ning to lay them up against the
strip segments of the snow profiles from north to south along the
length of Region Six. He was engrossed in the problem when Alec stuck
his head in the cubicle.

"I'm bugged," the chunky engineer said. "Got a moment to talk?"

Troy shoved the papers back and waved to the chair. "Have a seat
doctor and unburden yourself. Relax, let your mind go blank. Tell me
about your childhood. Did you hate to take baths? Does the sound of
flowing water stir subconscious hatreds in you? Dr. Braden will
analyze all your problems."

Alec grinned and palled out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to
his partner.

"Now that I think about it," he quipped, "I used to tangle almost
every day in fifth grade with a kid that looked just like you.
Seriously, Troy, I've got a wild idea and I want to try it out on you
before I hit Jordan or The Scourge with it."

Troy leaned back and put his feet on the desk and listened.

"Actually, this is a little out of our line," Alec continued slowly,
"but something we did up in the hills day before yesterday brought
this on. The idea stems from the way we excavated that gauge, yet it
calls for an entirely different idea and technique.

"Now I haven't the slightest idea how bad Spokima is cracked or just
where the crack is, but I think there may be a way to recover some of
the lost water. And if it works, it might be used on Moses Lake and
McNary."

He paused and pulled a pad of scratch paper towards him and brought
out a pen to make rough sketches. Troy swung his feet off the desk and
leaned forward to watch.

"The idea came to me," Alec said, continuing to sketch, "from the
runoff trough you cut to carry off the snow melt from around the hot
box. Now just suppose that the crack in the reservoir is along the
bottom side, although that doesn't really make much difference ... yet
it might make the operation a little easier since it would concentrate
the leak runoff.

"We know the reservoir is set in the bed of the Columbia from the
confluence of the Spokane River down to old Grand Coulee. And we know
just what the strata formations are both below the reservoir and in
the aquifer downstream. That lost water is going into that strata and
is going to work its way down the slope of the terrain but it's also
going to level off on the first bedrock strata it hits and that's
where I think we can stop it.

"If we ran a deep and big enough bore down ahead of the flow and