Cig’s eye took in the ghostly white hills and he shivered. “Gawd, what a dump!” he groaned. His vocabulary was as limited as his emotions. He could never get used to the barren grandeur of the Rockies. They awed and oppressed him. They were too stark and clean for him. He struggled with a sense of doom. In cities he never thought of death, but premonitions of it had several times shaken his ratlike courage since he had been here. Twice he had dreamed that he was being buried in these hills and had wakened in a cold sweat of horror. He made up his mind to “beat it” for the Pacific coast at once. They came down into the bowl where the dam was, skirting the edge of the timber to attract as little attention as possible in case a watchman should be on his beat. No sign of life disturbed the stillness. They crept to the tents and made a hurried survey. In one of them a man lay on a cot asleep. He was fully dressed. His arms were outflung and he was breathing stertorously. A bottle, one third full, stood on a small table close to the cot. “Like I said, dead to the world,” Prowers commented. He turned away. Cig swiftly snatched the bottle and slipped it inside his coat. He wanted a drink or two pretty badly, and, like enough, Prowers wouldn’t let him have them if he knew. The two men crossed the dam-head to the gates. “It’ll be here,” the cowman said as he put down the gunny-sack. Before they set to work, Cig concealed his bottle, but in the course of the hours that followed he made frequent visits to the spot where he had hidden it. Since Prowers was neither blind nor a fool he became aware of what the other was trying to keep from him. He said nothing. The bulk of the work fell on him. No complaint came from his lips. There was a curious smile on them, ironic, cruel, and unhuman. Cig was in turn gay, talkative, maudlin, and drowsy. His boastings died away. He propped himself against the cement wall close to the gates and swayed sleepily. Once or twice he cat-napped for a few moments. The old man continued to prepare the charges. Once, watching his accomplice, he broke into a cackle of mocking mirth, so sinister that Cig would have shuddered if he had been alive to impressions. The tramp slid down to a sitting posture. “Done up. Shleep a li’l’ ’f you don’ min’,” he murmured. Presently he was in a drunken slumber. Prowers finished his work and lit the fuses. He looked at the weak and vicious instrument he had been using, a horrible grin on his leathery, wrinkled face. “You comin’ or stayin’?” he asked squeakily. The doomed man snored. “Suit yoreself,” the little devil-man said. “Well, if I don’t see you again, good-bye. I got to be hittin’ the trail right lively.” He moved briskly along the great wall of the dam, climbed the steps at the far end, and followed the road leading out of the basin. Once he turned to look at the deep lake lying placidly behind the rampart Merrick had built to hold it.