Bryant continued his gloomy cogitation. The muscles of his cheeks moved in hard lumps beneath his fists as if he were champing some resistant substance. Over his eyes his lids from time to time drooped sleepily. But all at once he leaped up. "If I but had something I could take hold of, Pat!" he exclaimed. "Something I could lay hands on and move, like that bed of rock you uncovered! So I could go ahead! A law is so damned immaterial that one has nothing to work against. It leaves a man nowhere, helpless. It lifts him off the ground and holds him kicking futilely in the air. Just that. By God, I'm desperate enough to try anything--to try building the ditch--try whipping Menocal even under this moth-eaten law he's dug up!" Pat shut one eye against the smoke curling into it. "I was speculating a little along the same line," said he, slowly. "But twelve miles of ditch in ninety days! The whole mesa line! We'd be crazy to think of it. Let's talk of something else." Lee's mouth, nevertheless, was twitching, while gleams like light came and went on his face. "I always had a weakness for the bad bets," said Pat. "But twelve miles of ditch!" "And the nights freezing harder every week," the old contractor added. "And the days short." "Yes, and nerve shorter yet," said Pat. The remark was airily given, but the inference was plain. Lee took a step aside and stood staring across the capitol grounds, with brows knit, with lips compressed, the prey of struggling hopes and doubts. "Pat," he said, turning. "Well?" "Do you think we could do it?" "God knows; I don't. But we could give the job an awful whirl," the contractor stated. "The thing looks impossible, preposterous, but if you see the slightest chance of success I want you to say so. Dirt moving is your game, not mine. Ninety days; that's thirteen weeks. Almost a mile a week. Can it be done? Can you do it?" Pat at last threw away the cigar that refused to draw. "With men and teams enough I could build a ditch to tide-water in that time," said he, with sudden energy. "Men and scrapers, scrapers and men--that's all. You can rip the insides out of any dirt job on earth if you have the crews. Of course, it takes money, big wages, to get and hold them." "Money! What do I care for that if we build the canal? How much more will it take? How much will you need?" "Say twenty thousand more." "Get out your pencil and begin figuring it." "I don't need a pencil," Carrigan answered. "I haven't been moving dirt for fifty years without figures sticking to my hair. I've digested your blue-prints and know what's to come out of the ground. Now I'll tell you what it would be if there was no frost in the ground, as in summer--and we'll afterward allow for the frost; and what's necessary in men, horses, fresnos, shacks, horsefeed, food, clothes, and general supplies."