He, however, found it no easy matter to keep his mind upon the question at all. His head was aching, he felt unpleasantly limp, as well as wet and cold, and the distressful stiffness of his back suggested that he had by no means recovered from the effects of his fall. The long months of strenuous physical toil, the scanty, and, when the freighter could not get in, often wholly insufficient food, and exposure to bitter frost and snow, had left their mark on him, while now, worn out in mind and body as he was, he realized that a last grim effort was demanded from him. How it was to be made he did not know, and he was sitting still, shivering, with the rain running from him, when Jimmy and another man from the mine appeared. It was almost light now, and the miner glanced at the gathering water with evident concern. "I guess something has got to be done," he said. Brooke lifted himself shakily to his feet, and blinked in a curious, heavy fashion at the man. "It has, and if you'll bring the boys up we'll make a start," he said. "Now I don't know that we could cut that jam, and if we did it would only turn the lake loose on the mine. What I purpose is to break a new cut through the rise where it's thinnest, and run enough water off to ease the pressure. Then we might, if it appeared advisable, get at the jam. In the meanwhile every man I can spare from here will start in cutting out a ten-foot trench at the mine. That would take away a good deal of any water that did come down." "I've been at this kind of work 'most all my life, and that's 'bout how I would fix it," said the other man. "Well," said Brooke, "there's just another point. Once you get started, you'll go right on, and there'll be very little sleep for any one until it's done, but we'll credit you with half extra on every hour's time in the pay-bill." The man laughed and waved his hand. "You needn't worry 'bout that. I guess the boys will see you through," he said. He disappeared into the rain, and the struggle commenced when he came back with the men. There were but a handful of them in all, and their task appeared almost beyond accomplishment, even to those born in a country where man and Nature unsubdued come to the closest grapple, and human daring and endurance must make head against the tremendous forces that unloose the rivers and slowly grind the ranges down. It is a continuous struggle, primitive and elemental, in which brute strength and the animal courage that plies axe and drill with worn-out muscle and bleeding hands plays at least an equal part with ingenuity, for man has arrayed against him sun and frost, roaring water, crushing ice, and sliding snow; and those who fall in it lie thick by towering trestle bridge and along each railroad track. Worn out, aching in every limb, and with heavy eyes, Brooke braced himself to bear his part in it.