the wheel,
dragging from the casing the cable. The string of tools, jerked from
their socket, probably lay at the bottom of the well two thousand feet
down.

Dave heard a groan. He moved toward the sound. A man lay on a sand
hummock, washed up by the tide.

"Badly hurt?" asked Dave.

"I've been drowned intirely, swallowed by a flood and knocked galley-west
for Sunday. I don't know yit am I dead or not. Mither o' Moses, phwat was
it hit us?"

"The dam must have broke."

"Was the Mississippi corked up in the dom canon?"

Bob bore down upon the scene at the head of the Jackpot contingent. He
gave a whoop at sight of the wrecked derrick and engine. "Kindlin' wood
and junk," was his verdict. "Where's Dug and his gang?"

Dave relieved the half-drowned man of his revolver. "Here's one. The rest
must be either in the arroyo or out in the draw."

"Scatter, boys, and find 'em. Look out for them if they're hurt. Collect
their hardware first off."

The water by this time had subsided. Released from the walls of the
arroyo, it had spread over the desert. The supply in the reservoir was
probably exhausted, for the stream no longer poured down in a torrent.
Instead, it came in jets, weakly and with spent energy.

Hart called. "Come here and meet an old friend, Dave."

Sanders made his way, ankle deep in water, to the spot from which that
irrepressibly gay voice had come. He was still carrying the revolver he
had taken from the Irishman.

"Meet Shorty, Dave. Don't mind his not risin' to shake. He's just been
wrastlin' with a waterspout and he's some wore out."

The squat puncher glared at his tormentor. "I done bust my laig," he said
at last sullenly.

He was wet to the skin. His lank, black hair fell in front of his tough,
unshaven face. One hand nursed the lacerated leg. The other was hooked by
the thumb into the band of his trousers.

"That worries us a heap, Shorty," answered Hart callously. "I'd say you
got it comin' to you."

The hand hitched in the trouser band moved slightly. Bob, aware too late
of the man's intention, reached for his six-shooter. Something flew past
him straight and hard.

Shorty threw up his hands with a yelp and collapsed. He had been struck
in the head by a heavy revolver.

"Some throwin', Dave. Much obliged," said Hart. "We'll disarm this bird
and pack him back to the derrick." They did. Shorty almost wept with rage
and pain and impotent malice. He cursed steadily and fluently. He m