Until the Lark yelled to his men to “knock” off at night, Conniston labored with them.  Then, when they had rolled heavily into their blankets, he more than once had saddled his horse and ridden down along the foothills across the stretch of sand and to Valley City to advise with Garton, to learn how the work was going there, to plan and order for the days to follow.  He grew gaunt and nervous and hollow-eyed.  Heavier and heavier the load of his responsibility rested upon his shoulders.  Nearer and nearer came the end of the time allotted to him, and always the things still to do loomed ahead of him like mountains of rock.  He went for two weeks without shaving, and scarcely realized it.  His hands grew to be like the hands of his men, torn and cut and blackened with dirt ground into the skin.  His boots were in strips before he thought of another pair; his clothes were ragged.  He thought only of the Great Work.

In the Present, which came to him with tight-clenched, iron fingers gripping the promise which he must rend from them with the strength of brain and brawn, there was only the Great Work.  The Past extended back only to the day when Bat Truxton had fallen and he had been called to take the place of command; and since then there had been only the Great Work.  And the Future, mocking him now, smiling upon him the next day, then hiding her face in her misty veil, held high above his head the success or the failure of the Great Work.

And as he grew haggard and tense-nerved and unkempt, little lines formed about the corners of his mouth which would have told William Conniston, Senior, that there had been wrought in his son a change which was not of the body, not of the mind alone, but even of the secret soul.

He thought that he should have heard from Mr. Crawford by now, and yet no word had reached him.  When the day’s work had been done upon the dam he rode the ten miles into Crawfordsville and inquired at the Western Union office for a telegram.  No, nothing had come.  The next day he was as short-spoken as Bat Truxton had been the day before Hapgood had tempted him, as irritable.  He saw half a dozen men struggling with a great rugged mass of rock, and cursed them for their slowness.  And then he turned away from the Lark’s curious eyes, biting his lips.  For he knew that they were doing all that six big iron-bodied men could do, and that he was not fit.

Again that night he rode to Crawfordsville.  He thought that the telegraph agent grinned maliciously as he tossed a yellow envelope upon the counter.

“Sign here, Mr. Conniston,” he said.

Conniston signed and, stepping outside, read the words which drove a groan to his lips: 

     “WILLIAM CONNISTON, Jr.,

     “General Supt., Crawford Reclamation, Crawfordsville.

     “No success yet.  May have to go to St. Louis for the money. 
     Hope to have men in four or five days.