gers in the pitcher and
flirted the ice water in his face.

"Oh--hello!" Intelligence returned to Mr. Dill's blank countenance.
"Why, I must have been walking in my sleep. I always do when I sleep in
a strange place, but I thought I'd locked myself in. I dreamed I was a
fish freezing up in a cake of ice."

"It's not surprising."

"Say." Mr. Dill looked at him wistfully as he stood on one foot curling
his purple toes around the other knee. "I wonder if you'd let me get in
with you? I'm liable to do it again--sleeping cold and all."

"Sure," said Bruce sociably, leading the way. "Come ahead."

The somnambulist chattered:

"I've been put out of four hotels already for walking into other
people's rooms, and once I got arrested. I've doctored for it."

While lamenting his inability to discuss his proposition with the
engineer, the last thing Bruce anticipated was to be engaged before
daylight in the humane and neighborly act of warming Wilbur Dill's back,
but so it is that Chance, that humorous old lady, thrusts Opportunity in
the way of those in whom she takes an interest.

Bruce was so full of his subject that he saw nothing unusual in
propounding his questions in Mr. Dill's ear under the covers in the
middle of the night.

"How many horse-power could you develop from a two-hundred-feet head
with a minimum flow of eight hundred miners' inches?"

"Hey?" Mr. Dill's muffled voice sounded startled.

Bruce repeated the question, and added:

"I'm going out on the stage in the morning and it leaves before you're
up. I'd like mightily to know a few things in your line if you don't
mind my asking."

He was leaving, was he? Going out on the stage? Figuratively, Mr. Dill
sat up.

"Certainly not." His tone was cordial. "Any information at all----"

As clearly as he could, Bruce outlined the situation, estimating that a
flume half a mile in length would be necessary to get this
two-hundred-foot head, with perhaps a trestle bridging the canyon of Big
Squaw creek. And Dill, wide awake enough now, asked practical, pertinent
questions, which made Bruce realize that, as Uncle Bill had said,
whatever doubt there might be about his honesty there could be none at
all concerning his ability.

He soon had learned all that Bruce could tell him of the situation, of
the obstacles and advantages. He knew his reason for wishing to locate
the pump-house at the extreme end of the bar, the best place to cross
the river with the tran