careless unfortunate and hurting him badly. It is a matter of watching the waves and the buoy, the men, the ropes and the engine, all together and taking advantage of the proper moment to hoist this massive weight of iron with a single crane from water to the deck of the steamer and secure it before it does damage. Once over the deck it comes down with a run, and then, seemingly in the very face and front of danger a dozen men run at it to throw heavy chocks of wood beneath its advancing bulk.

Then the anchor has to be broken loose, after the chain is hauled in, and sometimes this is a troublesome job. For the anchor will have sunk into the soft bottom, become mired and seaweeded and barnacled down to the bottom until the powerful crane is powerless to move it, only succeeding in listing the ship or straining tackle to the breaking point. So, then, with a doubled two-inch spring (rope hawser) the chain is made fast to the ship herself and very slowly and tentatively she backs away. Then something happens. Either the anchor breaks away, or the rope breaks or the chain breaks. In the former case nothing remains to be done but to hoist it on board -in the latter, things must stand from under, a cable or a chain breaking under

W

HEN an Apache runner brought word to the camp that the Colorado, sixty miles away, had gone on a midsummer rampage, Omstead, the Chief Engineer, loaded a couple of burros, and started at once for the danger point. Farley, his assistant, stood on the high lip of the canyon and waved him good bye. To be left even in temporary charge of the work at Spotted Snake brought a sense of freedom and power to the young engineer.

That night he lay before his tent and looked down into the deep red gorge where the big dam was to be built. Then he turned his wide, dreaming eyes to the East and saw the brown, flat floor of the Desert dropping down from his high peak into the bottom of a cup that stretched away unbroken to the furthest horizon. On that endless canvas he painted great green fields of alfalfa and Indian maize; fat, red barns and white farm houses and, in the dim distance, the shining spire of a church. To the ears of his imagination came the click of mowers in the fields; the laughter of children playing in the door-yards; the low of cattle; the whistle of a locomotive; all the familiar sounds of human life and human activity, breaking through the brooding silence of the desert.

It was a wonderful picture and as it vanished the boy sighed deeply. Would

to God that Omstead would leave the great work to him! Let him but build the huge dam which was to turn the Spotted Snake into a watering-can and all these future fields and farms and distant village would belong to him by right of creation. They would be his own-no matter who held the title deeds. He would be their father and the great dam their mother! Farley's eyes glanced down. again into the pit, where the big gray foundation blocks of steel and concrete were lying in their forms, with a look that was close to love-though none but an engineer will understand it.

The Colorado proved to be in one of her most stubborn and cunning moods and Omstead was detained far beyond his expected time. At the end of three weeks the Swede, who totel the grub out from the railroad to the camp on Spotted Snake, brought with him a letter for Farley. "I must stay here for three months at least," the Chief wrote, "and you'll have to put through the Spotted Snake dam on your own hook. It's up to you, my boy. Show me that my confidence is justified."

Sobered by the sudden sense of responsibilty, Farley carried the letter up with him to the headquarters tent at the top of the gorge. He felt a need of being alone. How much those few lines of good old Omstead's familiar scrawl

meant to him! This wonderful desert canvas was to be his, to paint on it such a picture as he was able. He closed his eyes and honestly took stock of himself and of his abilities for the great work in hand.

The plans were sound. He, himself, had drawn them under the watchful eye of Omstead. They had been studied and approved by the head of the whole Reclamation Service. Remained, then, the business of fighting it out with the treacherous river and with the great, still, patient, merciless Desert-of sinking the foundation stones down into bedrock, of tying the concrete blocks together with bars and braces of steel, of protecting the soft cement and gravel, until it hardened and the mouth of the gorge was blocked forever by a single solid monolith-a man-made mountain which should endure when the everlasting hills had been worn and shaken and cracked by the frost into bits of debris.

In the sheer bottom of the canyon the Crooked Snake was running along in a thirty-foot creek of noisy water-a thing to laugh at. Yet Farley knew that it was this same river which had carved the wide gash six hundred feet deep in the granite and he gave it all proper respect. He knew most of the tricks of these deceitful desert rivers and what was beyond him fell well within the experience of McGuire, the big Irish foreman of the cement workers, for "Mac" had been in Arizona as a gold prospector for thirty years before the first big irrigation dam was built. The two hundred Italian laborers Omstead had sent over from Flagstaff were sober, experienced, steady men. Summing everything up, as carefully as he was able and making modest allowance for his own comparative youth, it was Farley's sane and confident conclusion that he and his men were equal to the work. He would write and teli Omstead not to worry.

When he lifted his eyes, the moona huge pearl, full of soft irridescent lights and colors-was slowly rising into a vivid purple sky, pricked out with yellow stars. In the distance a coyote lifted a gaunt black muzzle against its disc and howled mournfully. Nearer by, a tall man, with a long white beard, carrying nothing in his hands, was coming across

the desert floor towards the camp. He moved slowly, with long, easy steps. Presently he disappeared under the shoulder of the peak at the top of which stood the tents. An instant later he sat down beside the fire, calm and unpanting from the steep climb.

"How do you do?" said the stranger. "Good evening," answered Farley, as if he were greeting an old acquaintance. "How's the folks?"

"Fine, when I heard from them last. How's yours?"

"I'm beginning to get kind a-worried about 'em. I can't figger what's delayin' ’em so long. I been a-waitin'-let's see-" the old man stopped, laid one forefinger on the end of the other and pulled his eyebrows far down, as if making a puzzling calculation-"let's see, it must be pretty nigh thirty year."

Farley looked sharply across at the ancient. "That's a long time," he said. "Where your folks coming from?”

"Through from Omaha. They lef' there April 3, in the year of '78. I'm thinkin' they'll likely be along in the

mornin'.

The caller shrugged his shoulders. "I haven't built jest what you'd call a house yit," he said, deprecatingly. "Didn't seem worth while, till the folks comes. The wife might not like the place I picked out," he added by way of explanation.

"But where do you live?"

The old man waved his hand out across the Desert. "Over there about thirteen mile, where the Snake makes a sharp turn to the left. It's only a hole in the rocks I'm occcp'pyin' temporary 'till the folks comes. You haven't seen 'em, by eny chanst goin' by here today, hev ye?"

"No. I haven't seen them. I'm sorry." "They'd be two schooners," the old man persisted. "Six cattle to a wagon. My wife, she was a tall yeller-haired young gal. They'd be two little boys along-one about six, 'tother two years older. An' my brother, a tall strappin', red-headed young feller. Ef you see 'em please an' let 'em know I'm gettin' most

"The old voice sank into a harsh, frightened whisper. "The Desert. She won't stand for no interferin' with her plans."

"All right," the young man answered, humoring his strange guest's madness. "I'll keep it a secret."

"Sometimes I think she's got them folks of mine," the old man went on. "Sometimes I most know she has. She's got everybody that ever come around here tryin' to change things she's got fixed the way she wants 'em. You be careful."

"Yes," said Farley.

"Keep yere eye peeled continual. The Desert, she's slow, but once she hears what yere doin' she'll lay fer ye. Remember, she ain't in no hurry. She's got all the time they is."

"Yes. Good night. Thank you." "Poor old devil!" said Farley to himself, as he rolled himself in his blanket and lay down to sleep. He was very young and very full of his great opportunity Next morning he showed Omstead's letter to McGuire and he and the big foreman had a long talk about the work.

"We'll do the thrick, Mister Farley," the Irishman pledged himself. "It's fer you to furnish th' papers an' do th' fig. urin' an' me an' me bold buckos av dagoes'll see that the stuff's laid right. Who was the auld gint callin' on ye lasht night?"

"A poor old loony, who's been waiting for his people to come across the plains

for thirty years. He warned me not to let the Desert learn we are building a dam. Said she'd get me sure if I did."

"I

A troubled look showed on McGuire's strong face. "Heh!" he snorted. don't know as he's so blamed crazy, after all." Turning, he looked out over the silent, motionless face of the Desert. "Go on out there four or five mile," he said, "and look at the bones piled up alongside the trail. She got thim all right! And she gits most ivrybody that stays out here. long enough."

Farley laughed and turned to the plans. Half an hour later McGuire was bossing a big gang of pickmen who were cutting a channel and pit for a small turbine along the edge of the river bed. Farley was going to force the Spotted Snake to furnish power for the grinders and cement mixers-to make the river practically dam itself. He was standing on the broad top of one of the foundation blocks, when an Italian, stepping out into the stream to get a better swing for his pick, threw up both arms and, with a scream, disappeared beneath the surface of the water. McGuire heard the scream and came running across from the opposite side, throwing off his coat as he came. An instant later he dived into the river at the point where the man had gone down. Nothing but bubbles rose to the surface and Farley, glancing from the river to the bank, saw the 200 Italians gathered together into a frightened crowd, crossing themselves and whispering excitedly. He knew their temper and was certain that with the foreman, as well as one of their own number gone, it would be impossible to keep them at the work. Meanwhile something must be done for McGuire. Calling to the men, he fastened a rope about his own body and was about to spring into the stream when there came a strangled hail from the big foreman, who was clinging to a splintered rock at the edge of the water, fifty feet below.

Farley hurried to the rescue. "It's a quicksand," he gasped. "A week ago it was solid bottom. The dago's gone. I never even got my hands on him. Look!"

Farley turned to see the Italians throwing down their picks and starting to climb up the side of the gorge to the

camp.

"If they quit now we'll never git 'em back," said McGuire, staggering to his feet. He roared out a fierce command. The men stopped, hesitatingly, and McGuire ran to the foot of the cliff, ordering them to come down.

"Giovanni could not swim. The current carried him away," he explained. "Come back to work."

Still they stood still and one of the men began to talk to them in shrill, excited Italian. McGuire did not wait. Rushing up the steep path he seized the spokesman by the shoulder and half threw him down to the ledge below.

"Go down wid ye!" he bellowed so fiercely that the men sullenly gave way and climbed back to the bottom. "Tell 'em we'll git th' body," the foreman added to the interpreter, "and don't let anny av thim put his foot into th' wather."

66

'Twas a close call fer me an' fer th' Spotted Snake Dam," he explained to Farley a moment later. "An' 'twas th' dam saved me. Th' sand had me gripped tight an' but fer me foot hitting th' solid cement 'twould have me yit."

There was little work done that day. The men spent more than half their time in talking together and shaking their fists. at the angry water that lapped the blocks.

""Tis no use dragging fer the body," McGuire said in the evening as he and the engineer lay before the tents at the top of the gorge. "We must wait until the dam gits high enough to shut off all th' wather and we kin git at the sand there below where the canal runs in. An' 'twill be hard holdin' th' min in line until that's done."

Farley had bidden the men good night and was about to turn in, when, looking up, he was startled to see sitting at the fire close by, his gray, old visitor of the previous evening.

"What did I tell you?" the old man asked, an uncanny smile on his bearded, wrinkled face.

Farley frowned at him, angrily. "She's begun, hasn't she?" the old man went on. "Got one of you this morning."

"What do you know about it?" Farley asked sharply.

"She told me!" He nodded his head at the Desert. "I knowed all about it before noon. And you ain't never going to find the body. Say"-the old man broke off

sharply-"you didn't see my family going by here this morning, did you?"

The question soothed Farley's rising irritation by recalling the fact of the old man's utter irresponsibility. "No, I'm sorry to say I haven't seen them. Good night," he said and went into the tent.

Everything went finely for the next. fortnight. McGuire and his men caught some of Farley's enthusiasm and worked long hours uncomplainingly to the end that the dam might be made against any emergency. Then one morning, an Italian workman, stepping up to the surface of a dry block which lay hot in the sun, gave a shrill yell of terror and started to run, clambering on hands and knees up the steep path to the sleeping-tents. The engineer stopped just long enough to kill, with a single shot from his revolver, the big sluggish copper-head which had bitten the man. Already McGuire was hot in pursuit of the terrified workman. Farley followed as quickly as he could. On the top of the gorge they caught the man, hysterical with fright, threw him. down and cut away his trousers. Two little pin-points of blood showed where the fangs of the snake had sunk home. Without hesitation McGuire joined them with a quick cut of his clasp-knife, while the Italian cried out in pain and new terHis cries summoned his countrymen from the dam and they clustered about, watching the spurt of blood from the open cut and talking again excitedly.

ror.

"Get the whiskey, McGuire," Farley ordered, handing the foreman his keys. "We must fill him up."

"Pietro'll be all right in a few minutes," Farley explained to the interpreter. “Tell the men he was bitten by a snake, but there's no danger."

Half a pint of raw whiskey slipped down the throat of the wounded man before Farley called a halt. "Get the men to work, Mac," he told the foreman. "I'll stay here with him.”

For an hour Pietro lay stupid and silent from the effects of the liquor. Then he suddenly roused and began to toss about, writhing as if in agony. Farley ran to the head of the path. "Mac!" he called down into the pit. There was no answer. The workmen were sitting and standing about in groups. Plainly there was no work being done.