ck
and sledge--in fact, it couldn't be done. We shall have to use powder
and drill."

"Well, then," said I, "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll borrow the
tools from Tom Connor. He left a number of drills, you know, stored in
our blacksmith-shop, and he'll lend 'em to us I'm sure. One of us had
better drive back to the Big Reuben to-morrow morning and ask him."

"All right, Phil, we'll do so. My! I wish--it doesn't sound very
complimentary--but I wish your father would stay away another week. I
believe we can do this work in a week, and wouldn't it be grand if we
could have the stream headed off before he got home! But how about the
plowing, Phil? I was forgetting that."

"Why, the only plowing left," I replied, "is the potato land, and that,
fortunately, is not urgent; whereas the turning of this stream is
urgent--extremely urgent--and my opinion is that we ought to get at it.
Anyhow, we'll begin on it, and if my father thinks proper to set us to
plowing instead when he gets home--all right."

"Well, then, we'll begin on this work as soon as we can. And now, Phil,
let us get along home."

We had been seated on a big stone while this discussion was going on,
and were just about to rise, when Joe, suddenly laying his hand on my
arm, held up a warning finger. "Sh!" he whispered. "Don't speak. Don't
stir. I hear some one moving about!"

Squatting behind the rocks, I held my breath and listened, and
presently I heard distinctly, somewhere close by, the tinkle of two or
three chips of stone as they rolled down into the crater. Some one was
softly approaching the place where we sat.

Though to move was to risk detection, our anxiety to see who was there
was too strong to resist, so Joe, taking off his hat, slowly arose until
he was able to peep through a chink between two of the big fragments
which sheltered us. For a moment he stood there motionless, and then,
tapping me on the shoulder, he signed to me to stand up too.

Peeping between the stones, I saw, not fifty yards away, a man coming
carefully down the crater-wall on the side opposite from that by which
we ourselves had entered. In spite of his care, however, he every now
and then dislodged a little fragment of stone, which came clattering
down the steep slope. It was one of these that had given us notice of
his approach.

There was no mistaking the tall, gaunt figure, even though the light of
the sunset sky behind him made him look a veritable giant. It was