ng to stress of
weather or insuperable natural difficulties. As a matter of fact, even
with the fire going, it's practically impossible to keep the frost out
of the stone."

Nasmyth looked up sharply. "The work goes on. There will be no
stoppage of any kind. We can't afford it. The thing already has cost
us two or three times as much as I had anticipated."

Gordon looked amused, though he said nothing further. Nasmyth was up
against it, with his back to the wall, but that fact had roused all
the resolution there was in him, and he had shown no sign of
flinching. It was evident that he must fight or fail ignominiously,
and he had grown grimmer and more determined as each fresh obstacle
presented itself while the strenuous weeks rolled on. There was
silence for a few minutes, and then Mattawa grinned at Waynefleet.

"I guess you've got to keep that rock from freezing, and the fire was
kind of low when I last looked out," he remarked.

With a frown of resignation Waynefleet rose wearily and went out, for
it was his part to keep a great fire going day and night. This was one
of the few things he could do, and, though it entailed a good deal of
sturdy labour with the axe, he had, somewhat to his comrades'
astonishment, accomplished it reasonably well. In another minute or
two Nasmyth followed him, and when the rest of the men came clattering
down from the shanty, higher up the gully, they set to work.

There was just light enough to see by, and no more, for, though the
frost was bitter, heavy snow-clouds hung about the hills. Shingle and
boulders were covered with frozen spray, and long spears of ice
stretched out into the pool below the fall. Now and then a block of
ice drove athwart them with a detonating crackle. The pool was lower
than it had been in summer, and the stream frothed in angry eddies in
the midst of it, where shattered masses of rock rent by the blasting
charges lay as they had fallen. It was essential that the rock should
be cleared away, and a great redwood log with a rounded foot let into
a socket swung by wire rope guys above the pool. Another wire rope
with a pair of iron claws at the end of it ran over a block at the
head of the log to the winch below, and the primitive derrick and its
fittings had cost Nasmyth a great deal of money, as well as a week's
arduous labour.

They swung the apparatus over the pile of submerged rock, and, when
the claws fell with a splash, they hove at the winch, two o