"Oh, piff!" said the Kentuckian; and then he laughed aloud. "There is, indeed, one woman in the world, my dear Herr Professor, for whose sake I would joyfully stand up and be shot at; but she isn't in Colorado, by a good many hundred miles."
"No? Nevertheless, Breckenridge, my son, there lies your best chance of making the fourth in the list of sacrifices. You are a Kentuckian; an ardent and chivalric Southerner. If the Fates really wish to interpose in contravention of the Arcadian scheme, they will once more bait the deadfall with the eternal feminine—always presuming, of course, that there are any Fates, and that they have ordinary intelligence."
Ballard shook his head as if he took the prophecy seriously.
"I am in no danger on that score. Bromley—he was Sanderson's assistant, and afterward Macpherson's, you know—wrote me that the Scotchman's first general order was an edict banishing every woman from the construction camps."
"Now, if he had only banished the derricks at the same time," commented Gardiner reflectively. Then he added: "You may be sure the Fates will find you an enchantress, Breckenridge; the oracles have spoken. What would the most peerless Arcadia be without its shepherdess? But we are jesting when Lassley appears to be very much in earnest. Could there be anything more than coincidence in these fatalities?"
"How could there be?" demanded Ballard. "Two sheer accidents and one commonplace tragedy, which last was the fault—or the misfortune—of poor Billy's temperament, it appears; though he was a sober enough fellow when he was here learning his trade. Let me prophesy awhile: I shall live and I shall finish building the Arcadian dam. Now let us side-track Lassley and his cryptogram and go back to what I was trying to impress on your mind when he butted in; which is that you are not to forget your promise to come out and loaf with me in August. You shall have all the luxuries a construction camp affords, and you can geologise to your heart's content in virgin soil."
"That sounds whettingly enticing," said the potential guest. "And, besides, I am immensely interested in dams; and in wire cables that give way at inopportune moments. If I were you, Breckenridge, I should make it a point to lay that broken guy cable aside. It might make interesting matter for an article in the Engineer; say, 'On the Effect of the Atmosphere in High Altitudes upon Galvanised Wire.'"
Ballard paid the tributary laugh. "I believe you'd have your joke if you were dying. However, I'll keep the broken cable for you, and the pool where Braithwaite was drowned, and Sanderson's inamorata—only I suppose Macpherson obliterated her at the earliest possible.... Say, by Jove! that's my train he's calling. Good-by, and don't forget your promise."
After which, but for a base-runner's dash down the platform, Ballard would have lost the reward of the strenuous day of changed plans at the final moment.