already began to look forward to to-morrow, when he
was to leave the office and go out upon the field of action with Bat
Truxton with an eagerness such as he had felt in the old college days
on the eve of the big Thanksgiving football game. Something of the
spirit which had made old William Conniston the dynamic, forceful man
of business which he had always been, and which had never before
manifested itself in old Conniston's son, suddenly awoke and shook
itself, active, eager, the fighting spirit of a fighting man.

At noon Billy Jordan pushed back his chair and got to his feet,
stretching his arms high over his head.

"Time to eat," he said, picking up his hat. "Coming, Mr. Conniston?"

"And you?" Conniston asked of Garton.

"Oh, me!" laughed Garton. "I don't travel that far. Not until my new
legs come. I had trouble with 'em," he explained. "Had to send 'em
back to Chicago. I'm hoping," with a whimsical smile, "that they don't
get sidetracked with the rest of our stuff on the P. C. & W. Go with
Billy, Conniston. He'll show you where to eat."

He whirled about on his stool, squirmed suddenly over on his stomach,
and lowered himself to the floor. Swinging the leathern-capped stumps
of his legs between his hands, which he placed palm down on the floor,
as a man may swing his body between crutches, he moved with short,
quick jerks into the room where the two cots were. Conniston turned
away abruptly.

With Billy Jordan he went nearly to the end of the short street before
they came to a rude lunch-counter, set under a canvas awning, where a
thin, nervous little man and his fat, stolid wife set canned goods and
coffee before them. Billy produced a yellow ticket to be punched,
Conniston paid his two bits, and they strolled back to the office.
When Conniston suggested that they take something to Garton, Billy
told him that a boy took him his meals.

There was so much to be got over that day, Conniston was so eager to
learn what details he could, Tommy Garton so eager to impart them,
that it was scarcely half-past twelve when the two men were back at
the long table going over maps and blue-prints. There were no
interruptions. An imprisoned house-fly buzzed monotonously and
sullenly against a pane of glass, his drone fitting into the heavy
silence on the face of the hot desert so that it became a part of it.

At four o'clock a handful of ragged children, barefooted, bronzed of
legs and hands and faces, scampered by o