As the last comer, Pat was told to water the horses. He went boldly into the corral with a rope, and was kicked flat. The boys straightened him out, and, after he had regained his breath, gave two of the horses’ halters into his hands. Except in the main cañons of the Black Hills there is no surface water, the creeks all running down along the bed-rock. As a consequence, wells are necessary even in the upper hills. Pat first let a horse get loose, then he lost the bucket down the well, then he fell in himself in trying to fish it out. The boys fished him out with some interest. So manifestly inadequate an individual it had not been their fortune to meet before, and they looked on him as a curiosity. On the spot they adopted Pat McCann much as they would have adopted a stray kitten or puppy, and doubtless in somewhat the same amused, tolerant state of mind. The next morning Bob and Pat cleared away the _débris_ of the three blasts, wrenching off the broken, adhering bits with a pick, and shoveling them out. King came up with an axe-gang and built a rough, square breastwork of logs down the hill, to catch the quartz as in a bin. They also squared a number of timbers, and tongued the ends. These were to timber the shaft. All this interested the little Irishman. He recovered his spirits, and his Old World blarney came back to him. The clear, fresh air of the hills, the abundant food, the hard work, the sound sleep, the reaction against the taciturnity of the men, and the calm grandeur of the mountains, filled him with animal spirits. He imagined he had found his vocation at last. He wanted to do everything. In time he learned to strike with the sledge, although it was only after long practice on a stake that he could induce any one to “hold” for him; he sharpened drills--after a fashion; he even helped in the timbering-up. The only thing lacking was the “shooting” of the charges. He had an ambition to touch the thing off. This King roughly forbade. “That fly-away fool to risk his neck that way?” he said; “I guess not! He don’t know enough now to make his head ache. When I want a wild Irishman too dead to skin, I’ll let you know. I don’t want that man to have the first thing to do with the powder. Understand that!” What King said went in that camp. Besides, the men knew him to be in the right. Pat was the unluckiest man alive, and the most awkward. He was sure to be in any trouble there was about--in fact, as Jack Williams said, he was a sort of lightning-rod for the whole camp in the way of trouble; every one else was sure of exemption, if there was only one man’s share of difficulty dealt out. So McCann pleaded in vain.