A great flash and roar filled the night. Even where Prowers stood, he felt the shake of the earth. Masses of torn concrete, of rock and sand, were flung into the air. The echoes of the explosion died, but another sound reached the anarchist on the hillside. He listened, with the diabolical grin on his lips, to a murmur of rushing waters. The Sweetwater Dam was going out. “The Flat Tops are liable to be irrigated good an’ plenty, looks like,” he murmured. “Well, this is no place for sight-seers.” He shuffled along the trail, the Satanic smile still on his leathery face. It would have vanished promptly if he had known that a pair of eyes were looking down on him from the shadow of a pine above the road. CHAPTER XXXVI A STORMY SEA Betty, about to return to the Quarter Circle D E, found herself importuned by her small sister to take her along. “I’ll be the goodest, ’n’ not bovver you, ’n’ go to bed jes’ the minute you say to,” she promised. The older sister hesitated, then turned to her father. “Why not? I’m staying there only one night.” “Fine. Take Little Nuisance along,” Reed said, and poked a forefinger into Ruth’s softly padded body. “I’ve got to go to town, anyhow, an’ won’t be back till late.” It was nearly two weeks since Betty had shaken hands with Justin Merrick and closed in good-will a chapter of her history. She had not seen Tug Hollister since then, but word had reached her that he had gone back to work in the hills. Merrick’s men were on the Flat Tops running the lines where the ditches were to go. She was waiting for Tug to come to her. Surely he did not intend to let things end between them as they were. He would ride up some day and tell her that he had been a stiff-necked idiot who had at last seen the light. Every day she had looked for him, and her eyes had moved up the road in vain. In the pleasant sunshine Ruth prattled cheerfully of puppies, dolls, gingerbread, Sunday school, her new pink dress, and warts. Betty came out of a brown reverie at the name of Hollister. “I fink he might come an’ see us. I’m jes’ as mad at him,” the child announced. “’N’ I’m gonna tell him so, too, when he comes.” “If he comes,” Betty found herself saying with a little sigh. She knew that if he did not make the first move she would take the initiative herself. A little point of pride was not going to stand in the way of her happiness. But she believed he ought to come to her. It was a man’s place to meet a girl more than halfway. It was, of course, some fantastic sense of duty that was holding him back. She had not very much patience with it. Why was he not generous enough to give her a chance to be generous about this fault he magnified so greatly? He did not seem to appreciate her point of view at all.