there, tackling a mighty uncertain proposition. The shaft and the
workings of the Last Dollar are full of water. He's running a crosscut
from an upraise in the Radley drift, so as to tap the west tunnel of the
Last Dollar."

"It is dangerous, you inform me?"

"Dangerous ain't the word. It's suicide, the way I look at it. See here,
my friend. His drill goes through and lets loose about 'steen million
gallons of water. How is he going to get in out of the rain about that
time?"

The New Mexican showed a double row of pearly teeth in a bland smile.

"Pardon, sir. If you would explain a leetle more fully I would then
comprehend."

"Sure. Here's the way it is. Dick and his three men are plugging away at
the breast of the drift with air-drills. Every day he gits closeter to
that lake dammed up there. Right now there can't be more'n a few feet of
granite 'twixt him and it. He don't know how many any more'n a rabbit,
because he's going by old maps that ain't any too reliable. The question
is whether the wall will hold till he dynamites it through, or whether
the weight of water will crumple up that granite and come pouring out in
a flood."

"Your friend, then, is in peril, is it not so?"

"You've said it. He's shooting dice with death. That's the way I size it
up. If the wall holds till it's blown up, Dick has got to get back along