tenings: "I'd
give a month's pay if we had this crazy city crowd off of our hands and
out of the Park."

"We'll get rid of it pretty early. I've settled that with Mr. Pelham. To
get his people back to Denver by breakfast-time to-morrow, the trains
will have to leave here between eight and eight-thirty."

"That is good news--as far as it goes. Will you tell Mr. Pelham about
the rotten tooth--to-night, I mean?"

"I certainly shall," was the positive rejoinder; and an hour later, when
the evening luncheon in the big mess-tent had been served, and the crowd
was gathered on the camp mesa to wait for the fireworks, Ballard got the
president into the bungalow office, shut the door on possible
interruptions, and laid bare the discouraging facts.

Singularly enough, as he thought, the facts seemed to make little
impression upon the head of Arcadia Irrigation. Mr. Pelham sat back in
Macpherson's home-made easy-chair, relighted his cigar, and refused to
be disturbed or greatly interested. Assuming that he had not made the
new involvement plain enough, Ballard went over the situation again.

"Another quarter of a million will be needed," he summed up, "and we
shouldn't lose a single day in beginning. As I have said, there seems to
be considerable seepage through the hill already, with less than half of
the working head of water behind the dam. What it will be under a full
head, no man can say."

"Oh, I don't know," said the president, easily. "A new boat always leaks
a little. The cracks, if there are any, will probably silt up in a few
days--or weeks."

"That is a possibility," granted the engineer; "but it is scarcely one
upon which we have a right to depend. From what the secretary of the
company said in his speech to-day, I gathered that the lands under the
lower line of the ditch will be put upon the market immediately; that
settlers may begin to locate and purchase at once. That must not be
done, Mr. Pelham."

"Why not?"

"Because any man who would buy and build in the bottom lands before we
have filled that hollow tooth would take his life in his hands."

The president's smile was blandly genial.

"You've been having a pretty strenuous day of it, Mr. Ballard, and I can
make allowances. Things will look brighter after you have had a good
night's rest. And how about that arm? I didn't quite understand how you
came to hurt it. Nothing serious, I hope?"

"The arm is all right," said Ballard, brusquely. Mr. Pelham'