"It costs money to move frozen dirt," said Bryant.

"Well, I tell you the bondholders won't put up another penny unless----" The Easterner paused, growing thoughtful. Some minutes pa.s.sed before he resumed: "There's one condition on which they'll do it, and I'll guarantee their support."

"And the condition?"

"That you surrender your stock to them."

"For the twenty or twenty-five thousand dollars more that will be needed? My shares representing a hundred thousand? And I presume I should have to withdraw altogether."

"Naturally," Gretzinger responded. "I should then take charge."

Bryant's expression exhibited a certain amount of curiosity.

"Do you really think you could finish the ditch on time?" he inquired.

A slight sneer was the answer. Gretzinger was one not given to wasting time with men of Bryant's type.

"How about it? Am I to take back to New York with me your agreement to this?" he asked, curtly.

The other spread his feet apart and hooked his thumbs in his coat pockets and directed his full regard at the speaker.

"You think you have me in a hole, Gretzinger," he said. "You propose to take me by the throat and shake everything out of my pockets and then throw me aside. Well, I'm in a hole, no use denying that. But you haven't me by the throat and you're not going to loot me. If I go broke, it won't be through handing over what I have to you and your gang of pirates, just make up your mind to that."

"Then you intend to wreck this project. A court action will stop that, I fancy."

"The only court action you can demand is a receivership for the company, and not until my money-bag is empty at that," Lee rejoined, coolly. "And the time will expire and the company be a sh.e.l.l before it's granted, at the rate courts move."

The New Yorker considered. Finally he began to re-b.u.t.ton his overcoat.

"I'll leave the offer open," said he. "I was uncertain before about returning, but I'll probably do so now. You'll find as the pinch comes that my proposition will look better--and we might pay you two or three thousand so you'll not go out strapped. Besides, if we took over and completed the project, it would save your face; you wouldn't be wholly discredited; you would be able to get a job somewhere afterward. Might as well make the most you can for yourself out of a bad mess. Think it over, Bryant." He set his cap on his head with a conclusive air.

Lee pointed at a chair by the table.

"Sit down for a moment; there's another matter." He crossed to his desk, put his hand in a drawer for something, and came back. "Look at that," he said, tossing a revolver cartridge on the table before Gretzinger.

The man picked it up and turned it over between thumb and finger, examining it with mingled surprise and curiosity.

"What about it?" he questioned.

"I understand you're interested in a certain young lady," Bryant stated, smoothly.

Gretzinger straightened on his seat, flashing his look up to the other's. A sudden tightening of his lips accompanied the action and he ceased to revolve the cartridge he held.

"I'll not discuss my personal affairs with you or----"

"When they touch mine, you will," was the answer.

"Are you jealous?" Gretzinger asked after a pause, with a trace of insolence. "Believe you are. I thought, along with your other shortcomings, you weren't capable of even that. Now that we're talking, I'll say that I've taken Ruth round and found her entertaining. What about it? And I've given her my opinion of the way you've run this work, because she asked for it. I told her that you had botched the business from the beginning. I told her you were unpractical, incompetent, small-gauged, and lightweight, and would make a failure of everything you touched. There you have it all.

Well?"

Bryant's brows twitched for an instant.

"I guessed as much." He stood staring in silence at the table, but presently brought himself to attention. "Honour is something you don't understand. So I thought that bullet might focus your mind on possible consequences."

"What's all this rot!"

Lee leaned forward with his fists resting on the table and his eyes probing Gretzinger's.

"If any harm comes to Ruth through you, that bullet will pay it out,"

he said, harshly. "You've felt its weight. It's forty-four calibre, plenty heavy enough to do the business. I can smash a potato at thirty paces. One shot is all I shall ask. I won't do any hemming and hawing over the matter, or----"

Gretzinger sprang up.

"See here, Bryant!" he cried.

"Or advertising in the newspapers," the other went on, in a level tone. "I'll attend to your case, quickly and quietly. Here, or in New York, or wherever you are. That's all."

Gretzinger had gone a little pale. He was nervously drawing on his cap.

"Listen to me for a moment----"

"I said that's all. Get out." And Bryant's mien brooked no temporizing.

It was of Lee's nature not to brood on such matters. He had given the warning and must await the issue. Meanwhile, the burden of work and the needs of the project would afford sufficient occupation for his mind.

Christmas came. Bryant had ordered that labour cease for twenty-four hours, as the gruelling fight of weeks had worn down the spirit of the men. A holiday would rest them, while a big turkey dinner and unlimited cigars and pails of candy would put them in a good humour.

At dark on the afternoon before the day shift at both camps ceased work, the horses were stabled, the torches left unlighted, the fires along the ditch allowed to die down, and the project was idle. A light skift of snow had fallen during the morning, whitening the earth, but the clouds had pa.s.sed away, so that the still air and clear sky gave promise of a fine morrow.

Christmas Eve, however, did not lapse without a disturbing incident.

About supper time Dave came running to Bryant and Pat Carrigan in Lee's shack. He had seen workmen going furtively into a tent in numbers that aroused his curiosity, and had crept unseen under the lee of the canvas shelter, where, lifting the flap, he beheld in the interior a keg on the ground and a Mexican, by light of a candle, serving labourers whisky in tin cups.

"Whisky in camp!" Lee roared. "Come with me, Pat." The two men, guided by Dave, strode down the street. Before the tent indicated they halted to listen. The shelter glowed dimly; formless shadows stirred on its canvas walls; and from within came low, guarded voices and once a m.u.f.fled laugh.

Jerking the flaps apart Bryant entered, followed by the contractor. He forced an opening through the group of workmen by a savage sweep of his arms and came to the keg, where the Mexican at the moment was bending down and holding a cup under the spigot. When the man perceived the engineer, he leaped up. The fellow's short, squat figure and stony expression had for Bryant a vague familiarity--that face especially, brown, stolid, brutal, with a fixed, snake-like gaze.

But Lee had no time to speculate on the Mexican's ident.i.ty. The liquor was the important thing. The man stood motionless, holding in his left hand the half-filled cup that gave off a pungent, sickening smell of whisky; his eyes were intent on the engineer. Behind Lee, Carrigan was already herding the others from the tent.

"Where did you get that stuff?" Bryant demanded. But as the Mexican only shook his head, he changed to Spanish. "Trying to start a big drunk here?"

"To-morrow is a fete day, senor," was the reply. "A friend made me a present; I share it with the others. Besides, in cold weather it keeps one warm."

"How long have you worked here?"

"Three days."

"There's a camp order: 'No liquor allowed in camp.' You can't say that you don't know it, for it's posted everywhere on placards in English and in Spanish."

He received no response. A faint shrug of the shoulders, perhaps. The Mexican's glistening, sinister eyes, on the other hand, continued as rigid as...o...b.. of polished agate, and his face as expressionless.