"O McGuire!" he called again. It was the interpreter who answered. "A tink-a Mista MicGoire not feelin's vara well," he said, with a leer.

Close to the bottom of the path he saw the tall figure of the foreman stretched out, his head resting on a cement block. In an instant he knew what had happened. The whiskey! McGuire's one fault had proved too much for him. "Tell Nelson to come up," he called. Nelson was an old mining prospector who was working as sub-foreman under McGuire.

Farley dared stay no longer from the side of the stricken Pietro in the tent. Hurrying back he found the man's body stiff and rigid. He was rubbing the tightly taut arms when Nelson put his head through the tent-door.

"God! He's dead!" Nelson burst out at a glance. "And Mac's drunk down there in the ditch. We'll never be able to hold the dagoes. They're coming up here now."

Farley, a revolver in his hand, stepped out to meet them. "Tell the men that Pietro has died from the poison of the snake and that they must all be careful," he ordered the interpreter.

An instant later a hundred black fists were brandished towards him and in some of them he saw the glint of steel. "They-a all so scair-red!" the interpreter explained. "They-a work here not any more-go right-a away. It is-what-a you say too much dangerous here."

Farley threw his revolver into sight, and started to speak, but Nelson, speaking from the tent door, interrupted him. "Let 'em go, boss," he pleaded. "Even if Mac was sober he couldn't hold 'em now. And they'd be no good, anyhow." As Farley faced the angry, gesticulating mob, the blood sang in his ears. He must protect the dam. He must justify Omstead's confidence in him.

"The men must go back to work," he told the interpreter. "They are under contract. They cannot leave now. They could never get safely across the desert, anyhow."

"Let 'em go, boss," Nelson whispered from the tent. "The Desert has 'em bluffed. Some of 'em's got guns. Don't you take no chances."

swarm of angry, buzzing bees about the interpreter. Farley turned to speak with Nelson.

"The dagoes are plum locoed," the old prospector urged. "I've seen men that way before. They ain't no stoppin' 'em.

Even as he spoke the mob broke and its members ran down the gorge and on into the desert like a herd of stampeded cattle.

"God!" Farley cried. "They'll die out there like flies."

"Joe Rocco knows the way to the railroad," Nelson answered. "Anyway we can't do anything. They're like crazy men. We ought to go down and look after Mac."

Farley looked on, half way between anger and disgust, while Nelson threw a bucket of cold water over the prostrate figure of the big foreman. McGuire sprang unsteadily to his feet and stared about him. "Where's the men?" he faltered.

"They're gone," Farley answered bitterly. "Come up to the tents and go to sleep."

Supported on either side, McGuire clambered up the path and threw himself down in the nearest tent, again overcome by the drunken stupor. Farley sat beside Nelson outside and looked down at the desert, from the face of which strange mists and vapors were rising. He was discouraged, utterly disheartened. There seemed nothing to say; nothing to do.

"Go to bed, Nelson," he said, finally. "I'm not sleepy."

For an hour he sat alone, brooding over the ruin of all his hopes. The desert mists seemed to take the form of gray monsters, mocking at his helplessness. Suddenly he sprang to his feet and woke the sleeping Nelson.

"I'll be back within forty-eight hours," he said, explaining his plan. "It's our only hope.'

The prospector pleaded with him not to undertake it, but the young man was firm. At 10 o'clock he started away across the sand to the West, leading a loaded burro. "I know the way," he insisted, "and it's only twenty-five miles."

At the foot of the bluff he was startled by the sound of a shrill, mirthless laugh. To the right rose up the tall figure of the old man with the long white beard.

"Heh-he!" he chuckled. "What did I tell you? So she's got you, too, heh?"

Instinctively Farley drew his revolver. His instinct was to put this prophet of ill omen out of the way forever. But shame that he should feel anger at the ravings of an insane man caught him in time. "You keep out of my way after this," he almost shouted, hurrying on.

"All right!" the chuckle came back to him. "All right! The Desert's got him, too."

All the next day McGuire lay in the tent cursing his own weakness. Nelson had explained Farley's plan to him and the foreman laughed bitterly as he heard it. "We'll never see him again, either," he said.

But the foreman was mistaken. On the second morning he and Nelson, staring off into the West, made out a big party moving against the horizon. Watching closely they saw presently that Farley was in front, riding a pinto pony and behind and around him rode and walked all the members of an Indian village.

"I got permission of the agent for the men to leave the reservation," Farley explained presently, "and there's 250 of the braves here ready to work for $1 a day. They wouldn't come without their families. So we'll have 600 people to feed from now till the dam's finished. I wired from the agency to have our supplies doubled. I don't suppose they know much about cement working," he added with a laugh.

"They can wheel barrows and do the tamping, Mr. Farley," McGuire said. earnestly, "and, by -, we'll get the dam done now if I have to do it with my own hands."

That evening the old hermit of the Spotted Snake came slipping up again to the camp and Farley was in such good humor with himself that he received the croaker with a smile.

"I guess I've got the Desert beat now," he said. "She'll have a hard time scaring these Apaches."

"Don't you be too sure," the old man answered, wagging his head sagely. "She's got plenty of time. Nobody ever got the best of her yet. You want to look out." Farley felt a sudden return of his un

reasoning anger against the old man. "I told you not to come snooping around here any more," he snapped.

"Yes, I know," the old fellow quavered, "but I jest wanted to know if you seen my folks while you was away."

"No, I'm sorry to say I didn't," Farley answered, ashamed, as he always was, of his foolish heat. "If you'd tell me your name," he went on, "I'd make some inquiries."

"Gray's my name Josiah Gray. Wife's name is Nellie. You know the song a feller made up about her, heh?" His shrill, quavering voice rose in the wailing chorus of the old ballad: "O my darlin' Nellie Gray, they have taken her away!

An' I'll never see my darlin' any more!"

"O quit it!" Farley broke in. There was something about the pathetic old figure, wailing that song in its cracked voice, which made the awful loneliness and emptiness of the Desert shut down on him like a trap. "I'm going to turn. in," he added, more gently. "You'd better stay here all night."

"No," the old man answered. "I don't never stay away from home all night. She might come along and miss me. Good bye." He started down the slope, then turned and waved a warning finger at the engineer. "You want to look out,' he whispered, shrilly.

When Farley awoke the next morning he could not lift his head from the roll of blankets. His body was full of dull pains and thousand pound weights seemed fastened to his feet. "A touch of fever," McGuire said. "You must stay out of the sun. I'll get the Indians to work. Don't you worry."

That evening McGuire reported that his new helpers had taken hold well and that the work was progressing finely. "Good, I'll be up tomorrow," Farley answered. But the next morning the fever still held him and McGuire absolutely refused to let him leave the shade of the tent. "I know this fever well," the foreman said. "It's nothing to be scared at if you stay out of the sun. Maybe it'll hang on for two or three weeks. But quinine'll cure it if you don't try to get up."

Farley fought against confinement, but

McGuire's reports were always encouraging and he felt it his duty not to take unnecessary chances. Several times the foreman and Nelson helped him out to the edge of the canyon after the sun had gone down and showed him the broad gray top of the dam rising higher and higher. Already more than a hundred feet was in place. The canal which carried the shrunken stream around the dam-site, while the foundation was being laid, had been filled up and the water was backing up behind the cement wall. "It's a forty foot head there now," McGuire said. "We can keep her down to that level with the spillways easy."

Farley's anxiety to be out only kept him in his bed the longer. He had his tent moved close to the sheer edge of the gorge, so that, by pulling aside the flap, he could look down at the work. Often he spent a good part of a sleepless night lying there and praying that nothing might happen until he was able to be out again. Once or twice, looking out over the still yellow surface of the Desert, he caught a glimpse of a tall figure, with a long white beard. And two mornings McGuire told him that old man Gray had been over to see him and had been driven away for fear of annoying the sick man.

It was middle August and Farley had been nearly a month in the tent. From down in the gorge came up the dull thud-thud of the tampers, driving home the wet cement. McGuire's harsh voice sounded occasionally as he ordered the gangs about. It was wonderful, Farley thought, that the Apaches had proved such steady workmen and so quick to learn.

"The best gang I ever bossed," McGuire boasted to him frequently. "The sun never gets too hot for 'em and eight hours don't mean a thing."

The half opened flap of his tent cast a heavy shadow over his couch. Now as he looked a second shadow fell across the first and the light seemed strangely dimmed. He pulled the flap out of the way with a quick, nervous gesture. In the northern sky, unclouded for months, a thick mass of black vapor showed. Farley sprang to his unsteady feet. "It's the rains!" he cried to himself. He felt strangely light on his feet and his head.

seemed a balloon, ready to float off into the air. He put up both hands to hold it in place. In his ears, coming from a great distance, sounded the shrill maniacal laugh of old man Gray. "The Desert's got you!" the old hermit shrieked at him. "She'll tear up your dam by the roots!"

Farley knew what he must do. Before those clouds broke he must reach them and drive them away. They were far off. He must hurry. On the way he'd strangle that old devil with the long white beard. He started off at a wild run along the edge of the canyon, the cool rain-drops beating in his hot face. as he ran.

Down below McGuire had been watching the black clouds all day long. He thought it wise to conceal the danger from Farley as long as possible. Indeed, he did not consider the danger great. For a hundred and twenty-five feet the cement was hardened in its place. Above that was twenty feet still drying in its forms. There was hardly a possibility that the flood would go above a hundred feet, what with the water which would be carried away through the spillways. As an extra precaution also he decided to reopen the old canal. All hands were working like mad and in his excitement time passed almost unnoticed. Presently the storm broke. Even before that the water in the bottom of the canyon had begun to swell in volume.

"Go up and tell the boss we've got everything fixed," he ordered Nelson.

When the assistant foreman got back, out of breath from his climb to the top of the canyon, there was nearly a hundred feet behind the dam, with both the spillways and the old canal running full. McGuire was almost beside himself with fear. The news brought by Nelson did not reassure him.

"The tent's empty," the assistant cried. "The boss is gone!"

McGuire did not hesitate. Calling the Apache interpreter he ordered him to pick out a dozen of the best trailers and come with him in an instant search for the missing Farley.

"The boy's out of his head," he told Nelson. "We'll go after him. You stay here and do what you can."

McGuire had no trouble in finding the

heavy footsteps in the sand at the top of the gorge. He and the Indians were starting when Nelson called up to them. "The water's dropping. Down to ninety feet now." It was true. As swiftly as it had risen the great flood was falling. But McGuire did not wait to investigate the mystery The Indians had already started their long trot up the side of the canyon and he panted heavily behind.

It seemed to McGuire that he could run no further when the man in front yelled and waved a hand ahead. Hurrying on he looked down presently from a high point into a deep where the flood had begun to cut a new channel for itself. And there in its bottom was Farley, fighting the water with his bare hands as if it had been a wild beast. Furiously he was scooping up the sand and throwing it into the widening cut in the side wall, while on the dry bank beside him lay old Gray, shrieking with maniacal laughter.

McGuire took in the situation at a glance. The rising river had reached the top of an old filled up channel and had begun to sweep out the loose debris which filled it. In a few hours it would

have cut a new path for itself and left the Spotted Snake dam standing high and dry, with no water behind it. Fortunately the top of the bluff where they stood was covered with boulders and smaller stones. First of all he and two of the men rushed down and, by force, carried the delirious Farley out of the water. Then the whole party, working like demons, rolled great rocks down into the deep, but narrow, cut already made by the Snake. The space between the stones McGuire filled with his own clothing and with such scraps of cloth as were worn by the Indians. For fifty feet they filled the gulley solidly. The rush of water was blocked. Again the current boiled down the canyon towards the dam. But the rain had stopped. The flood had reached its height and was falling.

Farley, weak, but conscious, looked up as the half-naked foreman staggered into his sight. "What's the matter, Mac?" he asked, feebly.

"Nothing's the matter, Mister Farley," the big Irishman answered. "You've saved the Spotted Snake dam, that's all."