m
five hundred more men, if there were no unforeseen obstacles set in
his way, no smashing accidents, he would see the ditches in
Rattlesnake Valley filled with water by the last day of September. He
had figured on everything, he had sat late into many a night after the
grind of a twelve or fifteen hour day, frowning over details,
calculating to the cubic yard what he must do each and every day,
going over his calculations with a care which missed no detail. And he
knew that he could play this game safely and win--if they would only
let him alone! And still he knew that it was anybody's game. Could
Swinnerton block him in some way which he could not foresee, could
Swinnerton make him lose a single day's work, could Swinnerton steal
his five hundred men as he had stolen men in the past, it was
Swinnerton's game.

Brayley was driving the work in the Valley now. Tommy Garton had his
new legs from Chicago, and from the seat of a buckboard, sometimes
from the ground where his crutches sank into the soft sand, he advised
Brayley and watched the work. Conniston was in the mountains, and the
Lark with fifty men was with him.

Once in Deep Creek, with the site of Dam Number One before him,
Conniston studied long before he gave the order to the Lark to begin
work. Here were the stakes of Truxton's survey, here were the
foundations already laid, here was a nature-made dam-site. He had not
needed the stakes to show him the spot. And still he hesitated.

Here, where plans had been made for the chief dam, Deep Creek belied
its name. It ran clear and untroubled over a gentle slope, widening
out until from edge to edge of the water it measured close upon forty
feet. Still farther back upon either hand the sides of the canon stood
in perpendicular walls thirty feet high. Above the site the walls
widened gradually until they formed a pocket, flat-bottomed, half a
mile wide. Still farther up the creek's course these natural walls
grew steadily closer together until perhaps three-eighths of a mile
deeper in the canon they drew so close together that there was
scarcely more than the width of an ordinary room between them.

It was this point--the Lark had been here with Bat Truxton when the
survey was made and called it the "Jaws"--that inspired Conniston's
hesitation. Here was a second dam-site, and not until he had studied
both long and carefully, with a keen eye to advantage and
disadvantage, did he give the word to begin work.

If