rks.

The men far out on the deadwater, pushing against the bars of the
capstan, heard the tumult on the shore and shouted the chorus of their
challenging chantey.

Between Lida and the men who were circling the fire there was a veil of
mist, and in the halation her champions loomed with heroic stature. She
did not want them to suppose that she was indifferent; courage of her
own leaped in her. The campaign which she had waged with them had given
her an experience which had fortified the spirit of the Flaggs. She
stepped forth from her little tent and walked down and stood in the edge
of the light cast by the camp fire. They cheered her, and she put aside
her qualms and her fears as best she was able.

When she was back in her tent she did not shield her ears from the
challenging chantey, as she had done before, and she heard with
fortitude the vociferous pledges of faith in the morrow.

The dawn came so sullenly and so slowly that the day seemed merely a
faded copy of the night.

A heavy fog draped the mountains and was packed in stifling masses in
the river valley.

Crews in shifts marched tirelessly around the capstans of the headworks.
Their voices out in the white opaqueness sounded strangely under the
sounding-board of the fog.

It was a brooding, ominous, baleful sort of a day, when shapes were
distorted in the mists and all sounds were magnified in queer fashion
and the echoes played pranks with distances and locations and
directions.

Out of the murky blank came one who had gone a-scouting. He touched his
cap to the girl and reported to her and to all who were in hearing.

"The Three C's chief pirate has got along. Craig is down at the dam. I
was able to crawl up mighty close in the fog. I heard him. He's ugly!"

"I reckoned he would be a mite peevish as soon as the news of the social
happenings along the river for the past few days got to him," said
Vittum. "It's no surprise to me--been expecting him!"

"He's got a special edge on his temper--has been all bunged up by an
auto accident, so I heard him giving out to the men he was talking to."

"And what's he saying of particular interest to us?"

"Says he's going to stick right at Skulltree and kill us off singly and
in bunches, just as we happen to come along."

"News is news, and it's good or bad according to the way you look at
it," declared the old man. "Does that fresh news scare anybody?"

There was a vigorous chorus of denial; when one