"Argyl," he told her, speaking quietly, but knowing that there was a tremor in his voice which he could not drive from it--"Argyl, do you know how much to-day means to me? Do you know that it is the most gloriously wonderful day I have ever known? Do you know that I have fought hard for this day, and that the hardest fighting I had before me was the fight against Greek Conniston the snob? Do you know that at least I have tried to make a man of myself, even as I have tried to build ditches and dams? You do know it, Argyl? You do know that as hard as I have worked for reclamation I have worked for regeneration! And I have not failed altogether." His tone was suddenly firm, suddenly stern. He was a man weighing himself and his work, and he was speaking with a voice which rang with simple frankness and deep sincerity. "There is the work to say that I have not failed utterly. There it is, ditch and dam, to say that I have done a part of the thing I have set my hand to. I am not boasting of it, for what many men could have done I should have been able to do. But I am proud of it. And, Argyl, while I am not a man yet as I would be, not a man full grown as your father is, while I can never hope to be the man your father is, yet I have done what I could to be less of a fop, less of a drone in the world. Do you understand me, Argyl?" "Yes, Greek." She answered him softly, her face turned up to his, her eyes frankly filled with love and pride for what he had done, what he was. "I understand." "Then, Argyl Crawford, just so sure as I have done a little thing or a big thing in working the reclamation of this desert, just so certainly have you done a big thing or a little thing in making less barren the waste places in my own soul. Don't you see what you have done, Argyl? It is not I who have done anything; it is you who have done everything. If I am in any way responsible for success to our work, then are you responsible for every bit of it. That dam, that ditch, everything, all of it belongs to you! The success belongs to you!" "Greek"--she smiled at him through a sudden gathering of tears--"you mustn't say such things--" "And so," he went on, quietly, "since the whole work has been your work, I want the completion of the work to be yours. Look here, Argyl." He touched a long, slender lever reaching from the flume to the bank where they stood. "When the sun comes up it is going to bring a new day for all of us," he continued, slowly. "A new day which, for me, you have made possible. And just as the sun comes up will you put your hand to this lever and press it down?" She looked up at him quickly. "Oh," she cried, her hand clutching at his arm, her voice quivering, "you mean--"