ires were down. What
went on outside the limits of the camp's snow-drifted horizon its
dwellers knew not--nor for the moment cared. Work was the only
thought. With hastily constructed snow-plows roads had been broken
among the tents and shacks as soon as the weather allowed, and
afterward broad paths made to the working ground. The section of undug
canal was now scraped bare. There, sheltered by tents and warmed by
sagebrush fires, men bored in the iron-like earth powder-holes in rows
that exactly aligned the canal. On the morning of the fifth day a
first stretch of fifty yards was blown out, whereupon teams and
scrapers were rushed into the ragged cavity to deepen and clear the
ditch before the soil froze anew. This was at the north end. In the
afternoon one hundred yards at the south end went up in a blast and
crews from the main camp fell upon this area.

That night the sky clouded over again. All the next day snow came down
steadily. The workmen played cards in the mess tents and waited.
Carrigan busied himself at accounts and waited. Bryant waited, with
impatience and anxiety gnawing at his heart. There were six hundred
yards and more unexcavated, and but three days of his time remained.

The snow ceased at nightfall and work was instantly resumed by aid of
the torches; again the desperate scraping of snow, bundled men at
fires and sheltered by windbreaks, the drilling of holes in the frozen
ground, the reliefs every two hours, the thawing of nipped fingers and
toes and noses. All night hot food and boiling coffee were served at
intervals to the cold and hungry labourers. At nine o'clock next
morning two hundred yards of dirt went spraying into the air, with the
subsequent struggle in the long hole: fresnos bearing forth what earth
was loose and what the plows broke out; the horses, blinded by the
glare of snow, staggering forward under curse and lash; the men
toiling in a sort of grim fury. A maximum of effort finished one
hundred and fifty yards more by eleven o'clock. Carrigan ordered all
work to stop until nine next morning.

"The men are 'all in'," he told Lee. "We'll crack this last nut
to-morrow."

"But what if it sets in to snow? More than two hundred and fifty yards
left to do, and only to-morrow and the day after to work."

"We'll have to risk it."

"Will your powder hold out?"

"Yes." He regarded Bryant keenly. "Say, what you need isn't
information but sleep. You worked all day yesterday, and al