peed,
Ballard had got as far as the track platform gates of the Boston &
Albany Station when Lassley's telegram, like a detaining hand stretched
forth out of the invisible, brought him to a stand.

He read it, with a little frown of perplexity sobering his strong,
enthusiastic face.

"_S.S. Carania_,
NEW YORK.

"_To_ BRECKENRIDGE BALLARD,
_Boston_.

"You love life and crave success. Arcadia Irrigation has killed
its originator and two chiefs of construction. It will kill
you. Let it alone.

"LASSLEY."

He signed the book, tipped the boy for his successful chase, and passed
the telegram on to Gardiner.

"If you were called in as an expert, what would you make of that?" he
asked.

The assistant professor adjusted his eye-glasses, read the message, and
returned it without suggestive comment.

"My field being altogether prosaic, I should make nothing of it. There
are no assassinations in geology. What does it mean?"

Ballard shook his head.

"I haven't the remotest idea. I wired Lassley this morning telling him
that I had thrown up the Cuban sugar mills construction to accept the
chief engineer's billet on Arcadia Irrigation. I didn't suppose he had
ever heard of Arcadia before my naming of it to him."

"I thought the Lassleys were in Europe," said Gardiner.

"They are sailing to-day in the _Carania_, from New York. My wire was to
wish them a safe voyage, and to give my prospective address. That
explains the date-line of this telegram."

"But it does not explain the warning. Is it true that the Colorado
irrigation scheme has blotted out three of its field officers?"

"Oh, an imaginative person might put it that way, I suppose," said
Ballard, his tone asserting that none but an imaginative person would be
so foolish. "Braithwaite, of the Geodetic Survey, was the originator of
the plan for constructing a storage reservoir in the upper Boiling Water
basin, and for transforming Arcadia Park into an irrigated agricultural
district. He interested Mr. Pelham and a few other Denver capitalists,
and they sent him out as chief engineer to stand the project on its
feet. Shortly after he had laid the foundations for the reservoir dam,
he fell into the Boiling Water and was drowned."

Gardiner's humour was as dry as his professional specialty. "One," he
said, checking off the unfortunate Braithwaite on his fingers.

"Then Billy Sanderson took it--you remember Billy, in my