"But what can happen?" She questioned anxiously. "A very simple thing might destroy the whole thing in an hour." Helen's face grew white. Winston noted the look, but failed to assign the correct reason for it. Helen had given more to the work than he had thought. "There's no danger, really." Winston spoke with conviction. "It's just this. We've built a rip-rap dam with a stone facing. No amount of water behind it can ever move it. Yet if by chance the water should flow over the crest, it would go in an hour." "What's to prevent it?" Helen's voice was sharp. "The waste weir." Winston pointed to the stone paved canal on the far side of the dam. "We know the rainfall here. That spillway will handle twice the amount." "But if it should become choked?" "We have the flood gates." Winston pointed to the two great shafts that reached up from the base of the dam, crowned with grooved wheels. "But suppose they should get wedged so they could not be opened?" "Then I would advise you to get out of the way! What's the matter, Helen?" Winston grew suddenly conscious that there was more in Helen's persistent questions than appeared on the surface. Helen did not reply. "Couldn't all this have been provided against?" "Yes; but it would have cost more money than we had to put in. It's safe enough, if we watch out." Helen laid her hand on Winston's arm. Her eyes were deep and anxious. "Watch out day and night, Ralph. There is danger, grave danger." Winston was thoroughly aroused. "You know something that you are concealing from me. Tell me!" "I have told you enough to put you on your guard. I can't tell you any more. I don't know any more." Helen turned resolutely toward the foot-way. Winston walked silently beside her. He wanted to know more, but he felt the uselessness of words. As soon as he could free himself from the friends who thronged around him and Helen, he sought out Uncle Sid and told him of Helen's warning. "What do you make out of it?" he asked. "No more than you do, I guess." "You think Elijah is at the bottom of it all, don't you?" "Yes, I do. I'm sure of it." "Why didn't she tell me then?" Winston burst out. "Well, women are queer creatures." Uncle Sid spoke meditatively. "They see more sides to a man than we do, an' when he's down, they stay by him closer. I sometimes think that Helen knows more about 'Lige than we do; anyway, she's mighty suspicious of him, but she's goin' to give him every chance to get up, an' at the same time she's lookin' out that no one gets hurt when he's flappin' his heels around, tryin' to make his feet. What are you doin' to shut off any deviltry?" "I've put on extra watchmen, day and night, and I've got men out hunting Elijah." "I guess that's all that you can do."