“You will wear them in a necklace. My sergeant wishes you to have them. They are not so beautiful as your white throat.” Nevada blushed vividly and shook the nuggets in her two hands. “It’s a good thing Grandmother can’t hear you,” she laughed. “An old bachelor like you!” “An old bachelor can say what the young man dares only to think,” Johnny Buffalo stated calmly. Rawley was trying distractedly to read a letter which Nevada had brought down from the post-office, and to pretend that he did not hear what was going on. But it is reasonable to assume that there was nothing in the letter to make him blush at the moment when Johnny Buffalo said his little say. Nevada stole a glance at him from under her lashes and smiled. “What is it, Cousin Rawley?” she asked wickedly. “You seem disturbed.” “I’m called back on the job.” Rawley tried to meet her eyes unconcernedly. “I won’t even have the week I promised myself. This is pretty urgent, and so I think I’ll take the trail again in the morning.” Even Nevada betrayed some mental disturbance over that information, especially when Rawley could not hazard any opinion concerning his next visit. “I won’t even have time to look over your work at the dam,” he told Peter. “I intended going down to-morrow. I wanted to have a talk with you about that. I’ve picked up a little information, here and there, and I’m afraid there will be complications. But I’ve been holding off until I was sure of my ground. I know, of course, that my personal opinion won’t have much weight.” Peter shook his head. “You can work and pry and lift till your eyes pop out of your head, starting a bowlder down a mountain,” he said grimly, “and you can give it the last heave and over she goes. Any time, up to that last heave, you can quit and she stays right there where she was planted. But once she starts, all hell can’t stop her. I’m afraid we’ve given the last heave, son.” “_Look out below!_” Nevada cried mockingly and looked at Rawley. “I could tell a cousin in three words how he can make himself as popular as a rattlesnake with the Cramers,--and the last of the Macalisters.” “And those three words?” Rawley looked her squarely in the eyes. “Fight the dam.” Nevada’s eyes were as steady as his own. “Thunder!” Rawley sat back and reached for his tobacco sack. “I’ve no notion of fighting the dam. It’s the biggest proposition I ever saw three lone men--and a girl; excuse me, Nevada!--tackle in my life. Four of you, thinking to stop, just like that,”--he made a slicing, downward gesture, “--the second largest river in the United States! You’ll be damming the Gulf Stream next, I suppose. Divert it so as to warm up Maine and make it a winter-bathing resort!”