretty well mixed things up, haven't I? But you understand what I mean?"

"I understand. And since we have drunk to the Great Work, shall we drink to a Great Soul who is a vital part of it? I don't know how we'd manage without Tommy Garton."

They touched glasses gravely and drank to a man who, as they sat looking out upon life through long, glorious vistas, dawn-flushed, lay alone upon his cot, his face buried in his arms.

They finished their meal, cleared away the dishes together, and still Mr. Crawford had not come. Then Conniston dragged two of the chairs out to the front porch, took a cigar from the jar where it had been kept moist with half an apple, and they went out to enjoy the cool freshness of the evening. The sun had sunk out of sight, the mood of the desert had changed. All of the dull gray monotone was gone. All the length of the long, low western horizon the dross of the garish day was being transmuted by the alchemy of the sunset into red and yellow gold, molten and ever flowing, as though spilled from some great retort to run sluggishly in a gleaming band about the earth.

A little wandering breeze had sprung up, and went whispering out across the dim plains. It swirled away the smoke from Conniston's cigar; he saw it stir a strand of hair across Argyl's cheek. The glory of the desert was still the wonderful thing it had been, but it was less than the essential, vital glory of a girl. Suddenly a great desire was upon him to call out to her, to tell her that he loved her more than all of the rest of life, to make her listen to him, to make her love him. And with the rush of the desire came the thought, as though it were a whispered voice from the heart of the desert: "What are you that you should speak so to her. What have you done to make you worthy of this woman? You, a laggard, as frivolous a thing until now as a weathercock, and by no means so useful a factor in the world, your regeneration merely begun; she the Incomparable Woman!"

It was Argyl who spoke first, and only after nearly an inch of white ash had formed at the end of Conniston's cigar.

"People who do not understand—they are aliens to whom the desert has never spoken!—ask why father gives the best part of a ripe manhood to a struggle with such a country. Does not an evening like this answer their question? No people in the world can so love their land as do the children of the desert. For when they have made it over they are still a part of it and it has become a part of them."

He told her all that he could of the work and Truxton and the men, going into detail as he found that she followed him, that Tommy Garton had not exaggerated when he had said that she knew every sand-hill and hollow. She listened to him silently, only now and then asking a pertinent question, her eyes upon his face as she leaned forward in her chair, her hands clasped about her knees. And when he had finished he found that his cigar had long since gone out and that she was smiling at him.

"It has got you, too!" she cried, softly. "You are as enthusiastic already as Tommy Garton is. I wonder if you realized it? And I wonder," her eyes again upon the fading colors in the west, the smile gone out of them, "what it would mean to you if, after all, our dream came to nothing, if it proved that we were more daring than wise, if we lost everything where we are staking everything?"

"I have been a small, unnecessary cog in a great machine for only a week," he told her, slowly. "And yet you will know that I am telling you the plain truth when I say that such a failure would bring to me the biggest disappointment I have ever felt. Failure," he cried, sharply, as though he had but grasped the full significance of the word after he himself had employed it—"there won't be failure at the end of it for us! There can't be. It means too much. I tell you that we are going to drive the thing to a successful conclusion. It's got to be!"

"Yes," she repeated, quietly, after him, "it has got to be. I don't doubt the outcome for one single second. Down in my heart I know. And I know, too, how much there is yet to be done, how much you men have to contend with, how swiftly the time is slipping by us. Do you realize, Mr. Conniston, how little time we have ahead of us before the first of October?"

"Yes, I know. And there are four miles of main canal to dig, mile after mile of smaller cross ditches, to irrigate the land after we get the water here, and two dams to complete." He got to his feet, his cigar again forgotten, his eyes frowning down upon her. "Truxton is right. We've got to get more men—many more men. And we've got to get them in a hurry."

"Father, when he comes to-night, will know about the men we have been expecting from Denver. He has been all day in Crawfordsville. What do you think of Bat Truxton?"

"He is a good man who knows his business. He is a skilful, practical engineer, and he knows how to get every ounce of power out of the men under him. He is as much the man for the place as if he and the job had been created for each other."

She was now standing with him, watching his face eagerly.

"Have you noticed," she asked, quietly—through the gathering dusk he thought that he could see a faint shadow upon her face which was not a part of the thickening night—"any sort of change in the man since you went to work with him?"

Conniston hesitated, frowning, before he answered. "He has been irritable," he finally admitted, with slow reluctance. "But the reason is not far to seek and does not discredit him. He is heart and soul in this work, Miss Crawford. Like all of us—you, your father, Tommy Garton, me—I think that he feels his responsibility heavily, very heavily. And when day after day rushes by and finds the work far from being finished, and he has to have more men, and the men don't come—good heavens! isn't it enough to make a man restive?"

For a long time Argyl made no answer, but, rising, stood looking far out into the misty obscurity, as though she would look beyond to-day and deep into the future for an answer to many things. The short twilight passed, the warm colors in the west faded, the breeze of a moment ago died down in faint and fainter whispers, the stars grew brighter, ever more thick-set, in the wide arch of the heavens.

"I hope that you are right," she said, slowly, at last. And then, with a queer little laugh which jarred upon Conniston strangely: "I am getting fanciful, I suppose, and faint-hearted! Never has our undertaking seemed so big to me; never have the obstacles loomed so high. I find myself waking up with a start night after night from some horrible dream that the water has failed in the mountains, or that Oliver Swinnerton has stolen all of our men, or that Bat Truxton has gone over to the opposition! Oh, I know that I am foolish. For, as you say, we can't fail. Everything has got to come out right! And now," in the manner native and natural to her—frank, hearty, even eager—"I am going to tell you some good news. In the first place, I see that I have been doing nothing too long, and that always makes one morbid, I think. I am going to get back to work. Isn't that good news? It is to me, at least. And, secondly, I have made a discovery. You'd never guess."

Conniston shook his head. "What is it?"

"What," she asked him, laughingly, and yet with a serious note in her voice, "is the one thing which we should like to discover here? If a good old-style genie straight from between the covers of the Arabian Nights were to drop down in front of you and say, 'Name the thing which thou wouldst have, and thou shalt have it!' what would that thing be?"

And Conniston, with his thoughts upon the Great Work, knowing that her thoughts were with his there, answered quickly:

"Water! But that is impossible!"

"My secret—yet," she answered him. "I had not meant to say anything about it so soon. Promise to say nothing about it until I give you leave, and I'll tell you a little—oh, a very little—about my secret."

Conniston promised, and she went on, speaking swiftly, earnestly:

"It was last week. I was riding out into the desert to the north of here—no matter how far—when I came upon it. It is a spring. Oh, not much of a spring to look at it. Just a few square feet of moist soil, here and there a sprig of drying grass, three or four brown willows. But those things mean that there is water there. How it came there while all of the rest of the desert so far as we know it is bone-dry does not matter so much as what can we do with it? I hardly dare hope," she finished, thoughtfully, "that my spring is going to prove a factor in our irrigation scheme. But I hope that it may help to supply us here with drinking-water, water for our horses. That in itself would mean a good deal, wouldn't it, Mr. Conniston?"

"There is no end to what it might mean—may mean. If your spring can be made to supply Valley City and the men working out yonder with water, to supply the horses and mules, it will mean that all the men and teams being used daily to haul from the Half Moon creek can be put to active work on the ditch. And—who knows?—if you can find water at all in the desert we may be able to use it to irrigate! God knows we want water on this land soon—and the mountains are still a long way off! But," and he tried to make out her features in the darkness, "how does it happen that this spring has never been found before?"

"The country all about it is what the desert is everywhere. No one would dream of water in it. Then there is a rude circle of low-lying sand-hills. Within their inclosure, consequently shut off from view unless one rides to the crest of the hills as I happened to do, is the spring."

He thought that she was going to add something further, perhaps more in the way of a description of the location of the spring, when he heard horses' hoofs and the rattle of dry wagon-wheels, and she broke off suddenly.

"It is father at last," she said, softly. "Remember, Mr. Conniston, I want to keep this a secret from father for a while—until I know what it is worth."

"I'll remember," he answered, rising with her and turning toward the two figures which had leaped down from the wagon and were hastening toward the cottage. The man slightly in front of his companion, coming first into the rays of the lamp streaming through the window, was Mr. Crawford. And Conniston saw with a quick frown that the other man was Roger Hapgood.

"Argyl, my dear," said Mr. Crawford, as he kissed the girl who had gone to meet him, "I am sorry we are late. You'll be sorry, too, for I'm amazingly hungry. Anything left? Ah, Mr. Conniston, isn't it? Glad to see you." He took Conniston's hand in a strong grip. "Haven't seen you since you came to the Valley. I'm glad you're here. I want to talk with you about the work."

He went on into the house, Argyl with him. She had shaken hands with Roger Hapgood, and, with an invitation to him and Conniston to follow, went ahead with her father.

For a moment the two men faced each other in silence through the half-darkness. Then Hapgood turned upon his heel and went into the house. In a moment Conniston followed him, smiling.

He took a chair at the side of the room and lighted a fresh cigar while he watched the two men at table and Argyl bringing them their supper. He saw that Mr. Crawford's manner was what it always had been—bluff, frank, open, cheery. But he saw, too, or thought that he saw, little lines of worry upon the high forehead which had not been there a month ago.

Hapgood's face, seen now clearly, was as smug as ever, but there had been wrought in it a subtle change. In place of the fresh, pink complexion, the desert had given him a healthy coat of tan. But that, while Conniston was quick to note it, was not the change that startled him. There was an indefinable something in Hapgood's eyes, at the corners of his thin-lipped mouth, that had not been there before. Conniston wondered if the hand of this Western country had touched the inner man as it had the outer, if the new life had found certain small seeds of strength in the heretofore futile Hapgood and were developing them?

Hapgood's manner, however, was unchanged, irreproachable. He placed salt and pepper, bread, butter, whatever it was that Mr. Crawford wanted, before him before the older man had realized that he wanted it. His attitude toward Argyl was at all times deferential, eloquent of respectful admiration. Hapgood was nothing if not urbane. Toward Conniston, however, he did not once glance. To his way of thinking, evidently, there were but three people in the room—the wonderfully masterful Mr. Crawford, the radiantly beautiful Argyl, the deeply appreciative Hapgood—and certain negligible, necessary furniture.

During the short meal Mr. Crawford spoke little, contenting himself with a few light remarks to Argyl and the others. Often he ate in silence, abstractedly. Argyl had looked curiously at him and thereafter offered few words. Hapgood took his cue from the masterful Mr. Crawford. Conniston smoked and watched the three of them, his eyes finding oftenest Argyl and resting longest upon her. Finally, when he had finished and pushed away his plate, taking the cigar Argyl offered him, Mr. Crawford spoke shortly, emphatically.

"I got word to-day from the men we have been expecting from Denver. They have gone to work by now."

"Under Bat Truxton?" demanded Conniston, quickly.

The older man cut off the end of his cigar, rolled the black perfecto between his lips, and lighted it before he replied.

"They have gone to work," he repeated, as though discussing a matter of no moment, "for Oliver Swinnerton. Shall we go into the front room? I want to ask you some questions about the work, Conniston. I did not have a chance to see Truxton this afternoon."

He rose and led the way into the other room. Conniston, casting a swift glance at Argyl's face, which had suddenly gone white, followed him. Argyl had stepped forward as though to go with them when Hapgood laid a detaining hand lightly, respectfully, upon her arm.

"May I speak with you a moment, Miss Argyl?" he whispered, but not so low that Conniston did not catch the words distinctly. "It will take just a moment, and—and it is very important."

Reluctantly she paused. Conniston went out and heard Hapgood shut the door after him. He shrugged his shoulders.

Mr. Crawford did not again refer to the bad news which he had brought, but instead seemed to have forgotten it. He asked Conniston question after question, seeking significant details, demanding to know how many feet the ditch had been driven upon each separate day of the week, what difficulties had been met, how the men did the parts allotted them, what Truxton counted upon accomplishing upon each day to come. And after ten minutes of sharp, quick questions he leaned forward and, with his eyes steady and searching upon Conniston's, demanded, abruptly:

"Is Truxton showing any signs of nervous irritability?"

"Yes." Conniston hesitated, wondering what was in the other man's thoughts. He began an explanation such as he had made Argyl, but Mr. Crawford cut him short.

"That will do. Thank you. That is all that I wanted to know."

He got to his feet and strode back and forth in the little room, his brows bunched together. Conniston, seeing for the first time in this man whom he had held unendingly resourceful, indomitable, signs of a militating anxiety, felt a sudden chill at his heart. Were they, after all, playing a losing game? Was the combination of desert and Swinnerton and capital going to prove too much for them? Was John Crawford even now looking clearly into the future and seeing himself a beaten, broken man?

For a moment of torture, during which he realized to the uttermost what success would mean, what failure, he feared that the vision which he had thought to have glimpsed through this sturdy pioneer's eyes was the true vision, feared that the fight was going out of John Crawford.

And a moment later a little shiver tingled through him as John Crawford stopped in front of him, looking down at him, as he saw that the make-up of this man was not broken, but that it was being bent like a powerful spring which draws its strength from outside pressure. He thought swiftly that the greater the weight put upon a powerful spring the greater was its recoil, the greater weights might it fling aside. Mr. Crawford was half smiling. His lips were calm. In his eyes there was no hint of fear or of failure. Instead a steady light there spoke with clear forcefulness of an unshaken determination, and more than hinted of a certain grim joy of combat.

"Young man," he said, almost gently, "you are mighty fortunate."

Conniston rose, making no reply, as he waited for an explanation.

"Yes, mighty fortunate. You are taking hold. I know what you were when you came to us; I know what you are now. I can see what you are going to grow to be. I congratulate you. And I congratulate you upon being placed in a position from which you are going to see the biggest fight that was ever heard of in this part of the country. Things are going dead against us these days. Do you know what that means?" He squared his shoulders, and for a moment his lips came together in a straight line. Then he smiled again.

"Are you never—afraid of the outcome?" asked Conniston.

"I believe in God, Mr. Conniston. I believe in my work. I believe in myself. We are not going to fail."

In that one brief, fleeting second Conniston had a view of John Crawford he had never glimpsed before. He made no reply. For a moment there was complete silence, broken after a little by Hapgood's voice from the dining-room. Mr. Crawford, walking composedly back and forth, drawing thoughtfully at his cigar, gave no evidence of so much as hearing the low-toned voice. To Conniston, who thought that he could guess what it was that had put the pleading note into the guarded tones, the words came in an indistinguishable murmur. Conniston, having no desire to play the part of eavesdropper, strolled out upon the porch.

It was only a moment later when the door which he had softly closed behind him was thrown violently open, and Roger Hapgood, his hat crushed in his hand, hastened out, ran down the steps, and with no word of farewell disappeared into the darkness. Conniston gazed after him in wonderment a moment, and then turned toward the open door behind him.

Argyl had come into the room, her face flushed, her eyes bright with anger. Mr. Crawford, looking up from his papers, was saying, quietly:

"What is it, Argyl? What is the matter with Hapgood?"

"I told him to go," she cried, hotly. "I told him never to speak to me again, never to come into this house!"

Mr. Crawford stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"For good and sufficient reasons, Argyl dear?" he asked, gently.

"Yes. And—and I slapped his face, too!"

A little smile rippled across her father's face.

"Then I am sure that the reason was good and sufficient. And I shall take pleasure in horsewhipping the little man for you, dear, if you wish."

Argyl ran to him and threw her arms about his neck.

"God bless you, daddy!" she cried, softly. "I just love you to death. And," holding him away from her and smiling brightly at him, "I don't think that it is necessary. I slapped him hard!"

Conniston came back into the room.

Argyl was speaking swiftly, emphatically. "Mr. Hapgood has just done me the honor to ask me to marry him. He told me that he had acquainted Mr. Conniston with his intentions, so it is no secret. No, I did not slap him for that. But you, father, and you, too, Mr. Conniston, since you are one of us in our work, ought both to know what he threatened. He says that we are upon the very brink of failure; that Swinnerton has almost sufficient strength to ruin us and our hopes. And he threatened, if I did not marry him, to turn his back upon us and join the opposition. And I slapped his face."

Mr. Crawford took her hand and kissed it.

"I can think of no more forceful answer you could have made him, Argyl girl. Fortunately, I have not confided in him to any dangerous extent. He knows—"

"He knows," she cried, quickly, "all that you have let Mr. Winston know! Everything you have told your lawyer—"

She paused, hesitating. Mr. Crawford looked at her sharply.

"What?" he demanded, a vague hint of anxiety in his tone.

"He knows—for he told me—the exact condition of your finances."

"Had I not better go?" suggested Conniston. "I do not want—"

"No. You are with us. If Hapgood knows, if he is going to peddle what he knows, you might as well know too! What did he say, Argyl?"

"He said, father, that you had played to the end of your string. He said that you did not have ten thousand dollars in the world. He said that you did not know where to turn to raise the cash for the rest of the work we have before us. I—I—" She looked anxiously at him. "Did I do wrong, father? Should I have temporized with him—ought I to have kept him from going away angry?"

"You should have let me throw him outdoors. I am not afraid of him." He turned from her to Conniston. His face was very grave, his eyes troubled, but he spoke firmly, confidently. "You see, Mr. Conniston, that we have a fight ahead of us. Some people would say that we are on a sinking ship. What do you think?"

"I think," said Conniston, simply, "that we will win out in spite of what people say. I hope I may help you."

"Thank you. To-morrow morning I am coming out to see what you and Truxton are doing. I shall want to have a talk with him—and with you. You will of course say nothing of what has happened to-night."

Out in the darkness Conniston walked slowly toward the office building, his brows drawn, his eyes upon the ground, a fear which he could not argue away in his heart. With untold capital to back them the fight against the desert was such a fight as most men would not want upon their hands. With Oliver Swinnerton and the gold behind him which he was spending with the recklessness of assurance, the fight was tenfold harder. And now, when it was clear that the great bulk of John Crawford's fortune was already sunk into the sand, the fight seemed hopeless.

It had been a bad night for lovers. At the office building, leaning against the wall, a cigarette dangling dejectedly from his lips, Lonesome Pete was waiting for him.

"That you, Con?"

"Yes. What are you doing here?"

"Waitin' for you, an' meditatin' mos'ly." He cast away his cigarette, sighed deeply, and began a search for his paper and tobacco. "I was wantin' to ask you a question, Con."

Conniston said, "Go ahead, Pete," and made himself a cigarette.

"It's this-a-way." The cowboy lighted a match and let it burn out without applying the flame to his brown paper. For a moment he hesitated, and then blurted out: "You've knowed some considerable females in your time, I take it. Huh, Con?"

"Well?" Conniston repeated.

"I gotta be hittin' the trail back to the Half Moon real soon. I wanted to ask you a question firs'." Again he hesitated, again broke out suddenly: "I take it a lady ain't the same in no particulars as a man. Huh, Con?"

Conniston, thinking of Argyl, said "No," fervently.

"If a man likes you real well you can tell every time, can't you? An' if he ain't got no use for you, you can tell that, too, can't you?"

Conniston nodded, thinking that he began to guess Pete's troubles.

"Don't you know—can't you tell—how Miss Jocelyn feels toward you, Pete? Is that it?"

"That's it, only how in blazes you guessed it gets me! Con, I tell you, I can't tell nothin' for sure. It's worse 'n gamblin' on the weather. One day I'm thinkin' she likes me real well, an' she shows me things about grammar an' stuff, an' we git on fine. An' then—maybe it's nex' day an' maybe it's only two minutes later—she's all diff'rent somehow, an' she jest makes fun of the way I talk, an' you'd suppose she wouldn't wipe her feet on me if I laid down an' begged her to."



CHAPTER XVI

After a long night, during which he slept little and thought much, Conniston rose early, breakfasted at the little lunch-counter, and without waking Tommy Garton rode swiftly toward Truxton's camp. He hastened, for although it was still early morning it was time for work to begin upon the ditch.

From the top of a knoll half a mile out of camp he could look down into the little hollow where the men and teams should be already at their daily grind. A little frown gathered his brows as he saw instead that the horses were standing at their stakes in a long row, that the men were gathered together in clumps, obviously idle. And even then he had no way to guess what new trouble had come to the Great Work.

Shooting his spurs into his horse's panting sides, he swept down the gentle slope of the sand-hill and galloped straight toward the cook's tent. He saw that not only were the men idle, but that they gave no evidence of an intention to go to work. He saw, too, that they looked at him as he rode among them, that they watched him curiously, that many of them were laughing.

Fifty paces from the tent he came upon his two foremen—Ben the Englishman and the Lark—talking in low tones with the two foremen who had worked under Truxton's eye.

"What's the matter?" he called, sharply, angrily, although he did not know it. "Where's Truxton?"

"Inside the tent," the Lark answered him, shortly.

And, asking no further questions, waiting for no explanation, Conniston swung down from his horse, hurried to the tent, flung back the flap, and entered. Only then did the truth dawn on him, and he staggered back as though a man had struck him a stunning blow full in the face.

The air in the tent was reeking and foul with the fumes of cheap whisky. At the little table Bat Truxton sat slouched forward, his face hidden in the arm he had flung out as he slipped forward. An empty quart bottle lay on its side at his elbow. A second bottle, with an inch of the amber fluid in it, stood just beyond his clenched fist.

Truxton made no sign, did not so much as stir, as Conniston dropped the flap of canvas and stood over him. His breath came heavily, saturated with whisky. Conniston laid a rude hand upon the slack shoulder, shaking it roughly. Still Truxton did not lift his head, did not even mutter as a drunken man is apt to do in his stupor. With the full purport of this thing upon him, Conniston was driven to a fury of rage. He jerked Truxton's head back and slapped him across the face until his fingers tingled. Now Truxton's eyes opened, red-rimmed, bloodshot, fixed in a vacant, idiotic stare. And before Conniston could speak the eyes were closed again, the head had sunk forward upon the table.

"My God!" cried Conniston, feeling now only a great despair upon him, seeing only the death to all hopes of success for the reclamation project with Truxton lost to it. He started to leave the tent, and suddenly swung about again, grasping Truxton's two shoulders in his hands.

"It ain't no go, pardner. He's very—hic—drunk!"

He had not seen the other man, had seen little enough but the sprawling, inert figure. It was the camp cook. And as Conniston turned upon him he saw that this man's face was flushed, that he was little better than Truxton. And if he needed further indication of the reason for the cook's plight it was not far to seek. The man held in his left hand, thrust clumsily behind him, a third bottle, half empty.

"You, too!" shouted Conniston. "Drop that bottle, and drop it quick!"

The cook, with a drunken assumption of dignity, tried to straighten up, grasping his bottle the more firmly.

"Who're you?" he leered. "G'wan; chase yourself. I ain't throwin' away—"

He did not finish. Conniston stepped forward quickly and jerked the bottle out of the cook's hand, hurling it against the stove, where it broke into a score of pieces. The bottle upon the table he treated in similar fashion.

"Now," he said, sternly, "you get to work and get something cooked for the men. Haven't even a fire, have you?" He stepped close to the cook again, thrusting his face close up to the other's. He did not know his own voice, which had gone suddenly hoarse and low, as he went on: "You have a fire going in two minutes. Where are your helpers? And you have breakfast on the tables in half an hour, or I give you my word I'll come back here and beat you half to death!"

He turned and went out with no single look behind him, glad to be out in the open, thankful for the fresh air, which he drew deep down into his stifling lungs. And, realizing only that nothing could be done with Truxton for the present and that he himself was next in command, he hastened to where the four foremen were standing, grinning at him.

"Get your men busy," he snapped at them. "Ben, send some men up to the tent to help get something to eat. Let them put on anything. If the cook doesn't get coffee ready in fifteen minutes let me know. All of you have your men hook up their teams. They can do that while breakfast is getting ready. And hurry!"

The men looked at him curiously, then at one another. Ben was the first to move.

"Aye, aye, sir," he said, with a grin, lifting his hand from his hip to his forelock, and dropping it to his hip again as he walked away. The others followed.

"Hold on!" cried Conniston, suddenly, before they had gone ten paces. "Do all of the men know about this?"

The men laughed. "They ain't blind," explained one of them.

"And do they know—does any one of you know—where he got the whisky?"

They shrugged their shoulders. Only the Lark answered.

"I know, pal," he said, slowly. "I seen it."

"All right. You wait a minute. I want to talk with you. You other fellows get busy."

The little San-Franciscan dropped back and waited. Conniston came up with him and demanded shortly:

"Tell me about it."

"It was last night, 'bo, about 'leven o'clock, I guess. It was sure some dark, too, take it from me. I woke up thirsty as a water-front bum, an' beat it for the water-barrel. Comin' back, I come past the tent. Bat was in there figgerin' when I went to the wagon. When I come back he was talkin' to another guy. I stops an' listens, just for fun, you know. The other guy I hadn't never saw. An' he said as how Mr. Crawford had sent him out to ask how everything was runnin'. Purty soon he puts a bottle on the table an' says, 'Have one?' Bat says 'No,' but you could see with one eye shut an' in the dark o' the moon as he wanted it worse 'n I'd wanted the water I walked clean over to the barrel to git. The stranger has one, an' fills a glass an' shoves it under Bat's nose. An' if any longshoreman I ever seen had saw the way ol' Bat put that red-eye under his vest he'd 'a' died with jealousy. I knowed as how there wouldn't be nothin' in it for me, so I went an' got another drink of water an' hit the rag-pile. That what you wanted to know, 'bo?"

"Who was the man?" Conniston insisted. "What did he look like?"

"That's dead easy. I'm sure the gumshoe when it comes to pipin' a man off so's I got his photograph in my eye. He was a little cuss an' dressed to kill, with gloves on, an' all that. He was skinny an' pale an' weak-eyed-lookin'."

"That will do!" cut in Conniston, brusquely. "And now get your men going. We've got a day's work ahead of us."

A little more than fifteen minutes later Conniston himself pounded one of the cook's pans as a summons to breakfast. The cook, surly, glowering as he moved, set forth the big pots of coffee.

Less than half an hour after he had ridden into the idle camp Conniston saw the two hundred men resume their work of yesterday as though nothing unusual had happened, saw the teams string out in the four sections of the ditch where Truxton had left off, watched the long lines of scrapers and plows cutting into the soft soil, scooping it out and piling it upon the banks of the canal.

He climbed to a little knoll from which he could glance over them before and behind the ditch-cutters. Yonder, toward Valley City, Truxton's two foremen were directing their men with the same quick-eyed, steady competence which they had manifested under the eye of the older engineer. From them he turned to the men working under Ben and the Lark. There, too, was machine-like regularity; there, too, each man, each straining animal was in its place, putting forth its utmost of capability.

There came to the man who watched an irritating sense of his own uselessness: the work was going forward with great, swinging, rhythmic effectiveness. This thing had leaped out upon him unawares, and he was half afraid of the responsibility which had fastened itself upon his shoulders. For, after all, Greek Conniston had not yet entirely found himself, was not sure of himself.

Brow drawn and anxious, watchful, deeply thoughtful, Conniston did not see Mr. Crawford until the buckboard driven by Half-breed Joe had stopped close behind him. He wheeled about, startled at Mr. Crawford's voice.

"Good morning, Conniston. How's the work going?"

"All right, I hope." He came to the buckboard and, resting his hand upon the wheel, looked up into the face of the man who was to learn of another savage blow dealt to the hopes of his project.

"Where is Truxton?" Mr. Crawford was standing up in the wagon, looking as Conniston had looked at the sweep of work being done.

"He—" Conniston hesitated. "He's in the tent."

Mr. Crawford turned suddenly upon him, his eyes narrowing.

"What's the matter?" he demanded, hurriedly.

Conniston shook his head slowly, turning his eyes away from the face which a glance had shown him was drawn with quick anxiety.

"Drive to the tent, Joe!" commanded Mr. Crawford, his voice very stern.

Conniston watched them as their horses leaped forward in the slack traces, saw Mr. Crawford jump down, enter the tent, saw him come out again and spring back into the buckboard.

"Now, Joe," as he got down beside Conniston, "you can unhook your horses. I am going to be here this morning."

Joe drove away to where the camp horses had been picketed. And Mr. Crawford turned to Conniston.

"This is going to make it hard, Conniston," he said, slowly, his face and voice alike very grave. "It is the one thing which I had hoped would not happen. But we've got to make the most of it." He paused suddenly, and his keen eyes ran thoughtfully from one to another of the four gangs of men. "They're working all right," he ended, his eyes coming back to Conniston's.

"Yes. They're good men. The four foremen are as capable as a man could ask for."

"Were they working this way when you got here?"

"No. They were waiting for orders."

Mr. Crawford nodded, making no reply.

"I don't know," Conniston offered after a moment, "that there is any immediate call for worry. I think that I can handle them until Truxton gets around—"

"Truxton won't get around!"

"You mean—"

"That the moment he is sober enough to know anything he will know that he is discharged!"

"But we can't get along without him. He is the one man—"

"We shall have to get along without him. I have told him that if he touched whisky again on this job he could go."

"But would it not be better to wait a few days—to give him a chance to sober up?"

"Conniston, I have never found it necessary to break my word. I am through with Truxton. And if my last hope of success goes with him he must go just the same. I am sorry for the man—the poor fellow can't help these periodic drunks of his. But I am through with him."

Conniston frowned into the eyes which were fixed intently upon him.

"You know best. I am ready to do what I can to help out. I think I can promise you to keep the work going until you can get a man to take his place."

Mr. Crawford bent a long, searching regard upon him. And when he spoke it was slowly, sternly.

"What am I paying you, Conniston?"

"Forty-five dollars a month."

"All right. I'll give you seventy-five dollars a week to take Bat Truxton's place for me—not for a few days, but until the first day of October. Will you do it?"

A hot flush spread over Conniston's face, and surged away, leaving it white.

"Do you think that I can do it?"

"I am not the one to think. You are. You know what the work is, what it means. Can you do it?"

And Conniston stared long out across the wide sweep of the desert, his lips set hard in white, bloodless lines, before he answered, briefly:

"Yes."

"It's a big job, Conniston, and, frankly, I wouldn't put it into your hands if I had a man I thought better qualified to carry it on. A big job! I wonder if you know how big? You will hold the whole fate of this country in the palm of your hand, to make or to mar. You will hold in the palm of your hand my whole life-work. For if you succeed I succeed. And if you fail, all hope of reclamation here dies, still-born, and I am a ruined man. Understand what you are to do? I cannot even stay here to help you. I will leave to-night for Denver. I can't send another man in my place. Would to God that I could! I must go myself; I must raise money—fifty thousand dollars at the very lowest figure. And when I come back I shall bring the money with me, and I shall bring at least five hundred more men. And you will have to oversee the work of seven hundred men then; you will have to drive this ditch night and day; you will have to complete two big dams. And you will have to do that before the first day of October. It is a big job, Conniston. Can you do it?"

Conniston wet his dry lips and hesitated.

"Mr. Crawford, it is a big job. I do not even know that the thing is possible. I believe that it is. I do not know, I cannot know, if I can do it. I believe that I can. If you have a better man, if in Denver or anywhere else you can find a better man, put him in Truxton's place. If you can't, if you want me to go ahead with the work, I'll do it."

"Then that is settled. Confer often with Tommy Garton. If you need advice while I am away, go to him. But remember that in all things it will be up to you to make the final decision. There can be no sharing of responsibility."

"Then," said Conniston, with quiet decision, "I want an absolute and unrestricted authority here. I want the power to take on new men, to fire old men, to raise wages, to do what I think wise and best. I want every man working for you to know that he is under my orders, and that there is no recourse from my judgment. I want to be able to call upon the Half Moon outfit, if I find it necessary, just as you would call upon them."

"You are asking a great deal, Conniston."

"I am asking everything."

"And you can have what you ask!"

"To begin with, I shall want a man here to take my place if I find it necessary to be away at all. I want Brayley here, and right away."

"Brayley is the best man on the Half Moon. You can have him."

"Thank you. There is one further thing."

"Name it."

"I do not draw a cent of wages until the first day of October. Then if I have water in the valley I get it in a block. If I do not have water—I don't touch it!"

A curious little smile flitted across Mr. Crawford's lips.

"You are in a position to dictate, Conniston. Let it be as you say."

"And now, if you have no immediate orders for me, I want to get to work. I am going to shift the gang under the Lark out yonder, in front of the others. He's the best pace-maker I've got."

"Go ahead. I'll be here until noon."

Unconsciously squaring his shoulders as he went, Conniston strode away toward the ditch.



CHAPTER XVII

At noon Mr. Crawford told the men gathered at the long tables that in the future they were to look to Conniston for all orders, that he was empowered to act as he saw fit in any crisis, that he would have absolute command over every part of the reclamation work, here or elsewhere. And then he gripped Conniston's hand warmly, gave him an address in Denver where a telegram would find him, and drove away toward Crawfordsville, promising to telephone to Brayley to report to the Valley immediately.

Before he was out of sight the new superintendent called his four overseers aside.

"What wages are you fellows drawing down?" he asked, bluntly.

"Three bones," the Lark told him.

"Now, look here. Do you fellows know that we have got to get this whole job done by the first of October? That's a lot of work, and maybe you boys know it. It is up to you four fellows as much as it is up to anybody to see that the work is done. You've got to get every inch done every day that you can. You've got to drive your men all they'll stand for. You know what will happen if you make a mistake and try to get too much out of them?"

"Dead easy, Mr. Conniston," grinned the Lark. "They'll quit. They say there is lots of easy graft up in the mountains with a guy named Swinnerton."

"Then," went on Conniston, quietly, "you've got to be careful not to drive them too hard. Keep your men good-natured. If you see any signs of balking let me know. I haven't any kick to make about the way you have been working, but I want you to work harder! Get me? And I am going to pay you four dollars a day instead of three. Wait. I am going to make you another proposition: over and above your wages I'll pay each man of you for every day between the day we get water on the land and the first of October. And for that time I'll pay each man of you at the rate of twenty dollars a day!"

"Gee!" exclaimed the Lark. "You ain't stringing us, are you?"

"No. Understand what I mean: in case we get the work done five days before the first each man of you draws down one hundred dollars above his wages. Drive your men as hard as you can; but don't forget what will happen if you try to do too much. What wages are your men getting?"

"Two dollars and a half."

"Go back and offer them two-seventy-five. And tell them that for every day between the first of October and the day we get water on the land each and every man of them will draw down an extra five dollars. Now get to work. I want to see what you can get done by quitting-time."

That afternoon Conniston left everything in the hands of his foremen. He did not once go to the ditch to see what they were doing. Instead he took Truxton's note-book from the table in the tent—Truxton was still in a deep stupor—and from one o'clock until dark worked over it, seeking desperately to grasp every detail which he must know later and to plan for the morrow and the morrows to come.

When he heard the men coming in from work he got his horse and saddled it, and then waited for the foremen with their daily reports.

"I beat my record by twenty feet to-day," the Lark told him, with a cheerful grin, as he handed Conniston a soiled bit of paper. "I'm hot on the trail of my bonus, take it from me."

That evening Conniston spent with Tommy Garton. He did not even take the time to call on Argyl. He told the little fellow what had happened, received a hearty grip of the hand which meant more to him than a wordy congratulation, laid what few plans he had had time to outline before him, and asked his advice upon them.

"I want the plans and specifications for Dam Number One, Tommy."

Garton took them from a drawer and passed them across the table.

"I will look over them on the job to-morrow. And I want to know how long you think it will take to get that dam built when once we get to work on it?"

"I don't see how it can be done and done right," Garton answered, promptly, "in much less than thirty days. You might be able to do a temporary job of it—put in a bulwark that would do until we could get water down here and live up to our contract—and then build the real dam after the first of October. That might be done in less time."

"How big a shift of men were you planning on putting to work up there?"

"Two hundred. You couldn't use more than that. There isn't room. They'd get in one another's way."

Conniston sat frowning moodily, his fingers tapping the roll of blue-prints in his hands.

"Isn't there any way," he asked suddenly, swinging upon Garton, "of making a go of this without building that dam?"

"No, Greek, there isn't. You see, there isn't any too much water up in the mountains at best. We have to get every drop that the law allows us."

"Figure on it, Tommy. I want your chief work for the next few days to be just figuring out where we can cut down, where we can save not only money but men. It's men we need." He broke off suddenly and leaned forward, putting his hand on Garton's arm. "Damn it, Tommy," he said, huskily, "I want you to know that I don't enjoy giving you orders. I want you to know that I know you ought to be doing what I am doing to-day. You are a better man than I am every day in the week, and I know it. If it were not—"

"Oh, shut up, Greek!" laughed Garton, frankly. "You're an old liar, and that's what I know! And," and his voice softened as he put out his hand for a second time that night, "I love you for it. Now let's cut out the slush and get to work."

"Then, since it's up to me, here goes: I want your advice at every jump. I need it, Tommy, need it bad now, and the Lord knows how I'll need it before the time is up! In about three or four days I'll come to you or send for you. I don't know which it'll be. To-morrow morning I am going up into the mountains. Brayley will be in camp some time to-night. He'll take my place for a few days. No, he doesn't know a thing about the work, but my foremen do, and Brayley knows men as you know your multiplication-tables. And I will take a gang of fifty men with me. I don't like to remove them from the ditch, but I've got to get that dam started. I won't be able to sleep until I see that country and get my hands on it. And, Tommy, one thing more: Mr. Crawford tells me that there will be a telephone line into Valley City from Crawfordsville within the week. He is to get five hundred men to me as soon as he can rush them through. When they are within twelve hours of us I want you to let Brayley know. That is, of course, in case I am not back here. Brayley will then double his men's pay and keep them at work all night. Then I'll send half of the new men—half of five hundred, I hope—to Brayley, and he'll put on a day shift and a night shift—with all the work they can stand up under. And I'll have a day shift and a night shift slinging that dam across Deep Creek. It's up there, Tommy, that I expect you'll have to help me out."

"Anything I can do, Conniston. And I'll get busy first thing in the morning along the line you suggest. And," he hesitated a moment, and then finished, gravely, "I'm glad to see the way you're tying into this. And, do you know, I'd bet a man every cent I've got that we put the thing across!"

Conniston stood up, thrusting his papers into his pocket.

"If Truxton—" he began.

"Forget Truxton. He was all right and a mighty good man. One of the best men I ever worked with. But," and his rare smile worked about the corners of his sensitive mouth and lighted up his eyes warmly—"but I have an idea that the man who made that end run for Yale back in the old days is going to score a touchdown such as Bat Truxton would never have thought of. Go to it, Conniston—only let me get into the interference!"

Conniston's plans for the next day had been founded upon his assurance that Brayley would arrive before morning. But Brayley did not come. And even had he arrived on time Conniston would not have dared leave. At first he had thought to remain overnight with Tommy Garton. Then, remembering that he alone was responsible for the camp, he told Garton good night and rode out into the desert. It was late when at last he came to the tent and found his roll of blankets behind it. And ten minutes later cares and responsibilities alike succumbed to bodily fatigue, and he slept soundly.

It was long after midnight, perhaps three o'clock, and still very dark, when he awoke. Two men off in the distance were talking. He paid little attention to them, but rolled over and went to sleep again. And even as consciousness slipped away from him he was vaguely aware that more voices had joined the two which had awakened him. But he thought only that some of the men were calling to one another from their sleeping-places, and attached no further importance to the matter.

It was an hour or two later when he again awoke. There were already faint streaks of dawn lying low, close to the face of the desert. His first connected impression was that he had overslept and that the men were already going to work. For he saw a long line, fifty men at the least count, filing out toward the spot where the water-barrels stood in the long-bodied wagons, while other crowds of men were grouped about one of the wagons. And then suddenly he sat bolt upright, strangely uneasy. It was still long before day—and something was wrong.

He pulled on his boots and, without stopping to lace them, hurried toward the wagons. And before he had gone twenty paces he knew what it was that had happened. The men had been talking in hushed voices, so as not to wake him; but, now that two or three made out who he was, a shout rose sharply into the morning stillness, a shout at once of warning and of derision. And it was clearly the shout of drunkenness. It was taken up by fifty throats, a hundred throats, clamorous, exultant, jeering.

As the men moved back and forth, many of them staggered perceptibly. Conniston saw one of them pitch forward and lie helpless. A man passed by him, swaying and lurching, and in the pale light there was something fiendish in the fellow's leering face, his open mouth, his wide, staring eyes. Off yonder he heard two men quarreling, their voices raised in windy gusts of snapping oaths; saw one of them lift his hand and strike, not as a man strikes with his bare fist, but as a man strikes with a knife; saw the other man fling out his arms, heard his gurgling, choking cry above the sudden clamorous tumult; saw him settle quietly to the ground as though every bone in his body had jellied. His eyes accustomed to the half-light, his ears free of the wax of sleep, it seemed to Conniston that he was peering into a scene which could be no part of earth, but which must be some frenzied corner of hell.

As he ran forward, brushing past tottering forms which cursed him thickly, he saw yet another group of men beyond the wagons; saw that there, too, the spirit of alcohol was rampant; heard a man's voice, high-raised and raspingly shrill, in a monotonous song. And as he ran men did not fall back, but glared at him belligerently, many a coarse-featured countenance distorted hideously, while the men about the wagon bunched up close together threateningly.

He stopped suddenly, trying to think. A mighty laugh greeted his hesitation. He saw a big fellow thrust a tin cup down into one of the barrels, the head of which had been knocked in, lift his cup high above his head, laughing, and then put it to his lips. Then he understood while he did not understand: one of the barrels which should have contained water was nearly full of raw whisky!

Conniston did not believe that there were a dozen sober men in camp. He had recognized the big man standing at the barrel. It was Ben the Englishman. Mundy and Peters, obviously drunk, stood close to him. The little San-Franciscan was standing in the body of the wagon, trying to put his two short arms about the barrel. He had the grotesque look of a dwarf embracing a fat wife.

He could look to no one for help. These two hundred men—men whose hard, brutish natures had known nothing of the excitation of alcohol for weeks, perhaps months, whose brains were now inflamed with it, whose reckless spirits were unchained by it—would listen to words from him, from any man in the world, as much as they would listen to the sighing of the breeze which was beginning to stir the scanty desert vegetation. And above all other considerations, above even the half-formed wonder, "How came it there?" rose the knowledge which would not down, he and he alone was responsible for what these men did.

He turned away with white, wretched face, and strode back toward the tent. He must get away from them for a little, he must try to think, he must find something to do. And as he turned a yell of derisive triumph from two hundred throats went booming and thundering out across the desert.

Until now he had been merely grief-stricken that such chaos should have sprung into being under his hand where there should be only order and efficiency. Now there surged into his heart a flaming, scorching rage. The whiteness left his face, and it went a dull, burning red. He prayed dumbly for the might of a Nero that he might wreck the vengeance of a Nero. No words came, but he cursed them in his heart. He saw their blackened fingers choking the life out of the last hope of success of the Great Work, and he longed with an infinite longing to have those yelling throats in the grip of his own two hands that he might tear at them.

He stalked on blindly, his back turned upon them, his ears filled with laughter and shouting, cursing and discordant singing, his brain so teeming with a score of broken thoughts that no single thought remained clear. He told himself that this thing was a nightmare, that it could not be, that it was impossible, ludicrously impossible! He tried to ask himself what it would mean. He tried to answer—and could not. It would mean that there could be no work done to-day! And to-morrow? Would the men be fit to work to-morrow? And the next day? How long would the stuff last?—how long the effects of it when it was gone?

He thought suddenly of the revolver which Lonesome Pete had given him, and which struck against his hip as he walked; and he stopped dead in his tracks at the thought of it. And then he laughed at himself for a fool and strode on. Half of the men were armed. True, they were drunk, but what of that? They were two hundred against one, and they were not cowards. And in the end he would not have helped the Great Work; he would only have done a fool's part and lost his own life. No, there was no chance—

One thought suggests another. He had not gone on a dozen steps before he stopped again, a light of hope and of determination creeping slowly into his eyes. A moment he hesitated. And then, flinging all hesitation from him, seeing clearly his one desperate hope, crying aloud, "I'll do it!" he broke into a run toward the tent. Yesterday they had taken Bat Truxton to Valley City. But they had forgotten Bat Truxton's rifle.



CHAPTER XVIII

With eager fingers Conniston struck a match. Almost the first thing which his searching eyes found was the heavy Winchester, three inches of its barrel protruding from a roll of bedding. He flung the bedding open upon the ground. There was half a box of cartridges with it. He made sure that the magazine was filled, threw a shell into the barrel, thrust the box into his pocket, and ran outside.

No one had seen him. There were no eyes for him. A very few stragglers moved unsteadily here and there; the great majority of the men were packed in a mass about the barrel. Tin cups, dippers, even buckets and pans ran from hand to hand, from those nearest the wagon to the clamorous fellows upon the outskirts of the crowd, spilling the liquor freely as they were jolted and jostled.

This his eyes took in at a quick glance. Then he saw that fifty yards from the group of men there was another wagon which had been drawn aside with its four empty barrels. Walking slowly now, the rifle held vertically close to the side which was turned away from them, he moved toward this second wagon. He reached it, attracting no attention. Springing into its low bed, he dragged the four barrels close together. The broadside of the wagon was turned toward the clamorous crowd. Keeping his body hidden behind the bulwark he had made, he watched and waited for more light.

Slowly the pale glow in the east lengthened and broadened and brightened. Once Conniston lifted his rifle quickly to see if he could find the sights. It was still too dark for quick, accurate work.

So again he waited. A strange, cool calmness had succeeded to his almost frenzied agitation of a moment ago. He knew the danger of the thing which he was about to do; he knew and realized clearly what he might be called upon to do in self-protection alone when once he had taken his stand. But there was no other way; and, no matter what the consequences, no matter what the results, he accepted the only chance which circumstances had left him. And moments of unswerving determination do not make for nervous excitement. It is the anxious uncertainty, like that through which he had just passed, that makes a man's finger tremble upon the trigger.

Louder and ever louder rose the throaty voices, faster and faster passed the cups and dippers. Ben and Mundy had their arms about each other. In the wagon the Lark had slipped down, and now lay upon his back, staring at the dim, swirling stars and babbling incoherent nothings.

Men sang in strident, raucous, unmusical voices. A swarthy little Italian was playing waltzes upon a harmonica, and heavy-booted feet shuffled and stamped upon the sand as men flung their brawny arms about one another and swayed back and forth. Conniston saw that when a man thrust his arm down into the barrel for a fresh cupful of whisky it did not disappear three inches above the elbow.

Swiftly the desert daylight came. Conniston stooped and tied his boot-laces, that they might not trip him when he moved. He stood up and whipped his revolver from its holster, spinning the cylinder, and then shoving it back. And then, laying the rifle across the top of one of the barrels, he cleared his throat and called out loudly.

One of the men nearest him heard him above the shouting and pointed him out to another. The two laughed loudly and turned away from him, forgetting him as they turned. Again he called, louder than before. No one heard him, no one looked to him. He waved his hat above his head. If any one saw, no one gave sign of seeing. He licked his lips and lifted the rifle.

"God see me through with it!" he muttered.

He fired high above their heads. The sudden report crashed through the babel of shoutings, a veritable babel into which half of the tongues of Europe mingled with Chinese and Japanese sing-song. As the crack of the gun died away all other sounds died with it. The desert grew as suddenly still as it ever is in the depths of its man-free solitudes. Staring, wondering faces which had first turned to one another turned now toward him.

Again there broke out a volley of abrupt cries, followed by as sudden a silence, as they watched him to see what he meant, what he would do. And Conniston took quick advantage of this short hush.

"Leave that wagon, every man of you!" he shouted. "Move toward the ditch. And move fast!"

No man of them stirred. Their numbers, their intoxication, gave them assurance. He was no longer the "boss." They were all just men now, and he was only one while they were two hundred. They began to laugh. The Italian with the harmonica struck up a fresh, jigging air. The heavy-booted feet took up the rhythm. A man climbed into the wagon and scooped up a dipperful of whisky, holding it aloft before he drank.

The light was still uncertain, but the dipper was a bright, clear target. Conniston waited a moment, his teeth hard set, hardly breathing. Then, as the man lowered the dipper from his face and held it out invitingly over the heads of the men on the ground, he fired.

The bullet crashed through the tin thing, hurling it into the crowd. The man who had held it cried out aloud, and, clutching the fingers of his right hand in his left, leaped down from the wagon. The Lark rolled over and to the ground, dived between the wheels, and disappeared. And again came a sudden silence.

Now Conniston did not wait. He fired at the barrel itself, hoping to smash in the staves, to drill holes near the bottom through which the confined liquor could escape. And now the men ceased singing and dancing and leaped back, crowding away from the barrel, plunging and stumbling out of the line of bullets. For a moment Conniston thought that in that wild, headlong scramble for safety he saw the end of the thing. And almost before the thought was formed he knew better.

The men were talking sullenly. He could hear their angry, snarling voices, no longer shouting, but low-pitched. He began to make out their faces and saw nowhere an expression of fear, everywhere black wrath, restless fury. They no longer moved backward, but stood their ground, muttering. In a moment—he knew what would happen. He could read it in their faces, could sense it in their low, rumbling tones. And so he shouted to them again, his voice ringing clear above their mutterings.

"I drop the first man that takes a step this way!"

Tense, anxious, watchful, he waited. He saw hesitation, but saw, too, that the hesitation was momentary, that it would be followed by a blind rush if he could not drive fear into their hearts. And he realized with a sick sinking of his own heart that there was little fear in men like these.

"It looks like an end of things for Greek Conniston," he muttered, dully.

His watchful eyes saw a little commotion upon the fringe of the knot of men who had moved a little toward the tent. He saw one of the men step out quickly and raise a big revolver. The man, as he lifted the revolver, fired, not seeming to aim. The bullet struck one of the front wheels of Conniston's wagon. Almost at the same second Conniston fired. Fired and missed, and fired again. With the second report came a shrill cry from the man with the revolver, and Conniston saw him stagger, drop his gun, wheel half around, and fall. And where he fell he lay, writhing and calling out to his fellows.

For a moment the others hung back, hesitating. The man upon the ground lifted himself upon an elbow, glared at Conniston, and began to crawl slowly back toward the tent. Obviously, he had been struck in the thigh or side. The man who had shot him, and who was new to this sort of work, thanked God that he had not killed the fellow outright.

The next moment he forgot him entirely. Ben and Mundy were a pace or two in front of their men, who from force of habit had begun to flock toward their daily leaders. They were talking earnestly, their voices lowered so that the pressing forms about them had to crane their necks to listen.

Still the whisky-barrel stood scarcely more than touched. Conniston, seeing that as long as it stood there he could hope to do nothing toward a restoration of order, emptied the magazine of his rifle into it. He saw the splinters fly, saw that the bullets had torn great holes into the hard wood, heard the snapping of oaths from those of the men who had drunk only enough to arouse their thirst, and began slipping fresh cartridges into the magazine.

"There'll be precious little of that stuff left, anyway," he grunted, with grim satisfaction.

He had expected a charge, but it did not come. Ben and Mundy had in all evidence taken command now. Their backs were to him as they issued short orders which he could not catch. But their purport was plain enough. He took his revolver from its holster and laid it in front of him upon a board across the top of one of the barrels.

Silently the men were falling back. And as they retreated they spread out into a great semicircle, wider and wider. He saw that fifty, perhaps seventy-five, of them had revolvers in their hands. And he saw that these men stood in advance of their companions. In another five minutes, in less than five minutes, the semicircle would be a circle of which he would be the center. Then they would close in on him, and then—

There must be no then. That was the one thing clear. He might shoot down a dozen of them, but they would get him in the end. At one end of the slowly widening arc was Ben the Englishman. At the other was Mundy.

"Ben!" shouted Conniston, sharply. "You've got to stop that! Mundy, stop where you are! I don't want to kill you fellows, but I'll do it if you keep on!"

In the beginning he had hoped to bluff them. Now such hope had died out of him. These were the sort of men who would want to see the other man's cards laid down on the table. And he knew that he must make good his bluff or there would in sober truth be an end of him. His voice rang with cold determination. And Ben and Mundy stopped.

Conniston watched that line of black faces, and as his eyes clung to the threatening arc he thought with a queer twitching of the lips of the football line-ups which he had watched in other days. He was surprised that his feelings now were much as they had been then. It was a game, and that in the other games a goal had been the thing he schemed and battled for while now it was his life made little difference. He was surprised that he was cool, that his heart beat steadily, that his hands upon his gun were like rock.

There was something strange in the way the men were watching him, something in their sudden silence, in their eager faces, which puzzled him. Their whole attitude spoke of one thing—a breathless waiting. What were they waiting for? Had his words put the fear of death in them? Were they watching to see if he was going to shoot down the men who led them? Was there a chance—

His taut senses told him of a danger which he could not understand. Something was wrong; death hovered over him—close, closer. What was it? His eyes flashed up and down the long curve of motionless figures, seeking an explanation and finding none. A little shiver ran up and down his backbone. He could not understand—

A sound, scarcely louder than the footfall of a cat, but jarring harshly upon his straining, over-acute ears, told him. He swung about with a sharp cry. There was the explanation. There, just behind him, barefooted, bent almost double, crouching to leap upon him, a great Chinaman, a long, curved knife clenched in his hand, was not three feet away. Even as he swung about the giant Asiatic sprang forward, the knife flashing up and down. Conniston struck with his rifle—the range was too short for him to use the thirty-thirty save as a club. It struck the big man a glancing blow upon the shoulder.

The lean, snarling, yellow face was so close to his that he could feel the hot, whisky-laden breath. He parried, and the rifle was jerked from his grasp, falling with a clatter to the bed of the wagon. The knife struck and bit into the shoulder he had thrown forward. Again it was raised. Conniston sprang back, and as he leaped he swept up the revolver from the barrel-top. As the knife fell, cutting a long gash again in his shoulder, he jammed the muzzle of Lonesome Pete's gun against the Chinaman's stomach and fired. The Chinaman grunted, coughed, and sank limply, vomiting blood.

For a moment Conniston forgot the men out yonder, growing suddenly sick at the sight of the ugly, twitching thing at his feet. And then as quickly as it had come, the nausea was gone, and he was clear-headed and watchful. He snatched up his rifle and whirled toward Ben and Mundy and the men between them.

They had not moved, had taken no single step forward. He remembered having seen a man near Mundy standing with open mouth and bulging eyes; the fellow's jaw still sagged, his eyes were fixed in the same strange stare, his eyelids had not so much as winked.

"That's one!" yelled Conniston. He laughed out loud, the laugh of a man whose nerves are strained almost to the point of snapping.

"Come on, come on! Who'll be next?"

They muttered among themselves; here and there a man called out sharply. But still they did not move. A thing like that which they had just witnessed drives the fumes of alcohol from a man's brain like a dip in ice-water. They could beat him down, they could take him, they could kill him as he had killed the Chinaman. But he could kill more than one of them before they could drop him. These things were clear. And the men hesitated.