lars
must be spent in lining the spillway tunnel with a steel tube, and in
plugging the caverns of the hollow tooth with concrete. And in any one
of the ninety days the water might find its increasing way through the
"compost heap"; whereupon the devastating end would come swiftly.

It was disheartening from every point of view. Ballard knew nothing of
the financial condition of the Arcadia Company, but he guessed shrewdly
that Mr. Pelham would be reluctant to put money into work that could not
be seen and celebrated with the beating of drums. None the less, for the
safety of every future land buyer with holdings below the great dam, the
work must be done. Otherwise----

The chief engineer's clean-cut face was still wearing the harassed scowl
when Bromley, returning with the excursionists, saw it again.

"The grouch is all yours," said the cheerful one, comfortingly, "and you
have a good right and title to it. It's been a hard day for you. Is the
arm hurting like sin?"

"No; not more than it has to. But something else is. Listen, Bromley."
And he briefed the story of the hollow-tooth promontory for the
assistant.

"Great ghosts!--worse and more of it!" was Bromley's comment. Then he
added: "I've seen a queer thing, too, Breckenridge: the colonel has
moved out, vanished, taken to the hills."

"Out of Castle 'Cadia? You're mistaken. There is absolutely nothing
doing at the big house: I've been reconnoitring with the glass."

"No, I didn't mean that," was the qualifying rejoinder. "I mean the
ranch outfit down in the Park. It's gone. You know the best grazing at
this time of the year is along the river: well, you won't find hair,
hoof or horn of the colonel's cattle anywhere in the bottom lands--not a
sign of them. Also, the ranch itself is deserted and the corrals are all
open."

The harassed scowl would have taken on other added lines if there had
been room for them.

"What do you make of it, Loudon?--what does it mean?"

"You can search me," was the puzzled reply. "But while you're doing it,
you can bet high that it means something. To a man up a tall tree it
looks as if the colonel were expecting a flood. Why should he expect it?
What does he know?--more than we know?"

"It's another of the cursed mysteries," Ballard broke out in sullen
anger. "It's enough to jar a man's sanity!"

"Mine was screwed a good bit off its base a long time ago," Bromley
confessed. Then he came back to the present and its threa