o the trench. The remaining strip that joined the two
sections of canal had been blown out and now this was the final,
culminating assault. When this two hundred and fifty yards of ditch
line had been widened and deepened to correspond to the rest, water
would flow of summers in a small river from the dam down to the broad
acres of Perro Creek ranch.

Hour after hour the steady labour proceeded--plows ran; flat scrapers
and wheeled fresnos followed, scooped up the earth, bore it to the
banks above; horses tugged and strained; men toiled, pausing only to
thaw their feet and hands at fires burning by the ditch or to drain
great tin-cups of the scalding coffee that the cooks dipped from cans.
And steadily the excavation widened and deepened hour by hour, the
slope of the sides becoming apparent, the banks rising higher and the
ditch assuming its desired shape and size. At eleven o'clock the cooks
wheeled immense canisters of sliced beef and bread among the workmen,
who seized the food and ate it as they worked. At midnight the plows
were cutting near the bottom, and the work was going faster, as the
frost did not strike this deep into the soil. At one o'clock in the
morning, amid thickening snow, the last scraperfuls of dirt were going
out, while the engineers, with their long rules, were checking depths
and slopes.

"By golly, she's about done!" exclaimed Dave, who had been permitted
to remain up on this eventful night and who had been moving about,
here, there, and everywhere, in a great state of excitement. "By
golly, she is, Lee!"

"Yes, by golly; the ditch you helped me survey, too."

"By golly, yes!" He had forgotten that.

The last dirt moved with a rush. Then, even as the teams were dragging
the loads from the excavation, Carrigan passed to a foreman the word
that announced the end of work. It ran along the canal from mouth to
mouth, at first in a call but finally in a shout that swelled to a
roar of exultation. That roar rang over the snow and through the
night like the cry of an army which has gained a walled city.

"Done!" said Bryant, to himself.

Back to the camps trooped the teams and men by the flare of the
torches they carried in jubilation. Not a soul in all that company but
felt the triumph beating in Lee's heart. Finished, built! Despite
frost and snow they had driven the iron furrow through to the end, and
on time. Toil-weary though they were, their spirits were light. They
knew themselves fell