els, the head of which had been knocked in, lift his cup high
above his head, laughing, and then put it to his lips. Then he
understood while he did not understand: one of the barrels which
should have contained water was nearly full of raw whisky!

Conniston did not believe that there were a dozen sober men in camp.
He had recognized the big man standing at the barrel. It was Ben the
Englishman. Mundy and Peters, obviously drunk, stood close to him. The
little San-Franciscan was standing in the body of the wagon, trying to
put his two short arms about the barrel. He had the grotesque look of
a dwarf embracing a fat wife.

He could look to no one for help. These two hundred men--men whose
hard, brutish natures had known nothing of the excitation of alcohol
for weeks, perhaps months, whose brains were now inflamed with it,
whose reckless spirits were unchained by it--would listen to words
from him, from any man in the world, as much as they would listen to
the sighing of the breeze which was beginning to stir the scanty
desert vegetation. And above all other considerations, above even the
half-formed wonder, "How came it there?" rose the knowledge which
would not down, _he and he alone was responsible for what these men
did_.

He turned away with white, wretched face, and strode back toward the
tent. He must get away from them for a little, he must try to think,
he must find something to do. And as he turned a yell of derisive
triumph from two hundred throats went booming and thundering out
across the desert.

Until now he had been merely grief-stricken that such chaos should
have sprung into being under his hand where there should be only order
and efficiency. Now there surged into his heart a flaming, scorching
rage. The whiteness left his face, and it went a dull, burning red. He
prayed dumbly for the might of a Nero that he might wreck the
vengeance of a Nero. No words came, but he cursed them in his heart.
He saw their blackened fingers choking the life out of the last hope
of success of the Great Work, and he longed with an infinite longing
to have those yelling throats in the grip of his own two hands that he
might tear at them.

He stalked on blindly, his back turned upon them, his ears filled with
laughter and shouting, cursing and discordant singing, his brain so
teeming with a score of broken thoughts that no single thought
remained clear. He told himself that this thing was a nightmare, that
it could n