ing which they had seen still
widening their eyes, and saw Mr. Crawford, Jimmie Kent, and a man whom
Conniston took to be Colton Gray.

"Hapgood," he answered, his eyes going back to the tumult of water
sweeping away the hopes of many men.

Mr. Crawford stepped forward and put his hand on Conniston's arm.

"We lose, my boy." His voice was as steady as it had been before, but
Conniston saw that his lips quivered despite the iron will set to keep
them steady. "And it could not be helped. And Conniston, my boy, my
son," his tones ringing out so that all there could hear, "I am proud
of you, and proud that I may call you my son!"

"Greek! Poor Greek!" Argyl was clinging to him, everything lost to her
but a great pity for him. "Is it to be only defeat, after all?"

"Defeat!"

He whirled about, his clenched fist raised high above his head, his
body rigid, his haggard face dead white. "Defeat!" He laughed, and
Argyl shivered at the strange tone in his laughter. "Defeat!" he cried
a third time. "We have five days!"

He was upon a boulder, standing where all men might see him, might
hear him. And his voice as it rang out through the roar of the leaping
water was sharp, clear, decisive, confident.

"Here you, Lark! Rush fifty men with crowbars to the Jaws! Make the
rest of your men hitch up to their plows and scrapers and rush them to
the Jaws as fast as their horses can run! Send me five good men.
Pete," as Lonesome Pete's red head surged forward through the crowd of
working-men, "come here!"

Pete came, and came running.

"Get on your horse. Kill him getting to Miss Argyl's Dam. Open the
gates there and turn the water into the canal. And for God's sake
hurry!"

And Lonesome Pete, with one wild yell of understanding, fled. The Lark
had swung about, calling upon his men by name, and as he called fifty
big, quick-eyed men leaped forward to fall quickly into the sections
bossed by the men whose names the Lark was shouting. The dirt and
stones had not ceased rolling and rattling down the rocky walls of the
canon when fifty men with picks and crowbars were rushing along its
banks to the Jaws. And as Greek Conniston hurled his orders at the
Lark and the Lark snatched them up, shouting to the men about him,
horses were hitched to plows and scrapers and driven, galloping, to
the Jaws.

The five men for whom Conniston had called and whom the Lark had
selected came to him quickly.

"Get into Mr. Crawford's buckboard," he