f the torches, the downpour
began again, more pitilessly than ever.

Its discouraging effect upon the already exhausted men was instantly
apparent. A dozen of them at once quitted work and doggedly sat down in
the mud of the embankment. Two or three others, reckless of everything
but their own suffering, stretched themselves at full length to sleep
where they were--too weary and hopeless, now, even to seek the less
uncomfortable spots in which to rest their worn-out bodies.

"Six hours more," said Duncan, looking at his watch. "Only six hours
between us and triumph. Only six hours--and we must lose all, simply
because the men are done up."

"We'll do it yet," answered young Temple.

"We never can. Those fellows are done for, I tell you. I know the
symptoms. They've lost their _morale_, lost the ambition for success.
I've seen soldiers fall in precisely that way, too far gone even to
shelter themselves from a cannonade."

For the first time in his life, Guilford Duncan realized that there is
such a thing as the Impossible. For the first time, he recognized the
fact that there may be things which even courage and determination
cannot achieve.

The simple fact was that the long strain had at last begun to tell, even
upon his resolute spirit. For three days and nights now he had not
slept. For three days and nights he had not sat down. For three days and
nights he had been wading in water and struggling in mud, and exhausting
all his resources of mind and character in efforts to stimulate the men
to continued endeavor.

He was playing for a tremendous stake, as we know. His career, his
future, all that he had ever dreamed of of ambition, hung upon success
or failure in this undertaking, and now at last, and in spite of his
heroic struggle, failure stared him in the face.

And apart from these considerations of self-interest, there were other
and higher things to be thought of. If he failed now, an enterprise must
be lost in which he had labored for a year to induce others to invest
millions. If he failed, the diversion of this railroad from its original
course must become an accomplished fact, to the ruin of his adopted city
and the paralysis of growth in all that region, for perhaps ten years to
come. Thus his own career, the millions of other men's money, which had
been risked upon faith in his power to achieve, and, worst of all, the
development of all this fair, but very backward region--all of good to
others,