"Then give me something to eat," suggested Bucks. As he spoke the snappy, sharp reports of exploding dynamite could be heard; they were springing the drill holes. Bucks sitting down on the bowlder, wrapping the tails of his coat between his legs and taking coffee from Young drank while the men talked. From the box car below, Ed Smith's men were packing the black powder up the trail to the Paw. When it began going into the holes, Glover went to the ledge to oversee the charging. In the Pittsburg train, at Sleepy Cat, an early dinner was being served to the canyon party. They had come back enthusiastic. The scenery was declared superb, and the uncertainty of the situation most satisfying. The riot of the mountain stream, which plunging now unbridled from wall to wall had scoured the deep gorge for hundreds of feet, was a moving spectacle. The activity of the swarming laborers, preparing their one tremendous answer to the insolence of the river, had behind it the excitement of a game of chance. The stake, indeed, was eight solid trains of perishable freight, and the gambler that had staked their value and his reputation on one throw of the dice was their own easy-mannered guide. They discussed his chances with the indifference of spectators. Doctor Lanning, the only one of the young people that had ever done anything himself, was inclined to think Glover might win out. Allen Harrison was willing to wager that trains couldn't be got across a hole like that for another twenty-four hours. Mrs. Whitney wondered why, if Mr. Glover were really a competent man, he could not have held his position as chief engineer of the system, but Doctor Lanning explained that frequently Western men of real talent were wholly lacking in ambition and preferred a free-and-easy life to one of constant responsibility; others, again, drank--and this suggestion opened a discussion as to whether Western men could possibly do more drinking than Eastern men, and transact business at all. While the discussion proceeded there came a telegram from Glover telling Doctor Lanning that the blast would be made about seven o'clock. Preparations to start were completed as the company rose from the table, and Gertrude Brock and Marie were urged to join the party. Marie consented, but Gertrude had a new book and would not leave it, and when the others started she joined her father and Judge Saltzer, her father's counsellor, now with them, who were dining more leisurely at their own table.